“Do you want to limit property taxes to 1 percent of assessed value?”

Sure. Who wouldn’t? It’d be a nice little windfall.

But the real questions should be: Do you want less fire and police protection? Do you want fewer, more crowded schools with poorly paid teachers? Do you want snow plowed and garbage picked up? Do you want the grass mowed at the park? Do you want to keep the Maineiacs? Do you want libraries and buses and sidewalks? Do you want the sales tax to double on every single purchase?

Because those are the choices.

On her third try, tax crusader Carol Palesky has succeeded in getting a bill on the ballot that would limit the property tax rate municipalities can levy. The proposed rate would cut municipal revenues in half and cost towns and cities an estimated $700 million a year.

Most of the services now provided – and controlled – locally would be shifted to the state, which would be forced to collect more revenues from other sources. That means higher income taxes and a higher sales tax. And local control would be just a memory.

There is a problem. Some people are being priced out of their homes because real estate values are growing faster than income. But this is not the answer.

Palesky’s proposal would limit annual increases in property assessment as well as limiting the mill rate. As long as the same family owns a parcel, its assessed value could not increase more than 2 percent a year. The legislation would also roll values back to their 1996-97 assessment.

Neighbors, with identical houses, could pay vastly different tax amounts without regard to what it actually costs to provide services. A taxation caste system would be created. Newcomers – or longtime residents looking for a smaller retirement house or something bigger to start a family in – would pay more and subsidize other homeowners.

Property taxes, over time, are a stable source of government revenue. Income and sales taxes are less secure and more dangerously tied to the boom-and bust dynamics of the economy.

If ever Gov. John Baldacci and the Legislature needed an invitation to work together on a positive tax reform plan, this is it.

There are a number of ways to protect property owners from the hyperinflation that has gripped many real estate markets in the state and ease the burden on taxpayers in areas, like Lewiston and Auburn, afflicted with high mill rates.

Now’s the time to put forward a real plan. This tax cap business is a catastrophe in the making.
How’d that happen?


On the same day that President Bush was auditioning for a talk show Emmy for his performance on “Meet the Press,” former President Clinton won a Grammy.

And he wasn’t even playing the saxophone.

Clinton’s well-known trouble with the truth did not keep him from collecting the award, along with Mikhail Gorbachev and Sophia Loren, in the category Spoken Word Album for Children. The trio won for their take on “Peter and the Wolf.”

What to make of that?
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