For years, many smart people in Maine government called Tax Foundation calculations on tax burden flawed. For about as long, critics of Maine government used the Tax Foundation to argue for reduced state spending.

This argument was a stalemate, until now. Methodological re-jiggering by the Tax Foundation has dropped Maine from the top, into the top 15, for tax burden.

Hip, hip … ah, never mind. So Maine is No. 15, not No. 1 or 2. This neither reduces taxes nor raises salaries, the disparity of which is the real culprit. Maine may now look better against other states but, within the state, this poor picture remains clear.

And strange as it sounds, we’ll miss top billing. Not because it was great – every year was like finishing last in a beauty contest – but because for all its purported inaccuracy, the Tax Foundation’s annual faceslap of Maine kept taxes seated in their rightful place in Augusta: the front burner.

Tax Foundation rankings alone didn’t spur the Palesky Tax Cap, the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, LD 1, or gather 90,000 signatures to repeal beverage and insurance taxes. It neither made sales taxes so narrow, nor stopped increases in exportable taxes such as lodging.

What the Tax Foundation did help accomplish was creating the political will and mandate to tackle massive policy goals, such as school and jail consolidation, and thoughtful – if scrapped – reforms of the tax code.

These were not wasted efforts. Schools, jails and taxes were areas of governance ripe for reform.

So far, Maine is two out of three. Perhaps the Tax Foundation’s surprising re-calculation could clear the political pathway toward the third.

Who should really grin about the Tax Foundation’s change of heart are Democrats, who can – after taking so many lumps about it – now point toward their critics and say, “We told you so.”

A schoolyard “neener-neener” response, though, would be shortsighted.

The Tax Foundation arguably helped enact the boldest policy initiatives of the Baldacci administration, by fostering a conducive legislative environment to do so.

So yes, a “we told you so” is deserved. Democrats were right about the ranking.

But it sounds like a “thank you” is in order, as well.