This week’s edition!
Letters
LETTER: Eliminate the sales tax
To the Editor:
The governor wants to enforce the collection of the sales tax on Internet sales. It’s apparently unfair to require in-state businesses to collect sales taxes, while not requiring it from Internet sales.
As a skeptic, I am inclined to believe revenue—not fairness—is the prevailing motive. As Americans, we are culturally inclined to promote fairness, but it is difficult and not always possible.
It was unfair when our in-town stores were placed at a disadvantage by suburban shopping malls; traditional telephone companies have been disadvantaged by the introduction of cell phones.
It isn’t possible, nor is it the proper role of government, to protect businesses from the evolution of progress. Neither is it the role of government to unnecessarily hinder business, which it has done with the imposition of the sales tax.
What the governor is proposing is essentially an additional tax, as if we didn’t already have a sufficient number. Instead of taxing the Internet to help Maine businesses, let’s eliminate the sales tax to help Maine businesses.
Let’s level the taxation field and allow Maine businesses to compete fairly with New Hampshire.
Dick Sabine
Lewiston
LETTER: Skin color and inappropriate behavior
To the Editor:
With tongue firmly planted in my cheek, I would like to applaud Lewiston Mayor Bob Macdonald for his keen eye, attention to detail and apparent sense of style.
While I did not attend Lewiston High School’s graduation, I had heard of some minor disruptions and some students (and parents) exhibiting inappropriate behavior.
However, it was not until Mayor Macdonald’s June 7 eloquently penned “Enough is Enough” piece in Twin City TIMES that I found out the perpetrators of this heinous act were “immigrants”, “ingrates”, “unproductive parents” and the poorly dressed, “who looked like they just got off work at the mill.”
LETTER: “A bond is a fancy word for borrowing”
To the Editor:
Governor LePage has a habit of tactless and vehement speech, which has attracted the repeated (and repeated and repeated) attention of Maine’s media. Recently the Blaine House Brute said something so violent, so vile that our journalists and editors can’t even bring themselves to mention it: “A bond is a fancy word for borrowing money the state doesn’t have.”
I don’t bring this to your attention because I approve of such reckless rhetoric. Only because it is self-evidently true. Since the idea seems too complex for many people to grasp, let me try to put it in clearer, more accessible words: “A bond is just a word for borrowing money the state doesn’t have.”
There. Was that any help?
LETTER: Eliminating the income tax is unwise
To the Editor:
Too many lobbyists influence too many legislators who create too many taxes. Taxes are inflicted upon blueberries, potatoes, quahogs, pet food and even milk.
Every product, every activity, is a possible tax candidate. They’ve even considered dairy sperm. They are voracious and, unless controlled, neither we nor our dairy cattle are safe.
Our politicians, like choirboys, have memorized the words and music to the popular refrain: “Let’s reduce taxes.” But they are angelic and rosy-cheeked only when singing. Out of sight, they are mischievously creating or increasing taxes.
Gilbert to serve on D.C. panel about refugee resettlement
Former Lewiston mayor Larry Gilbert has been invited to serve on a panel at the 2012 U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops/Migrant and Refugee Services National, which runs from May 9 to 11 in Washington, D.C.
He will serve as a panelist on “Engaging Receiving Communities in Immigrant Integration Plenary,” which will take place on Friday, May 11.
Susan Downs-Karkos, Bates College graduate of Denver, Colorado Welcoming America Initiative, will be the moderator of the panel. In addition to Gilbert, panelists will include Robin Jones of the Office of Refugee Resettlement and Rachel Steinhardt of Welcoming America in Washington, D.C.
The goal of the panel is to help participants: gain a better understanding of the concept of receiving communities and how to apply it to their refugee resettlement work; learn how to engage local leaders in their work; understand the uniqueness of receiving communities; and be motivated to join the receiving communities movement.
LETTER: Resorting to bonds is usually not necessary
To the Editor:
We have arrived at a place where our legislators see bonds as a necessary component of state government. Resorting to bonds to fund state government might sometimes be absolutely necessary, but usually is not. My own resistance to using bonds is based upon both a concept of how a state should conduct itself and a deep-seated, but ill-defined mistrust of politicians.
