TABOR is the wrong answer

Taxes in Maine are too high. No, let's restate that: Taxes in Maine are too damn high.

We could pile on the stats to prove the case, but we won't because the people reading this editorial are paying those taxes, and they don't need the experts to tell them what they already know.

Two taxes, in particular (we have so many to chose from here in Maine), make us especially angry.

The first one is the state income tax, which kicks in at 8.5 percent at such a low income level that working people are barely starting to make a livable wage when they see the state take 85 cents from a $10 pay raise -- on top of federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare taxes. The Maine income tax treats a working class family like they're part of the six-figure crowd.

The property tax is a mess, too. It assumes that just because the house you live in increases in value that you suddenly have a lot more money to pay a bigger tax bill. But homeowners -- especially older people -- who have lived in their homes for decades only have that new money if they could turn the on-paper value of their home into real paper money. The only way to do that is to sell their home. When the government puts its citizens in the position of having to sell their homes, something is very wrong.

Maine is in a fiscal mess; a mess any number of recent schemes have tried and failed to fix. The message from the public has been clear in recent years -- Mainers don't want to be the new Taxachusetts. But the people who can do something about that -- recent governors and Legislatures -- only pick away at the problem, trying to get away with sleight-of-hand with the budget and word games in which they say the problem isn't the big taxes, it's the small incomes.

The fancy word for what we hear from most politicians when it comes to the tax issue is "can't." The dictionary definition is "insincere talk, especially when pious." Notice that "cant" is spelled with four letters.

The approach to spending in Maine government seems to be just the opposite of what we'd do with our household budget. Most people decide how much they can spend after they add up how much they are making. Maine government works in reverse. It decides what it would like to buy and then spends that amount, sending the bill to you.

If the big spending was for investments that would bring better jobs to Maine, then we think taxpayers could see the point in temporarily spending more than we can afford. But when you are starving the higher education system, for example, while being one of the nation's biggest spenders per capita on social welfare programs, you are not going to make progress in getting people into better jobs.

All of which brings us the question every Mainer must be weary of hearing: What can we do about it?

Because of that frustration, because we have debated and voted legislation and referendums ad nauseam, we are ripe for the big fix, the promises of this thing called TABOR, the Taxpayer Bill of Rights.

The Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce's white paper on TABOR put it well in its endorsement of the citizen's initiative:

"If Maine were not the highest taxed state in the nation, if government spending increases were reflective of a proportionate changes in the number of people government serves, if our generous eligibility requirements had not given Maine the highest percentage of its population on Medicaid in the nation, if our incomes were rising far above the national average, and if jobs and working-age people were moving into our state rather than out from it -- perhaps then, this initiative would not be so valuable."

You cannot blame the people who initiated TABOR or the people supporting it for grabbing hold of an idea that seems to make so much sense -- if the government won't control itself, we will.

"Do you want to limit increases in state and local government spending to the rate of inflation plus population growth and to require voter approval for all tax and fee increases?"

Thirty-one words, 31 reasonable-sounding words, 31 words that try -- but miserably fail -- to represent the 10 pages of legal mumbo-jumbo that will be put into effect if the referendum passes.

The TABOR ballot question is like buying an insurance policy that says, "If you get into an accident, you're covered." But when the accident happens, you find out you're not covered because of the fine print in Section 6, paragraph IX, subsection G.

For example, the ballot wording doesn't mention a different formula for school spending. It doesn't say that the voter approval process is as cumbersome as one of those Rube Goldberg machines where you start of the process of sharpening a pencil by flying a kite.

It doesn't say the state attorney general has written an opinion that the section of TABOR that applies to the state budget is unconstitutional. Even if the Attorney General is ultimately wrong, we suspect that if TABOR passes there will be lawsuits challenging and possibly delaying its implementation.

In legislative terms, TABOR is a "TEL", a tax and expenditure limit. Thirty states have such legal limits, including Maine's LD1. Experts in these limits rank them in terms of restrictiveness. Maine's LD1 is the near the bottom, a loose limit that hasn't seemed, so far, to substantially change Maine's taxes. TABOR, on the other hand, is just about the most restrictive form of a TEL.

It doesn't seem prudent for a state accustomed to government spending -- a state where many regions depend on government and public schools for their economy -- to go cold turkey. TABOR could be a shock to our economic system that would harm rather than help.

TABOR supporters say the legislation has a built in solution to that problem: Its provisions can be overridden. But the override process is that Rube Goldberg machine, in which the government body (wait 'til you read the fine print around that definition) has to vote by two-thirds majority to recommend an override. That has to be followed by a majority vote of voters in that jurisdiction.

Aside from the costly and complex override process, we object to the nature of the voting. It comes down to this: If a majority of a city council or board of selectmen vote to send an override to the public, it won't happen.

If 60 percent vote for the override, it still won't happen. It requires a 66 percent approval, and that means a mere 33 percent of any board has veto power -- a form of minority rule we find just a little bit undemocratic.

So, what's the alternative? If TABOR is the bed that's too hard, and LD1 is the bed that's too soft, where's the bed that's just right? The answer will be right on the same piece of paper as TABOR will be on: the ballot.

TABOR is a radical shortcut that sidesteps what we really need: strong political leadership. There are candidates for governor and the Legislature who have records as fiscal conservatives if they are incumbents or, if they are not, promise to be if elected.

If you think taxes are the single most important issue facing the state, if that is your litmus test, then you can vote into office the people who agree if you.

If enough of them get elected, they can and probably will enact rational and effective tax and expenditure laws and policies.

The way Maine spends and taxes needs fixing. The best way to do that is not TABOR, but through leadership and determination in our city hall, school boards, town halls and, especially, at the Statehouse.

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