Bonding for infrastructure improvements is a routine maneuver.Maine voters have consistently approved bonds for transportation projects, for example, to amortize costs associated with these improvements and secure federal matching funds.Question 3 on this year’s ballot is no different. It asks voters to approve borrowing $3.4 million – a paltry sum, compared to past bond issues […]

As days grow shorter and weather turns colder, political campaigns lose their light and crank the heat.It’s happening here, as complaints of intrusive “robo-calls” spring up. They are a “be careful what you wish for” corollary for becoming a presidential battleground territory.The robo-calls, from the campaign of Sen. John McCain and the Republican National Committee, […]

Any plan to raise tolls along the Maine Turnpike should also include proposals to increase revenue from traffic on I-295 from Portland to Gardiner.The executive director of the Maine Turnpike Authority, Paul Violette, informed the Legislature’s Transportation Committee that tolls would rise 23 percent by February, to offset steep declines in automobile traffic and increasing […]

The campaign for an Oxford County casino has destroyed our faith in the good idea behind it: an economic engine in one of Maine’s distressed rural counties, bringing needed jobs and tax revenue.The rhetoric of the casino campaign has been simplistic and spiteful – the campaign will only talk about jobs, and attacks anybody who […]

We agree with higher taxes on syrupy beverages to improve health, especially in Maine children, who are growing dangerously obese. We agree with higher beer and wine taxes, which haven’t increased for decades.We agree with a statutory re-insurance program – essentially a high-risk pool – to help reduce insurance costs for healthier Mainers by insulating […]

A famous television commercial for Nike once featured Charles Barkley, the brash forward for the Philadelphia 76ers and Phoenix Suns, looking directly into the camera and declaring, “I am not a role model.”The “round mound of rebound” was right. Barkley was no role model; even this year, long after his playing days ended, Barkley’s foibles […]

Sometime today, after the hangar doors at Bangor International Airport open at 8 a.m., a jet will descend into Maine’s 2nd District to deliver the most controversial figure of this presidential campaign: Gov. Sarah Palin.Palin, the acid-witted Alaska governor and GOP vice-presidential candidate, can draw a crowd. Depending on personal politics, she either inspires or […]

Kudos to the U.S. Treasury for making the bailout plan better. Taxpayers should prefer “helping” banks make bad loans disappear to just removing horrendous debt from their books in one swath.Kudos, too, to European governments for doing this first and showing the smarter course of action.At the onset, the rushed nature of the bailout through […]

The next great collapse, after the market, could be state governments.Massachusetts and California have put the U.S. Treasury on notice that they will likely need, like a foundering investment bank, a federal bailout. Other states are pondering drastic actions or suing everybody in sight.Some short-term loans may stave immediate crises, but the message is spreading […]

OK, Lewiston City Council. It’s your downtown now.That’s the result from the board’s two head-scratching votes last week: to declare a 90-day moratorium on a cherry-picked list of businesses downtown and to euthanize the joint downtown planning committee with Auburn.These decisions indicate the city of Lewiston’s governing body wants to control downtown development, which is […]