Compounded increases
Columnist Jim Fossel expressed concern in his May 20 column that General Fund spending increased by 35.9 percent from 2000 to 2014. The question is: How much of that increase is simply annual and compounded cost-of-living increases?
The same is true with regard to school budgets and municipal expenses. Over the past seven years, the school budget has increased on average by 0.8 percent. That is less than cost-of-living increases.
Let’s put things in perspective. The $1.25 minimum wage I received in the early 1960s while I attended college, which actually had more spending power than today’s minimum wage, provided me with the approximate $2,000 annual cost of tuition, fees and books, as well as purchase of a 1962 Volkswagen Beetle for about $1,500, all the gasoline I needed at a pump price of 14 to 18 cents a gallon in Kansas City and plenty of clothing and entertainment.
Prices are relative based on cost-of-living increases. The state, municipalities and school districts deserve the money they need to provide the services to the public. The alternative is more crumbling roads and poorly educated students.
Alfred Banfield
Bangor
Two-party state
Politically, Maine is no longer a two-party state. It hasn’t been a one-party state since the 1950s. Yet, when Maine voters go to the polls, they are treated as if Maine’s electorate serves only two parties. How should Maine move to 21st century voting? The way forward: ranked choice voting.
How does ranked choice voting work? Instead of selecting a favorite among a field of candidates, individual Maine voters rank their choices from the most favored (first choice) to the least desired (last choice).
What are the advantages of ranked choice voting? Among these include:
— All candidates, regardless of party affiliation, are put on the same footing; no need for voters to cast “strategic” ballots, instead of their preferred choices.
— The top two vote-getters square off against each other, should neither achieve a popular majority for the support of the electorate, without the expense and time-consuming hassle of a separate run-off election.
Every candidate should be evaluated by the voters strictly based upon his or her own worth.
Best of all, Maine governance moves forward with majority-voted winners, instead of plurality-voted office holders.
Is the Maine voter ready for 21st century election politics? Does the Maine voter really want to continue with the current system?
John Manter
Stueben
Life and legislation
Life and the dying process are about to change in Maine with the introduction of legislation currently under consideration in Augusta. Maine could enter a more civilized era by offering terminally ill patients the right to ask like-minded physicians for a lethal dose of a medication that will spare them the agony of a slow, painful death.
These days, life more frequently ends in a hospital or nursing home facility. Most people I know would prefer to live their last hours in the warm embrace of loved ones rather than in a cold, sterile, sometimes even hostile environment. In a recent book, “Being Mortal,” written by respected surgeon Atul Gawande, life in a typical nursing home is nothing more than a slow, sad, expensive and predictable decline for terminally ill patients. Of course, this same dramatic decline is not reserved only for the aging population. Machines in an intensive care unit can transform a once vibrant person into a virtual robotic human being; it can happen to anyone, young or old.
LD 1270 will offer patients and their doctors a compassionate exit strategy that is long overdue in Maine. The act will give patients the ability to direct their own dying process and I encourage anyone who is interested in influencing the passage of this legislation to contact their representatives now as the act passes through the legislative process.
Joseph Benedetto
Calais