BEING SINGLEDOUT IN MAINE?

In the proposed budget for the State of Maine:

Budget facts

This two-year budget would levy a 2% personal income tax on teachers and state employees and cut benefits for retirees for a cost of $203 million. At the same time, the state would provide $200 million in tax cuts for business. A reasonable conclusion is that public employees are paying for the tax cuts.
Under full implementation of the governor's proposed income and estate tax changes, approximately half the benefits would go to the wealthiest 10% of taxpayers. The proposals would:
Eliminate the state alternative minimum tax, which today helps to ensure that wealthy taxpayers pay their fair share.
Lower the tax rate on incomes above about $50,000 from 8.5% to 7.95%.
Double from $1 million to $2 million the size of estates exempt from the estate tax – giving millions of dollars in tax breaks to Maine's wealthiest 550 families.
Fully implemented, over 80% of the benefits of proposed tax changes go to taxpayers with incomes greater than $63,648 at a cost to the state of $203 million in the coming biennium.
If this income tax is imposed, Maine average teacher salary would decline from 44th in the country to 49th.

Hope for a bipartisan solution

Educators say they are willing to help the state through a temporary cash flow crunch, but are unwilling to be the political scapegoat sacrificed to appease the Tea Party. The hope for rebuffing this retirement lies with finding a bipartisan solution.

WHEN 62% VOTE AGAINST YOU

In Maine, Tea Party candidate Paul LePage won the governorship with only 38% of the vote. That means that 62% of the state voted against him. The problem is that there were 5 candidates. The next closest was an independent with 37% of the vote.  Clearly, the Republican winner has no mandate from Maine voters. Clearly, there is a need for reform to enable a run off election if no one gets a majority.

This is the general problem with the 2010 mid-term election. Assumptions are being made that the state and the country voted for the Republican agenda. I do not believe this happened. I do not believe that people voted to reduce deficits-most do not really care about defecits. They did not vote to reduce or privatize social security. They did not vote to eliminate health care-most of the provisions have not even gone into effect. They did not vote to eliminate or reduce unemployment benefits. They did not vote to fire hundreds of thousands of government workers and teachers. They did not vote to eliminate climate change regulations that will save the planet. They did not vote to make it easier for companies to to pollute; for banks to take our homes; for credit card companies to drive us deeper into debt.

There certainly needs to be change. People do want to end wasteful spending, eliminate fraud, and reduce intrusion in their lives. But clearly, there is no mandate to turn the country over to big corporations and to eliminate programs so desperately to help people in these trying times-times which were generated by excessive greed.