Legislative session update 6/4/09

In the last 2 weeks of the Legislative session hundreds of bills bottlenecked over the session scramble to be worked through the legislative process. Several of those bills are worthy of note not just because of their transformational character but their outcome is also very noteworthy.

LD 144 was a bill that would have reduced the size of the Legislature from 151members to 121 members. This is a very popular idea whose time has come. I supported the bill. Unfortunately it was defeated on party lines.

LD 290 was a bill that would have allowed Mainers to purchase Health Insurance from out of state companies. This would have an almost immediate effect on the incredibly high cost of health insurance in Maine lowering those costs by some estimates as much as 20 percent.

LD 1206 was another health insurance bill that would have created a High Risk Pool in Maine, had this bill passed in conjunction with LD 290, the total savings in Health Insurance premiums to Maine people would have been between 30 and 40 percent. It would have also meant savings in the millions for our state, town and school employee benefit budgets. I supported both bills and both failed down party lines.

LD 254 was my bill to enact a 5 point welfare reform package. This bill would have put common sense restrictions on welfare benefits. It failed on a party line vote.

When I say “party line vote” I mean that almost all members of a political party voted a certain way.   In my opinion these four bills were good bills that would have had a very big, very positive impact on the people of Maine and our economy.

There is one bill that has received a lot of attention in the media, LD 1088 This bill adds or increases the sales tax on a whole list of goods and
services including auto repairs, movie tickets, meal and lodging, skiing,
golf, rafting, dry cleaning, appliance repair, just to name a few. Many
businesses and industries will be hurt by these tax increases. Maine people
will be forced to pay more for services and entertainment.

The bill would also no longer allow for itemized deductions, including mortgage interest and charitable contributions meaning that while the bill does gradually reduce the Income Tax rate it takes away the traditional deductions for homeowners. Most people will not see any savings. With the shifting in the sales tax most people would actually be paying more taxes, a lot more. It’s a bad deal for Maine’s taxpayers and I did not support this terrible tax shift bill, unfortunately it passed in the House and I’m proud to say, with no Republican support.

There was also a Transportation Sub Committee that I served on that looked at Maine’s gas taxes. I was asked by my leadership to negotiate in good faith and work towards getting rid of the Automatic Gas Tax Indexing. Currently every year the gas tax goes up automatically with inflation. This group met for a few weeks at the end of May and there was no final consensus. (I also had an out of context quote of mine played numerous times on Portland radio during the discussions of this sub- committee creating quite a stir).  In the end, I did however manage to get the Gas Tax increases stripped out of the Highway fund budget. Subsequently Democrat members of the Transportation Committee submitted a separate bill to increase the gas tax that did not eliminate the automatic indexing. I did not support their bill and voted against any increase in the gas tax.