By Rep. Alexander Willette
If you’ve sat at the kitchen table and tried to balance your checkbook lately, you may have felt like you were in a vice that keeps getting tighter and tighter. Mainers are hurting, and have been for too long. Our bills are going up and our paychecks are getting smaller. Over the past two years, with the help of the Governor, we in the Legislature have enacted policies that are making things a little easier for a lot of folks. In the upcoming term I intend to do the same, but I’ll need the help of my Democratic colleagues.
Maine Revenue Services (MRS) recently sent a letter to every business owner in the state informing them that as of January 1, the tax cuts signed into law by Governor LePage are in effect. According to MRS, the reform will increase the tax return of a family of four with a household income of $65,000 by $300. A single person making $35,000 will see an extra $200 in their return this year.
The same people who say these are tax cuts “for the rich” are the people who passed a tax law in 2009 that gave $6,000 to people making over $300,000 and saddled the rest of us with sales tax hikes in a “revenue-neutral” tax scheme that voters repealed the following year. The plan that took effect last month is a true tax cut for the working people of Maine that benefits the middle class.
Some may think that money would be better spent in Augusta and would like to roll back those tax cuts, but I’m glad it’s in your pocket instead.
We passed a health insurance reform law which was slow to take effect and produce results, and initially increased rates for some small businesses in rural Maine, but is now kicking in and showing major results. More small groups are seeing that they are getting much lower rates by switching to individual plans or by banding together with other small groups, something they couldn’t do before the change.
Statewide, six times as many small groups are seeing rate decreases and half as many are seeing rate increases greater than 40 percent.
The best news to me, however, is that the Maine Bureau of Insurance was able to report last week that rates are stabilizing in northern and rural Maine. As of the fourth quarter of 2012, in Aroostook, Penobscot and Piscataquis counties, 3.5 times as many small businesses are seeing rate decreases, while only 1/7 as many are seeing rate increases of 40-60 percent and virtually none are seeing rate increases greater than 80 percent.
Some would prefer we continue on the path toward government-run health care, but I’m glad Mainers will have more money in their pockets instead.
We’re embracing an energy policy that puts Maine family finances first, before environmental lobbyists and crony capitalism. For too long, greedy developers who can’t get support in the private market and environmental extremists who care more about the snail darter than the working Mainer ran the show in Augusta.
Renewable Portfolio Standards have for years mandated that 30 percent of Maine’s energy be derived from expensive “green” energy sources and ratepayers were recently ordered to subsidize an offshore wind farm to the tune of $200 million.
Even now, our efforts to bring Mainers more cheap natural gas to heat their homes is under threat from environmentalists right here in Maine who care more about the effects of “fracking” in Pennsylvania than about the ability of seniors in Presque Isle to heat their homes.
Maine is more dependent on fuel oil for heat than any other state, and a switch to natural gas would save the average family $800 per year.
Some like to put green energy speculators and environmentalists first, but I support the policies that put more money in Mainers’ pockets, period.
Overall, I’m confident that we can have a productive two years, and Mainers should expect nothing less of their representatives in the Legislature. It’s time for Augusta to stop getting distracted by ideology and start getting focused on putting more money in the pockets of Maine workers and families.
Rep. Alexander Willette (R-Mapleton) is the assistant Republican leader in the Maine House of Representatives.
