Politics
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A new Republican ad attacks Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Troy Jackson over his 2009 vote for a state-level tax overhaul, giving what sounds like a progressive critique over its effects on wealthy Mainers.
The proposal proved highly unpopular with Maine voters who rejected it at the ballot box the following year, paving the way for a Republican takeover of Augusta. However, state estimates at the time projected the overwhelming majority of people would have seen their taxes go down overall if it stayed in place.
The claim
“Troy Jackson cut tax rates for the rich and raised taxes on working class Mainers,” a narrator says in the ad.
The context
Jackson is a former Maine Senate president, but he was a rank-and-file state senator when he voted for the proposal championed by then-Gov. John Baldacci. Only one Senate Republican was in favor. The bill cut the top income tax rate from 8.5% to 6.5%, mostly flattening the code while adding a slightly higher bracket on income above $250,000.
It offset that cut by broadening the sales tax to newly cover services like auto repair and dry cleaning and raising the meals and lodging tax from 7% to 8.5%. A lobbying push won carve-outs for ski lift tickets and luxury home sales that were heavily criticized by Republicans and even some Democratic champions of the proposal.
Complex tax bills like this have to be judged in their entirety. The state’s tax agency projected the changes would cut Mainers’ overall burden by $55 million, with as many as 90% of residents seeing a net cut. So there was no rich-poor trade here.
But Republicans rallied opposition around the industries hit hardest by new taxes. Voters repealed the law by a nearly 20-point margin in a 2010 referendum that came months before Paul LePage and Republican majorities took over the State House.
Who’s behind the ad
SLF PAC is the Senate Leadership Fund, the main outside group boosting Senate Republicans nationally. It’s the largest advertiser in Maine’s Senate race this cycle, having booked nearly $34.8 million, according to AdImpact.