Nearly all of our needs – food, fuel, transportation, clothes – have to be purchased from outside of Maine. Having lost most of our industry, we no longer have the means to continue these purchases unabated. But the government’s answer has been a welfare approach rather than solve the real job-loss problem. A strictly service society does not work. If people cannot pay for essentials, they cannot pay for services either.

Our single-most identifiable personal expense in Maine is taxes, but individual taxpayers are ignored while state government has burgeoned beyond belief and is deaf to the real needs of the people.

Question 1 on education funding struck the chord and it passed. The message was clear, but the bureaucrats are using stall tactics to try to bypass the vote of the people.

The property tax cap on the November ballot strikes that chord again. Common folks just don’t have the income to support current spending by government. The bureaucrats are again using scare and stall tactics to try to defeat this. While passage of this referendum may play havoc in the short term, it sends another clear message. With a lot of pain and tough choices to be made, the state needs to learn to live within its means. Adjustments to this concept can be made down the road. It will take this bitter pill to make our voices heard.

The time for change has long passed. The people want action, and want it now!

Elbert O. Derick, Wales