| |
Capital Punishment - Maine Style
This year’s reform bill results from years of hard work by many people. It is endorsed and supported by nearly every prominent economist and editorial writer who has weighed in on it.
It deserves to be. While far from perfect, the new law cuts taxes while preserving fairness to poor people, the middle class and the rich alike. It exports $57 million in tax burden to people who don’t live here and it reduces overall taxes for 90 percent of Maine residents.
For years now, Maine has been dallying with economic attraction schemes supported by no hard evidence as to whether they work. TIFs, BETR, ETIFs, Pine Tree Zones and dozens of other little tax gimmicks compile an acronymic soup of ineffective inducements.
Yet, nothing is quite so powerful — or so simple — as reducing the tax on investment capital. It’s time to tear up the petitions and permit the new tax bill to go to work for the Maine economy.
[read more...]
[comment on the editorial] (Bangor Daily News)
|
 How do we make wind power work for Maine?
The Maine Center for Economic Policy published a two part series written by Senator Mills on what we need to do as a state to benefit from our wind power potential.
Both parts are available as pdf files: Wind Power for Maine Part 1 - Wind Power for Maine Part 2
|
The Socio-Educational Complex
Toward the end of his presidency, Dwight Eisenhower famously warned Americans about the "military-industrial complex" that so dominated national spending priorities in the 1950s and continues to do so even to this day. His warning was especially cogent because Eisenhower himself had been a member of that complex for most of his life.
Today, most state governments, and Maine in particular, are subject to a similar dominance that could fittingly be called the "socio-educational complex," one that is supported by the two big pillars of state spending:
- Social services costing $2.8 billion per year in state and federal dollars; and
- Kindergarten through 12th-grade education costing more than $2 billion per year.
Together they account for more than 12 percent of Maine's gross state product.
[read on...]
|
 |
12 Steps to a Better Maine
Maine is a beautiful state, full of good people. But these good people pay a heavy price for living here.
There is no magic-wand to solve our problems. It will take years to recover from our dependency on tax increases, gimmicks, and undisciplined debt creation. But we have to start somewhere. Here are 12 ideas to improve the effectiveness of government and to save money for taxpayers.
|
| |
1. Sharpen Human Services
2. Boost School Results
3. Modernize Pensions
4. Curb the Debt Addiction
5. Ask Taxpayers' Opinion
6. Rationalize Medicaid |
7. Bolster Health Care
8. Reform State Taxes
9. Reduce Duplicate Services
10. Cut School Overhead Costs
11. Care for Infrastructure
12. Practice Self-Reliance
|
|
|
|
About Peter Mills
Peter Mills was born in Farmington and grew up in Maine. He graduated Harvard College and Maine Law School, served five years on Navy destroyers, and has owned Wright & Mills in Skowhegan for 23 years. During his 12 years in the Legislature, he has served as a Republican lead on Tax, Labor, Judiciary and Appropriations Committees.
He is outspoken in advocating for sensible change in tax and school funding systems. He has worked with both parties to pass significant reforms in health care and education. He has a reputation as a coalition builder with practical and independent views and a business-like approach to state finances.
[more...]
|
|
|
|
