I write to thank the Sun Journal for inadvertently making the Maine Heritage Policy Center’s case in the Feb. 25 editorial that Maine’s state government work force is too large by choice.

The editorial’s comparison of Ohio’s higher education system with Maine’s has nothing to do with Ohio’s population size or land area; rather, it is a reflection of policy choices. Maine has chosen to have eight campuses serving fewer students than Ohio. Maine can make the same choice and enjoy the same “economies of scale” as Ohio.

The other area of over-employment we found is in the Medicaid system. Previous MHPC research has found Medicaid to be too expensive and large, which has created the need for a bloated work force. Again, that is a policy decision and can be corrected by making different choices.

Additionally, the editorial critique of our measure of state government employment as a percent of private sector employment is off mark.

The state and the private sector both compete in the same labor pool, which means the addition of one state worker means one less worker in the private sector (excluding the possibility of in-migration).

Further, the private sector is the ultimate source of money to pay for these public positions. Currently, the private sector is bearing an extra $185 million tax burden to fund the 3,880 excessive state employees. That higher tax burden, in part, is an important reason why Maine’s private sector is one of the nation’s smallest. We chose this metric to control for these economically important effects.

J. Scott Moody, chief economist

The Maine Heritage Policy Center, Portland