Revenue sharing works
I read with alarm in the Nov. 7 edition of the BDN that Gov. Paul LePage plans once again to eliminate revenue sharing to municipalities. His new twist is to direct the revenue to property owners instead of to municipalities.
If the revenue is denied to municipalities, who will pay for police and fire protection, street maintenance, snow removal, libraries and all the other services a city provides for its residents? Does he imagine that property owners will voluntarily turn the money over to the city? His rationale is that municipalities just waste this revenue.
As a former city councilor in Belfast, I can attest that his characterization does not apply to Belfast. In fact, I think that few would disagree with my assertion that it is at the local level where we find the greatest financial accountability, making municipal revenue sharing arguably the most efficient expenditure of state funds.
Larry Theye
Belfast
Fear itself
In certain fields within psychology, it is a well-known phenomenon that people who survived adverse childhood experiences in their upbringings in a sense become “addicted” to chaos and fear. Modern neuroscience has shown this to be true. Adrenaline is the fight-or-flight hormone that is released in the body in response to trauma — and when released enough it restructures the brain to seek out situations that stimulate its release. That is why PTSD is a real thing.
People seek out adrenaline rushes subconsciously or consciously. It is why people jump off buildings with parachutes, yell at each other in traffic, why sensationalist news is so popular and why negative political campaigns based on lies and fear-mongering succeed. It is why Americans accepted two wars based on false premises, and continue to accept reduced civil liberties without a fight.
It is why Mainers have chosen to elect a politician who espouses the politics of fear, violence and shame — because they are basically addicted to the feelings those messages produce.
Immigrants are not the problem. Welfare recipients are not the problem. Fear is the problem, and accepting that fear is truth is the problem.
The next four years won’t be easy on Maine, but we can make it easier by challenging these messages on a daily basis. We have truth and science on our side; even if the majority of people aren’t convinced, they will be when they see us succeed.
Grayson Lookner
Portland
Reasonable wage
In a Nov. 3 BDN letter, David Smith seems to suggest that while the 1 percent grow richer and the rest of us are getting poorer, President Barack Obama and his “liberal friends” should steer clear trying to raise the hourly minimum wage from a poverty-level $7.50 to a still-paltry $10.10. Better, it would seem, to let the free market and job creators be free of such onerous government restrictions and everything will be hunky-dory.
Unfortunately, such thinking plays right into the hands of corporations and the very rich who are more concerned about maximizing profits and dividends, with scant regard for the millions of workers who make their swelling bank balances possible. To them, labor is just another commodity to be gotten as cheaply as possible, by sending jobs and factories overseas, by slashing wages, health care and traditional benefits of remaining workers, and guarding against them getting uppity by vigorously opposing labor unions and collective bargaining.
It was the latter that made possible a living wage and made job security possible in the ’50s and ’60s, when automobile workers made an average, along with the value of their benefits, of about $50 an hour in today’s dollars.
American workers cannot depend on the beneficence of private enterprise to find a secure job at a fair wage. One step towards reaching this goal is to legislate a reasonable minimum wage.
Gene Clifford
Mount Desert
Spectacular Maine
We are avid outdoor photographers who frequently visit the Baxter State Park area to capture wildlife and the beautiful landscape. We have shared this experience with many people from all over the world. Our most recent trip brought us to the proposed national park and national recreation area, land that owner Elliotsville Plantation Inc. would like to donate to the National Park Service.
We found our excursion to be breathtaking and thoroughly enjoyable. This proposed park would make great strides in preserving the wildlife habitat and natural beauty of Maine, while making it available to the public for many recreational pleasures. It would also enhance the tourism industry in Millinocket, East Millinocket, Medway and other surrounding communities. This proposed park has our wholehearted support. We recommend that others visit this spectacular piece of Maine.
Bonnie Smith
Sabattus
Halloween hockey prank?
Was Larry Mahoney’s Nov. 5 BDN article, “Maine associate men’s hockey coach seeking pilot’s license to aid recruiting,” written in jest or just a leftover Halloween prank? The University of Maine System is shutting down departments, laying off professors and other staff while Jay Leach is talking about what a “game changer” it will be to fly to other states to be able to recruit hockey players.
My questions are: Where is the $4,800-plus coming from to pay for these lessons? Will the university “benefit” by Leach being somewhere faster than another recruiter? If so, how?
Jo Andrews
Brooksville
Guns and Ebola
A recent BDN letter tied Ebola and gun control into a neat package, where, if we quarantine Ebola patients, why not enact more strict gun control, both in the name of protecting the populace. Stephen Blythe of Jonesboro says that people who wish to deprive Kaci Hickox of her constitutional rights and are “screaming about their ‘constitutional rights,’ will not even consider reasonable gun ownership regulations.”
First, every time liberals define “reasonable,” it ends up being the road to gun confiscation. This has been shown many times both here in the U.S. and abroad. Second, Ebola is something nobody wants. No one is crying out for more Ebola or their right to freely roam among the population, spreading the disease.
But people do want firearms for many reasons, including simple target practice, collecting, self-defense and what the Founders envisioned, defense against an overreaching government.
But I do see the ironic connection between the “right” of the individual to do whatever he damned well pleases and spread disease and the “right” of the individual to do whatever he damned well pleases and shoot up people randomly. In real life there are few people who actually wish to do either and no one is saying it is their right to do so.
John Hubbard
Bangor