BANGOR, Maine — A rally and march Saturday to protest budget cuts to state and federal programs that serve poor people drew about 100 people to Bangor, organizers said Sunday.
The rally took place at Peirce Park, the site of last fall’s Occupy Bangor encampment.
At issue were recent cuts to government social programs that protesters said were directly linked to tax cuts for the wealthy and a Pentagon budget that they said consumes half of the federal budget.
During the rally, Ilze Petersons, director of the Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine, said state tax cuts for those earning more than $363,000 a year almost equaled the amount of cuts in state social services.
Other speakers linked the cuts in social services to a series of tax cuts for the wealthy that date back to the 1950s.
Dennis Chinoy of Bangor blamed funding reductions for social programs on what he called a “mythical being” named “Job Creator,” who only creates jobs when “low taxes make him happy.” He said the being “feeds on the money that would otherwise provide food stamps for the hungry, unemployment insurance for those without work, housing for those in need of it, medical care for those who are ill, and critical assistance for the disabled and destitute.”
He also said there was less unemployment in the 1950s — when the wealthiest
Americans paid a tax rate of 90 percent — than today, when the top tax rate is 35 percent.
Other speakers criticized what they saw as the shortsightedness of state cuts to health care. The cuts, they said, will end up costing the state more in the long run because they will result in less federal support and drive those left without health insurance into more costly care options, such as emergency rooms.
Protesters then marched to the offices of Bangor organizations affected by state cuts.
In addition to the Peace and Justice Center, the protest was sponsored by H.O.M.E. Co-op, Maine Association of Interdependent Neighborhoods, Maine Equal Justice Program, Food AND Medicine, Power in Community Alliances, Consumer Council System of Maine and Occupy Bangor.
Yawn..Blah , blah , blah…Taking money from one who earns it and giving it to those who refuse to work is THEFT… Get off your arse , put down the bong and can of beer , take a shower and GET A JOB like the rest of us…If they worked as hard at a job as they do protesting all would be good……
No one ever paid a tax rate of 90%, how can any one live on only making a dime, get real, if you think the govt needs more money then get a job, fill out your w-2, and make sure that you send in that 90% rate, if you added all the other taxes, like Property tax, exercise tax, everyone already pays more then 35%. How much do you liberals think one should pay in taxes, 50% 60% 75% come on give everyone a number instead of avoiding the question. Govt waste is the problem, not how much we pay in taxes.
Awaiting the diabtribes from all the folks who are absolutely certain that they themselves will never get laid off, never find it impossible to get a new job, never go bankrupt, never become too ill or disabled to work.
Since life’s severest problems only happen to OTHER people, any efforts to help poor people should obviously be met with disdain. After all “undeserving” and “poor” fit so nicely together.
Exactly how much of what a successful person earns is fair to take away to support someone else? It seems that the population is growing at an unsustainable rate, and the largest portion of the growing population is low income.
How can someone paying no taxes or very little taxes, or even getting tax refunds of more than was even deducted in the first place (through earned income credit) be demanding a larger percentage of what someone else earns?
As distasteful as it is to these people, we do need military and defense spending. Do they even pay attention to what’s going on in the world?
It’s one thing if someone has lost their job and is seeking employment, but people who contribute nothing to educate their children, to road maintenance, to defense, or whatever, have no business demanding more.
The 90% tax rate that people talk about was rarely if ever breached. There was a maximum tax on personal service income of 50% and most people that ended up in the 90% tax bracket got there from earned income. Also back in those days, there were many more deductions that you could use to offset income. Today, most deductions have been eliminated and those that have not been eliminated get eliminated when you prepare your alternative minimum tax form. To even make a comment comparing the 1950’s/60’s tax rates to today’s tax rates is ridiculous. The two tax systems are nothing alike other than being income tax.
For all of you complaining that because the rich get a tax break you get shafted, here is the answer. Get an education and get a job.
Talk’s cheap, and about the cheapest talk there is is “Get a job!” – unless the speaker is hiring.
It is critical that those in need get the assistance they need to move forward again. Unfortunately, we have created nothing but large, inefficient bureaucracies that greatly reduce the efficiency of helping those less fortunate and do little or nothing to address the root problem of cyclical poverty. We’ve also learned that no matter how much we give it is never enough to feed the bureaucratic beast that redistributes wealth.
The problem is further exacerbated by patronizing activists who failed economics (or didn’t even show up) in college and have never looked closely to see precisely who the people are that are paying the majority of the taxes that fund entitlement programs. The only tactic they have left is to spread economic disinformation to foment class warfare. In the end the only ones hurt by this shameless co-opting and grandstanding are those truly in need.
For almost 50 years the Great Society has poured trillions into entitlements and has simply wound up sustaining the cyclical problem of poverty in this country. After 40 years of unicameral rule Maine is trying some different things and, despite the occasional misstep, is starting to have something to show for it.