Last week, columnist Lane Hiltunen wrote a misleading column about property taxes. I’ll give you the facts, after I explain why we pay taxes.
No one enjoys paying taxes, any more than they enjoy paying their mortgage, heating bills or medical bills. However, we can’t have housing, utilities and health care without paying our bills! Similarly, we pay taxes because we have a responsibility to contribute what we can to make needed investments in our communities. We cannot have a strong economy without a healthy and well-educated workforce, effective transportation, energy, and telecommunications infrastructure, a clean environment, law enforcement and public safety and many other things that government provides.
Of course, responsibility for tax revenues should be divided fairly. That’s why progressives support tax reform, which assigns more responsibility for taxes to the wealthy, who benefit most from investments in our communities.
Conservatives claim that shrinking government and cutting taxes on the wealthy creates economic growth, even though that approach caused the Great Depression and has repeatedly failed. Just look around. Thanks to good government partnered with private initiative, Portland has one of the nation’s best business climates.
Other Maine cities are doing well, and though we must do more to help our rural areas, Maine’s activist government has done better than most, and much better than Alabama and Mississippi, similarly situated states that have implemented the conservative vision. These “low-tax paradises” have much higher rates of infant mortality, violent crime, unemployment, and poverty, and lower incomes and rates of college education than Maine. Indeed, Maine ranks fourth among the states in social health, a measure that focuses on things like education, quality of life, and public health. That’s an amazing accomplishment for a small, rural state!
Mr. Hiltunen reports on various rumors he has heard about the tax assessment process, and ominously implies that taxes may increase by up to 300 percent. That’s fantasy. The Portland Press Herald reports that every Cumberland County town either decreased property tax rates or increased by only small amounts, all thanks to state tax reform. Assessments track the real estate market, which is slowing down. Though Mr. Hiltunen urges citizens to inform themselves, he does not tell them about the state’s expansion of the Homestead Exemption and the Property Tax and Rent Refund, both of which lower property taxes for those least able to pay. Following these reforms, most Maine property owners will find that their taxes have decreased relative to their incomes.
Mr. Hiltunen’s arguments about taxes are inconsistent. He says taxes should be lowered and then capped, but that we will somehow magically retain the same investments in education, public safety and so on. The right-wing Republicans who control Washington are similarly confused about basic math. They are cutting programs for the poor, cutting taxes for the wealthy by even more, and digging a bottomless deficit hole for future generations.
Maine people are smarter than that. They should and will demand further tax reform, but they will also continue electing leaders who make needed investments in the public good.
If you want to learn more about progressive values and politics, please attend one of two exciting events coming up on Saturday, Dec. 3. One is the Katahdin Institute’s Second Annual Peoples Summit, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at USM’s Portland Campus. It’s a “partnership between elected officials, organization leaders and activists to redefine the rules of the political debate” (www.katahdininstitute.org). The other is the Maine Women’s Political Leadership Forum, 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Senator Inn in Augusta. It will help women take the first steps toward running for public office (www.mainewomen.org/homeMWPC).
Contact Lu at fair@lubauer.com.
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