While not guaranteeing property tax relief, passage of the school-funding referendum means the state pays 55 percent, or does it?

It was reported that Gov. Baldacci plans only incremental state increases in school funding, not the full and immediate increase approved by the voters. Since he has other spending plans for our taxes, already the highest in the United States, Baldacci cannot support education-spending reform. He reportedly ordered the Maine Department of Health and Human Services to increase the number of Medicaid recipients from 18 percent of the state’s population in January 2004 to 25 percent of the population by July 2004, an increase of 7 percent (75,000 people).

Compare this to the stable 7 percent Medicaid rate in New Hampshire. Expanded MaineCare will be even worse than Tennessee’s failed TennCare program, which was reported to consume one-third of that state’s entire budget. The tax-and-spend liberals in Augusta are out of control and are spending the state into a Third World existence, in which only the poor (who get free benefits) and the rich can afford to live in Maine.

The middle class can fight back. We can control state spending by resisting Maine’s inequitable tax policies by any legal means possible. In November, we should pass the Palesky proposal to cap property taxes. Palesky’s plan is similar to California’s very successful Proposition 13, and every property owner will benefit. We also need referenda to cap income and sales taxes.

Robert Kester, Auburn

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