If the Palesky tax-cap proposal shows anything, it’s that tax policy should not be written at the ballot box.

Complicated, systemwide problems require solutions that go beyond sloganeering and electioneering.

Nonetheless, there is a campaign underfoot to establish a new tax in Maine targeted specifically at a single industry. Supporters have begun collecting signatures to place a 20-cent-per-gallon tax on the state’s bottled-water producers, primarily Poland Spring.

This questionable idea hits particularly close to home. Poland Spring, which is a division of Nestl Waters North America, employs about 550 people around the state and is a fixture in the community.

The new tax, supported by a group called H20 for ME, takes aim right at them. The group’s proposal would not charge for water drawn from home wells or sold by regulated utilities. It also would exempt the first 500,000 gallons of water taken by bottling companies. But Poland Spring bottles millions of gallons of water every year, and the new levy would make their operations significantly more expensive.

We’re not sure how the tax would translate into the job market or how it would affect Poland Spring’s competitiveness. Nestl tells the Associated Press it could be devastating.

The idea behind the initiative campaign is to compensate state residents for a natural resource utilized for profit by a private company. While, on the surface, that might appeal to voters, Poland Spring and other bottlers already pay taxes in Maine on the property they own, the profits they make and the workers they employ. We should all be leery about imposing new costs on businesses.

Once again, this proposal shows that the initiative process is not well-suited for developing narrow tax laws.