This year Maine lawmakers will have the opportunity to change our state tax code, to ensure we can recover from the pandemic and make our economy stronger for everyone.

We need to return to fairness, where working families are not paying more taxes than wealthy Mainers; where large corporations — that have benefited the most from doing business in Maine — will pay those benefits forward into Maine’s future, supporting those left behind by no fault of their own: Mainers who have lost their livelihood or their small businesses to the pandemic.

This is the well-known call on all of us, especially people of faith. One in every four Mainers has not been able to meet their or their families’ basic needs. That’s every fourth person we encounter.

Communities all over Maine need assistance to build back stronger as the pandemic eases this year. It’s time for the wealthiest Mainers, whose wealth has actually grown during these distressing times, to once again pay what is their fair share of what recovery will cost. Unearned income from estates over $1 million could easily contribute more. Any corporation that has profited over $3.5 million during the pandemic could easily contribute more, as they have in the past.

Those resources would mean low- and middle-income Mainers could continue their basic spending, which supports the whole Maine economy; and communities could reinvest in their schools and vital infrastructure. We need to call on our lawmakers to do this good work.

Peg Hoffman, Lewiston

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