The following is part of a continuing series analyzing political advertising this campaign season.



Political Action Committee: Mainers for Real and Responsible Property Tax Relief

Party: non-partisan

TV ad: “DCJG”

Length: 30 seconds

Producer: David Heller, Main Street Communications, Washington, D.C.

Market: Statewide

Announcer: Voice of Dana Connors, president of Maine State Chamber and Business Alliance, followed by the voice of Jean Gulliver, chairwoman, Maine Board of Education

Visuals: Ad opens with Connors standing in an office with workers in the background. Cuts to Connors striding down a sidewalk with business men and women. Cut to Connors chatting with factory workers. Then close-up of Connors. Under his picture is text that reads: “Vote 1B for Real Property Tax Relief.” Cut to black screen. Then switch to Gulliver speaking to camera in front of classroom chalkboard. Cut to a teacher teaching a class. Kids raising hands in foreground. Cut to Gulliver close-up. Cut to nurse tending to babies in a neo-natal unit at a hospital. Cut to close-up profile of three students in classroom. Cut to Gulliver back in front of classroom. At bottom of screen is text: “Vote 1B For Real Property Tax Relief.”

Text, audio (slash indicates image change):

Connors: Maine needs new jobs / not new taxes. / Option 1A could raise our taxes by $246 million a year. / 1B provides real property tax relief / and helps businesses grow. / Say no to new state taxes. / Vote 1B.”

Gulliver: “The State Board of Education endorses 1B / because it increases funding for our schools / without cutting / vital services for our / children and seniors. / Protect our children. / Please Vote 1B / for real property tax relief.”

Purpose: This ad suggests that state officials might raise taxes and/or cut state programs, including health services for the elderly and children in order to raise the money needed to pay for added public education costs that would be triggered by passage of Question 1A.

Accuracy: If 1A were to pass with a majority vote in November, the Maine Legislature could:

• raise state taxes to cover the projected cost of funding 55 percent of K-12 public education, including 100 percent of special education costs;

• cut spending on state programs just one year after closing a projected $1.2 billion deficit;

• find new revenue sources;

• a combination of the three;

• ignore the new law; or

• amend or repeal the law.

Legislative leaders have gone on record saying they are not likely to raise taxes, nor are they likely to find adequate new revenue sources or change the law if voters support 1A. That leaves spending reductions to existing state programs.

Connors’ claim that option 1B provides “real property tax relief” is an allusion to that proposal’s two so-called tax-relief components. One is an increase in funding for the Maine Homestead Exemption Program, which would take $7,000 off the assessed value of a residence before the municipality’s tax rate is applied. The second is Maine’s Circuit Breaker Program, which would be expanded to help more low- and middle-income homeowners and renters pay their property taxes or rent. Neither of these programs would directly lower property tax rates. Those rates are controlled largely through spending at the local level. Also, Connors’ claim that 1B “helps businesses grow” likely assumes that state lawmakers would not cut funding for the Business Equipment Tax Reimbursement Program to pay for 1B, but might to pay for the more expensive 1A.

Our view: Question 1A pushes lawmakers into a difficult position. If it passes, they will be forced to either raise taxes, cut spending on state programs or ignore the will of the people. All impossible choices in an election year, and all likely to be unpopular with voters.

Question 1A shifts more of the burden of funding education from localities to the state, without dictating how the estimated $246 million a year would be raised. There are no guarantees that property taxes will go down; localities set that rate and the influx of $246 million to local coffers could be spent on other programs, without passing any savings along to homeowners.

While Question 1B does not lower tax rates – only localities can do that – it does offer increases in state programs designed to lower the out-of-pocket expense of property taxes.

As difficult as it is to explain tax policy in a 30-second television ad, it is even more difficult to set complex tax policy through a referendum, which asks voters to decide the merits of competing plans based on a single sentence.

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