Once again, an elected official has found another way to spend people’s hard-earned money. Sen. John Nutting, D-Leeds, has lost touch with the working-class people of the state. Proposing additional taxes of any sort is absolutely ridiculous.

Nutting obviously doesn’t have a clue about what it means to live on a fixed income. His proposed new bag tax would cost each family in Maine $52 a year if they use 10 bags per week. That amount must seem insignificant to him.

He has forgotten that plastic bags were introduced for the purpose of saving trees by reducing the number of paper bags being used.

The high cost of living in Maine, and excessive taxes, are causing many people to live from paycheck to paycheck. Many are on the verge of losing their homes. The cause to save the environment, by using fewer plastic bags, is not high on those people’s priority lists.

We suggest Nutting should come up with a different solution to the plastic bag issue – a solution that does not cost the people one hard-earned penny.

In the name of saving the environment, Nutting is willing to increase the tax burden of the people. He should be investing time in reducing the tax burden. Instead, he would throw the public under the tax bus. And, as we all know, once a tax is instituted, the state will eventually raise that tax.

Jerry and Debbie Blais, Lewiston