Every time we have a bond package, it is persuasively introduced as urgent funding for a noble enterprise. Sometimes, it is the very necessary need to repair roads and bridges. These repairs, we are told, if further delayed, will fester into conditions many times more expensive.
Frequently, the bonds are intended to fund one or more of the various elements of education. Sometimes, this is research, sometimes it’s to repair the university’s infrastructure, but we are usually told that any delay in funding will be imprudent and will have deleterious results. And the most persuasive reason, the one always used, is that if the bonds are authorized, they will create jobs.
LETTER: Eliminating the income tax is not “easy peasy
To the Editor:
After hearing a radio news story about the very small decline in gas prices, my seven-year-old son asked, “Dad, why can’t everything just be free?” For a seven-year-old, that is a valid question.
After a quick conversation about how just about every society has a system of trade, barter or currency to aid in the exchange of goods, he was on to other things. As parents of two young boys, we often get questions or comments like the “why can’t everything be free” question. You know, the questions that make sense to ask as a child, the answer often too complicated for the seven-year-old mind to comprehend.
The very next day I found myself with the very same feeling, only it wasn’t my five- or seven-year-old with the comment, it came from the pages of Twin City TIMES. In the April 25 edition of TCT, Lance Dutson, CEO of The Maine Heritage Policy Center, shared the virtues and benefits of eliminating the income tax in Maine.
Agreed, Mr. Mayor, a good school system is critical
To the Editor:
Lewiston Mayor Bob Macdonald is right in his view that a good school system is an essential component of Lewiston becoming an economically prosperous community (“Good school system is critical to a successful city,”page 5, Twin City TIMES, March 22, 2012).
I am pleased that the School Committee has given preliminary approval to next year’s budget, which moves us closer to this reality while keeping the school property tax mil rate unchanged.
The budget will not be finalized until after two workshop sessions (March 26 and April 26) with the City Council and Mayor, and we will have ample time to consider further revisions and some of the alternative approaches that the Mayor proposes.
The public is also invited to attend and provide input at the April 9 School Committee meeting and the May 1 City Council meeting, where the budget is scheduled for adoption. Residents will vote on the budget in a May 15 referendum at the Multi-Purpose Center.
School system needs to be better than “fairly good”
To the Editor:
Mayor Macdonald, I must take issue with your article in the March 22 edition of Twin City TIMES (“Good school system is critical to a successful city,”page 5). Stating that “A superior, or at least a fairly good school system, is essential in order to grow Lewiston into an economically prosperous community”is an affront to our school system and, moreover, our students.
Since when do the people who settle for “at least fairly good” end up as winners? We need to demand a superior education for our children, and we need to demand reasons for and accountability for anything less. Settling for “fairly good”is the path to failure.
I’ve been a citizen of Lewiston since 1950, and I find your view of Lewiston decades ago rather tinted by rose-colored glasses. Yes, Lewiston was a safer town than it is right now; kids were free to bike all over town to play on PAL baseball games; there was far less traffic and only two-lane roads; and the city took a real lead in setting up activities for youth by providing ball fields and ice skating rinks in several locations in town.
Op/Ed: Legislature enacts Medicaid reforms to avert crisis in April
By Senator Lois Snowe-Mello
(R-Poland)
Recently, the Legislature enacted changes to the Medicaid program designed to prevent a crisis in April, when the state was projected to run out of money. Failure to act would have resulted in a disruption of service for more than 300,000 Mainers served by Medicaid.
Many of the state’s providers would have gone without payment, with many shutting their doors or laying off workers. The magnitude of what the Legislature did cannot be understated given the deep philosophical divides present in what is very nearly an equally divided House and Senate. More on that shortly, but first a brief overview of the problem and how we got here is important.
In November, Governor LePage alerted us to a $221 million shortfall in the state’s Medicaid program. At that time, some 361,315 people were receiving benefits under that program. He also asserted that: since 2002, Medicaid enrollment has grown 78 percent, while Maine’s population grew only 7 percent; Maine insures 35 percent more of its population than the national average; and in 2008, Maine’s per capita Medicaid cost was $1, 895 per person vs. the national average of $1,187.
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