Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of profiles on Maine organizations that attempt to influence the Legislature, the governor and the media through their research and advocacy.
The problem with Maine – says the head of the Maine Center for Economic Policy – is “it’s trying to support a Massachusetts level of services with an Arkansas level of income.”
And making sure the state continues to be generous in its support of public education, Medicaid benefits, a higher than average minimum wage and programs that, in general, benefit low-income residents, is what Christopher “Kit” St. John has worked for since he helped start the center in 1994.
The Maine Center for Economic Policy based in Augusta is one of 28 similar state organizations nationwide that were started under the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities with the help of several national foundations.
The opposite of Reagan free-marketers, groups like St. John’s believe the role of government is to spread the wealth around.
Government should create policies that “intervene in the market to redistribute the benefits of the economy in some degree,” St. John said, because a strictly free market can grow income inequity.
“We come to the work with certainly a keen sense of social justice, economic justice,” he said, and see a role for government in “mitigating the poor distribution” of wealth that the free market provides.
But in a state like Maine, where there isn’t much wealth to begin with, you can end up with the highest state and local tax burden in the country as a percentage of income.
St. John admits taxes are high in relation to the median income, but says not all Mainers are poor. And the solution should focus on ways to increase wages versus lower taxes, since he believes investment in government services can grow the economy.
Like other tax-exempt organizations or so called 501 c-3, research groups in the state, the Maine Center for Economic Policy can’t get directly involved in political campaigns, but it does produce information papers that come down on the side of an expanded role for government.
St. John, a graduate of Yale Law School and former lobbyist for Pine Tree Legal Assistance, which offers free legal help to low-income residents, is well known in the Statehouse. His center’s work was referenced this session in a bill regarding liveable wages, and its research has been part of recent debates on Medicaid, Dirigo Health insurance and the Taxpayers Bill of Rights that most likely will appear on the November ballot.
Funding sources
The Maine Center for Economic Policy was one of a group of state organizations that got started in 1993 as part of an initiative sponsored by the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The center, which has been around for 25 years, analyzes how budget and tax policies at the federal level affect the poor.
It was looking for some presence at the state level and with funding from the Ford, Charles Stewart Mott, and Annie E. Casey foundations, people like St. John and his colleagues in Maine were invited to apply for grants to start local research groups.
The Maine center still gets $100,000 a year from the Ford and Mott foundations – or about one-quarter of its annual $425,000 budget, St. John said.
According to a budget provided by the center, it also got over $200,000 in contracts for research work in 2005, the largest being $125,000 from its Washington umbrella organization. The governor’s Office of Health Policy and Finance also gave it a contract for $30,000 as did Coastal Enterprises, a community development corporation in Wiscasset. The center also did contract work for the Muskie School, the Kaiser Commission and Annie E. Casey Foundation.
Individual contributions, revenues from events and corporate sponsorships raised an additional $60,000; and a $75,000 grant came in from an anonymous Maine donor in 2005 and is expected again in 2006.
The Maine Center for Economic Policy spends its money on four staff members, including St. John, whose base salary is $64,383. He is also proud of the fact the center provides full health insurance for its employees at an annual cost of more than $40,000.
The rest of the budget is for consultants and freelancers; printing of the center’s 10 newsletters and four or five special reports; postage, rent and other costs related to running an office.
Picking issues
The center tackles a lot of policy issues, but tries to focus on access to affordable health care; liveable wages defined as enough to afford basic necessities; sustainable development that protects the natural environment; and fair taxes and budgets so “those of lesser means are not asked to a pay a greater share of their income in taxes” than those with more money.
The organization has spent the last several years helping fight various taxpayer revolts, like the so-called Palesky tax cap defeated at the polls last year and the upcoming Taxpayers Bill of Rights, supported by the center’s ideological opposite, the Maine Heritage Policy Center.
Tax cuts and spending caps invariably hit the poor hardest, St. John said, because they’re intended to shrink government services.
“There are things that government and only government can do to invest in some basic infrastructure,” St. John said, and those services are the very things that can help the economy grow in the long run.
He pointed to the government’s role in educating the workforce, keeping people healthy and protecting the environment as tasks best left to the public sector.
Using environmental protection as an example, he said, Maine already has seen what happens when industry is in charge. “You get fouled rivers,” he said. “You get filthy public waters.”
Bill Becker of the Maine Heritage Policy Center said he thinks St. John’s group “represents the progressive and liberal ideology fairly effectively in the state of Maine,” but added, “I don’t believe their conclusions or their findings are necessarily in lockstep with the majority of Maine people.”
Becker also takes issue with the large grants from foundations “known to have a liberal and progressive orientation.” And he questions how close St. John is with the Democratic Party.
“I question the non-partisan nature of any organization that has current administration officials on its board of directors,” Becker said. Daryl Fort, Gov. John Baldacci’s director of community development, is on St. John’s board.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
