Fairness and common sense are bedrock values for Mainers.
Budgets are built on priorities anchored in such bedrock. And priorities must be aligned with the realities facing Maine families. These realities should be foremost in the minds of legislators.
Unfortunately, the biennial budget just released by Gov. Paul LePage’s administration doesn’t rest on this solid ground but instead on a wobbly foundation of false choices and unnecessary showdowns couched in the language of “welfare reform.”
Buried in the budget details are proposals that undermine support for hard-working, low-income Mainers, the elderly and people with disabilities, while proposing massive tax giveaways to the wealthy and to corporations.
Is this budget all bad? No. We support efforts to reduce long waiting lists for Maine people who need services to stay in their homes. We support increased property tax relief for low-income homeowners and renters.
Unfortunately, though, these good ideas are being used as justification to take help away from other people who also need vital services. Basic fairness and common sense are lost. Yet those are the stark choices — the false choices — that this budget poses.
The proposed budget takes aim at programs that help senior citizens and people with disabilities afford their prescription medicine. Bipartisan majorities in the Legislature have rejected these dangerous proposals before, but the governor is trying again.
While seniors with substantial real estate or large retirement incomes would still be secure, seniors who have trouble paying for health insurance or prescriptions will be exposed to a harsh reality of having to choose between medicine and other life necessities. That’s not fair, and it doesn’t make sense.
The proposed budget once again seeks to defund General Assistance, the safety net of last resort that protects the most vulnerable Mainers from homelessness and hunger. The proposal to cut it in half appears to be part of the continuing feud with Maine’s largest cities. But it will only harm residents and shift costs onto property taxpayers.
While poverty and homelessness have declined in the United States, the opposite is true in Maine. More Mainers are going hungry, more children are living in poverty and more people are homeless than just a few years ago. Yet this budget will make those problems worse by also reducing resources for affordable housing.
Finally, the proposed budget punishes asylum seekers who are in Maine legally. They are anxious to work and build better lives in our state. They just need help as they navigate a complex federal immigration process, including restrictions that force them to wait to work.
Families fleeing violence and death in their home countries are being turned into scapegoats for the state’s financial troubles, even though they cost the state very little when put in perspective of the overall budget.
Just as this budget takes from some of the most vulnerable people in Maine, it also gives to some who have the most.
The governor has prioritized tax cuts for the wealthy by proposing elimination of the estate tax. This proposal isn’t about helping small businesses or farmers, it’s about providing relief to estates valued at more than $5.5 million and then eventually to all estates regardless of how large their value.
While multimillionaires benefit, working families suffer. Few Mainers would call that fair or a solid foundation for a prosperous future for more families.
The budget proposes eliminating the state’s earned income tax credit, which is one of the most effective programs to help working families make ends meet. It has strong bipartisan support around the country.
Taken together, this budget isn’t about reform. Instead, it’s a foundational shift away from basic Maine values.
It sets up false choices. For example, it links cuts to General Assistance and Medicaid to increases in funding for Maine’s mental health system. But the real choice — clear in the budget’s details — is between tax cuts for the wealthy and fairness for those who need a decent retaining wall to keep the ground from eroding beneath them completely.
We hope legislators can find a budget blueprint that does not jeopardize Maine’s hard-working families and more vulnerable residents so that a few very wealthy people can benefit even more.
We hope that we can find a way, together, to build the house of Maine’s future prosperity, not on shifting political sands, but on the bedrock Maine values of fairness and common sense.
The Rev. Jill Saxby is the president of the board of directors for Maine Equal Justice Partners.