The Legislature returns to Augusta next week, refreshed and ready to tackle tax reform. Joining legislators will be lobbyists and parties interested in preserving their breaks and benefits, everyone arguing over taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars.

There are more than a handful of tax reform bills. None of which is likely to pass, but all of which are likely to be the foundation for whatever passes for tax reform in Maine.

Tax reform doesn’t mean lower taxes. Maine must still collect enough money to pay its bills.

If we reduce property taxes we’ll have to increase taxes elsewhere. If individuals get a break, businesses will end up paying. Capping one tax means raising another.

Unless and until government shrinks, that’s the reality.

For years towns have relied on the state to help pay bills, and states have relied on the federal government. That trend is on the reverse.

The federal government is paying fewer bills, as are states, and businesses are getting bigger breaks in the name of stimulating economic development.

Which means the towns -as their managers know -have no where to turn but to property owners. If towns can’t or won’t raise taxes they have to cut services.

In Rumford, it could be a reduction in the fire department.

In Livermore Falls, it could be suspending some scheduled road maintenance.

The end result will be smaller government, but this squeeze on towns is forcing reductions in the wrong places. Reductions are needed at the federal, state and county levels.

In recent years individual income has not kept pace with taxation, forcing spending cuts at home.

The taxation rate has climbed so rapidly because government has not made the same sacrifices. It has grown despite protestations of taxpayers.

While tax reform is essential, it is not the entire solution. Government must downsize to reduce the relentless pressure of taxation.

Humankind

Much has been made about the downturn of society. Of the loss of those good old days.

There’s a lot of good in these current days.

On April 12, Pfc. Michael Cardinal was able to attend the birth of his son, Dylan Joseph. Pfc. Cardinal was in Afghanistan and his mother was with his young wife in the delivery room at Central Maine Medical Center. With the assistance of the Red Cross, a phone connection was arranged and the couple welcomed their firstborn together.

This would not have happened in the 1940s. Soldiers went off to war and wives gave birth alone.

On May 17, the St. Pierre family will lead a walk in Brunswick to raise funds for the Center for Child Development in Freeport. Four-year-old Jared St. Pierre is a student at that school and is learning how to communicate with others. He has autism and lives happily at home with his brother and parents.

This would not have happened in the 1940s. Children with autism were cloistered in institutions and doctors urged parents to forget them.

Are the days of 2003 as good as they were a half century ago? Some of them are not, but many of them are.

It’s not the days and times that make memories and create communities.

It’s the people, like those at the Red Cross and the Center for Child Development who extend themselves to ease the lives of others.

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