Gov. Mills announced late last month that she is supporting a tax increase on working Mainers after saying she would not. What a twist.
If you’re keeping track at home, that’s three major campaign promises now consigned to history’s ash heap. First, Mills shredded the religious and philosophical exemptions for vaccine mandates after promising she wouldn’t. Then, after swearing last year she wouldn’t expand access to abortion in Maine, she broke that promise two months later to reward Planned Parenthood for its generous campaign spending.
Now, Mills has backed paid family and medical leave – even though the governor promised not to raise our taxes. Are you seeing a pattern?
The new tax on workers will fund a paid leave program that reminds me of what Nancy Pelosi once said of Obamacare: “We’ve gotta pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it.”
As Senate Majority Leader Eloise Vitelli, D-Arrowsic, said of this plan: “We always say the devil is in the details. The devil may be in the implementation of this.” She’s right, because the only thing set in stone with this plan are a few vague limits and the tax increase. Much of this program will be determined over the next four years by Augusta bureaucrats and the rules they’ll write.
This plan takes money out of working Mainers’ pockets, gives it to lawyers and consultants, and hopes the benefits pay off. Maine can’t afford to govern like that. We’re already the third-highest taxed state in the union as a proportion of income, according to WalletHub. What do we have to show for it besides shuttered factories and a toxic business environment?
In the 2014-15 biennium, Maine’s budget was about $6.4 billion. This year, Democrats passed a partisan budget that will spend nearly $11 billion during the two-year period. Have your roads, schools and social services gotten $4 billion better over the last decade?
We all agree that Maine workers should be able to securely take time off from work. However, there is a better way to accomplish this bipartisan goal. We can take care of Maine’s workers without punishing them. Right next door, New Hampshire has adopted a system that is voluntary. It’s a good model because it balances disparate interests.
Yet the governor passed this up in favor of a mandatory program and a new regressive tax. Look no further than her recent Press Herald op-ed to learn why she’s once again going back on her word. “I have repeatedly said I am opposed to increasing taxes,” she said. “I have to measure my concerns about those costs against the prospect of a referendum that would likely result in a payroll tax anyways.”
Mills is unwilling to stand up to the far-left activist fringe in Portland to defeat a harmful bill and a worse referendum. She could block these bad efforts in a single news conference. But she won’t.
Breaking promises and letting radicals pilfer Mainers’ paychecks to pay for expensive policy experiments is no way to lead.
It makes you wonder who’s really running the Blaine House. The moderate fiscal conservative who won reelection last year, or the socialist activists in Portland?
Send questions/comments to the editors.
