I liked the article in last week’s Suburban (“Struggling to Start,” July 14) about local youth who were determined to see their dreams come to fruition. They accomplished their dreams by jumping through all the state and local hoops necessary to open their own businesses in the Great State of Maine.
Young entrepreneurs Troy Locke, business owner of Windham’s The Dugout ice cream parlor, and Tuan Nguyen and Dan Edwards, owners of The Mad Monkey CafA?© in Raymond, let me tell you this: if you can start a business in Maine today, you can make it anywhere!
I couldn’t be more proud of these youngsters. Their dreams may have become more of a challenge than they expected before beginning the process of starting a new business in Maine; yet, they met the stacks of paperwork, and fees associated with them, head on. I’m so very grateful they didn’t go to New Hampshire to begin their dreams where they would have paid three times less in government fees, etc., than here in Maine.
Then again, who can tell an energetic college grad that he or she CAN’T do something!
When we hear Gov. Baldacci say that young people are staying in or moving back to Maine because the economic climate is suited to their needs, let’s not be fooled by such rhetoric. The reality is Maine’s young people, particularly the college-educated ones, are leaving the state in droves. The youngsters who started the innovative enterprises mentioned above should be encouraged to continue to build upon their dreams. We citizens of Maine must do our part by turning around Maine’s poor economic climate.
Every 10 years during the national census, we find that people are leaving Maine in droves despite the superb quality of life that we enjoy. In order to reverse this trend, we must find a solution to our faltering economy so that young people will be able to find good jobs and begin making dreams a reality right here in our cities, rural towns and communities. We need to find a way to unite our talents and resources in order to retain, attract and create high-quality jobs across our region.
From high business taxes to an excess of state and municipal fees, licenses and permits (not to mention state-forced employer funding of employee medical insurance and stringent unemployment compensation rules), Maine has serious challenges that must be overcome if we are to compete with other states for high-quality jobs. In addition, our state’s economic development funding system forces our numerous local and regional development agencies to compete against each other for the same limited pot of money instead of working together to promote regional economic growth. We need to find a way to simplify our system, to develop a new, streamlined approach with one point of contact that can quickly provide help to those who are trying to start or grow a business in our region.
On the state and local levels, we must work to reduce burdensome taxes, open up markets to Maine products, restore corporate interest in our state and remove state barriers to job creation. While these are important, our local economy largely depends on having a healthy business environment within Maine and a local plan of action for retaining and attracting employers.
The current administration has emphasized its theme of “putting people first.” Their routine response has been to increase the minimum wage, incessantly asking for voter approval of millions of dollars in bonds to support economic development and rural job creation, and increase the minimum salaries of teachers. Maine’s taxes and fees have increased by more than $900 million over four years. How can we continue with a straight face to ask for more money from Maine’s taxpayers when Maine has one of the lowest bond ratings in the country and is the highest taxed state in the country?
For the last 30 years, Maine’s government spending has created great hardships for its business owners and taxpayers like you and me. Change is needed now. I am a proponent of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR). This process will allow the taxpayers of Maine a say in how Augusta spends their money. If local polls are close to being accurate, they show that at least 71 percent of taxpayers are ready and willing to put themselves in charge of government spending and taxes, with only 4 percent undecided and 25 percent opposed. Do we really want to see this administration, and those who support it, at 30 years going on 32?
I want tax relief. Don’t you?
One way to begin the process is to vote Nov. 7. It really is up to each one of us to get our message across to all Maine’s politicians and bureaucrats that, as my father so aptly put it, “You can’t get blood out of turnip!”
In the meantime, as my grandfather said, “Keep your conscience clean, your powder dry, trust in God and fight like blazes!”
Lani Kelly
Windham
Candidate for Maine Senate
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