This letter is in response to Rep. Mark Bryant’s guest column of 29 July about how a bond package will provide economic growth in Maine, which folks, is the largest oxymoron I have ever heard of.
How can an elected official come forth and state that we must have a bond package to promote jobs and an economic future for Maine?
Please, Representative Bryant, tell me and all the citizens of Windham how increasing taxes in order to promote economic growth and jobs works.
First, I would like to know why so many Mainers are complaining that property taxes are forcing them to sell the very property that has been in their family for generations.
Second, please explain to all citizens of Windham how you can apply the same reasoning between your investment in your own home and making the same, I quote “smart investments in our communities.”
I invite all of your comrades in the Legislature to explain why we need bonds at all when monies that are committed to a particular part of the budget go elsewhere. Prime examples are the lottery, gasoline taxes and the tolls collected on the turnpike.
The lottery was created to help fund education, which not one cent does. The Maine Legislature has constantly raided the funds derived from the gasoline tax, which is why bonds must be floated to help repair roads and bridges. Ditto with tolls collected on the Maine Turnpike, 50 percent of which has been raided and dumped into the general fund, thus causing the Maine Turnpike Authority to raise tolls for future repairs, etc., on the turnpike.
And now I get into the nitty gritty and I certainly hope you have the answers. What are the figures for the so-called excellent results in the past with job creations? Figures, names, etc., would explain how great these jobs are. What has the monies spent in research and development resulted in? More jobs, more industry or lower taxes in Maine? Please be specific. You state research bonds show returns well beyond the development of new industries. What are the new industries created, the number of jobs created and the salaries? And please, what are the returns beyond the development of new industries?
Then you state that the University of Maine’s engineering department is one of the top-ranked programs in the country, but where are the statistics that prove it?
In conclusion folks, how can a politician claim that the best way to improve jobs and the economic outlook of a state by floating bonds? Bonds that will have a cost far beyond the 83 million (remember interest on the bonds) and the money from the federal government is also paid for by us.
The best way to improve our state is to have an incentive for business to be here in the first place and that can certainly be accomplished by lowering taxes?
If Maine has to borrow money and raise taxes to create jobs, look no further than the now-defunct Soviet Union whose citizens pretended to work while the government pretended to pay them.
And finally, what will the final cost to our children or grandchildren be to float these bonds?
Send questions/comments to the editors.
