New think tank forms to counter Maine’s liberal leanings.

We decided to do something radically different and call our new public policy think tank “conservative.” So what? you ask. Well, the so what is that in the state of Maine, the label “conservative” is publicly avoided like the plague. The opportunistic label in this state is “moderate;” everybody’s publicly moderate whether Democrat, Republican or Independent.

But as a great thinker – was it Aristotle or Will Rogers? – once observed, “The only things that go down the middle of the road are yellow lines and dead skunks.”

The Greeks were wrong: “moderation in all things” is not always a virtue. I, for one, would not want my brain surgeon having only moderate learning.

So why our aberrant intention to call the Maine Heritage Policy Center conservative? Simple. For a refreshing change, conservative solutions need to enter the public debate. Radical meaning, at-the-roots changes are vitally, even desperately, needed in this state.

Consider the following summary of the political, economic conditions of Maine:

• State and local taxes in Maine, as a percentage of personal income, rank No. 1 among the 50 states.

• The state income tax is 8.5 percent, kicking in for the individual at $16,500. Only Oregon has a worse income tax, but unlike Maine, Oregon has no sales tax and has put a cap on property tax.

• For the three-year period of fiscal years l999-2001, state spending increased a whopping 35.5 percent. Maine has only 1.2 million residents, and on a per capita basis, Maine’s state spending increases are parallel to California’s. California simply has more people and total dollars spent. Gray Davises run the government in Maine.

• The governor, state House and state Senate are all controlled monolithically by one political party in the majority. Their mindset is Keynesian, and they are given explicitly to “social justice,” without indicating that to pay Paul, they must take money, unavoidably, from Peter. Government doesn’t make money, it collects it and redistributes it.

• Maine’s monolithic Legislature recently passed a universal health care plan, the first in the nation to do so. But the state has not the foggiest idea where the money down the road will come from to pay for this social justice. It will have to come, in large measure, from increased premium rates to consumers.

• The mindset of many in the state is anti-growth with a vengeance. It’s not just NIMBY (not in my backyard), it’s BANANA (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anybody). Theirs is environmentalism to a pathological, even irrational, extreme. Because, then, there is little business growth and additional tax revenues that accompany such growth, the people of Maine must feed upon themselves in escalating taxes to maintain even the status quo. A grass-roots taxpayer rebellion is brewing, and rightly so.

• Because the economy in Maine is terrible, there are relatively few jobs for young people. Census 2000 documents that the exodus rate in Maine for people ages 20-34 is 22 percent, against a national average of 5 percent. It is becoming an increasingly graying state.

• Registrations show that Maine is 30 percent Democrat, 30 percent Republican, 40 percent Independent, which is why politicians are quick to label themselves “moderate” and are afraid to be called “conservative.” As a result, the very large body of conservatives in this state have given up the fight, further ensuring that their adversaries will fill any vacuum by default.

Margaret Thatcher once observed, “Of course it’s the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story.” And the same old story in Maine is that it needs to do three things for the public good: Reduce property and state income taxes; reduce government spending; and permit reasonable growth so as to enable additional revenues to the state and relieve economic burdens on the people.

The only power that the Maine Heritage Policy Center has is the power of ideas, and we ask only that our conservative ideas be allowed to enter the public debate. In return, we will provide substantive data.

John Stuart Mill once noted, “He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.” Our center will provide the other side.

Ronald L. Trowbridge is president of the Maine Heritage Policy Center. He lives in Durham.