Choices by Maine residents and their leaders encourage poverty.

Maine is becoming a Third World country.

The point survives the exaggeration. Poverty in the state is on the rise. This owes not to a weak national economy or a tepid stock market, but primarily to decisions made both by political leaders and Mainers themselves. My charge is a harsh one, I know, but let’s look at the evidence and the causes.

• 33.8 percent of Maine’s schoolchildren are eligible for free or reduced lunches because of poverty.

• Maine lost the largest percentage of manufacturing jobs in the country in the last three years, some 17,800.

• From September 2001 to September 2003, Medicaid enrollment in Maine grew a whopping 33 percent in just 24 months, from 182,000 to 241,000. That means that of Maine’s 1.275 million residents, one in five is

presently on Medicaid.

• Dirigo Health, beginning in July 2004, will add an additional 78,000 eligible recipients to Medicaid roles, totaling a staggering 319,000 Mainers on Medicaid, or one in four of all residents in the state.

• Maine has the fastest growing poverty rate in the country.

The figures above may not yet constitute a Third World country, but Maine is moving in that direction.

The seminal question is, why?

Let me start the debate by offering three reasons:

One, state and local taxes in Maine encourage poverty by denying economic growth. A state income tax of 8.5 percent, kicking in when an individual’s gross income reaches $16,500 is, well, immoral – immoral in the sense that it harms people and encourages poverty. And we all know about high property taxes here.

Two, environmentalism by many has been taken to irrational extremes. It’s not just NIMBY (not in my backyard), it’s often BANANA (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anybody). I do not recall a single proposed development in this state in recent years that has not been loudly resisted and it’s not just a casino, or racino, or gas pipeline, or boat launch. It’s virtually any development anywhere.

Three, there are enough Mainers, then, both in political office and in BANANA vicinities to keep Maine in poverty by choice. Oh, they don’t intentionally promote poverty, but they are de facto enablers of it by their political and environmental choices and exclusions.

Many states in the South were poor for a long time, and eventually became tired of it and did something about it. Maine, on the other hand, leads the nation with the fastest growing poverty rate.

So what are the solutions? They are easy to know, but extremely difficult to implement. I again offer for the public debate the following three answers:

One, state and local taxes must be substantially cut. This combined tax burden is crushing any opportunity to create, even sustain, jobs in this state.

Two, government spending must be substantially cut. Such cuts took place in Ireland and New Zealand, and their economies blossomed. Tight control by the public of government spending in Colorado kept that state in relatively good economic health

Three, reasonable growth must be encouraged and permitted to provide jobs and new, additional tax revenue to the state.

The Small Business Survival Index has released recently its findings and ranks New Hampshire the fourth most business friendly state in the country and Maine 48th. Expansion of small business means reduction of poverty.

George Bernard Shaw once observed, “The greatest of our evils, and the worst of our crimes is poverty.”

So the most vital question is, are political leaders and Mainers themselves going to make bold, radical changes or continue to allow the state to slide downhill, creating greater poverty for individuals, families and children?

Ronald L. Trowbridge is president of the Maine Heritage Policy Center. He lives in Durham.