ABOUT THE AUTHOR
W. Godfrey Wood is CEO of the Portland Regional Chamber.
PORTLAND — The Portland Regional Chamber endorses TABOR II (Question 4), and opposes both repeal of K-12 school administrative consolidation (Question 3) and auto excise tax cuts (Question 2).
At first glance it might seem those positions don't fit together, but they do. Here's why.
Seven years ago, our organization issued a white paper on government spending and taxes.
We called for three interlocking policy changes: Tax reform that increased Maine prosperity for us all, government reorganization that improved the quality of public services and lowered their costs, and meaningful limits on the growth of government spending to break the "boom and bust" budget cycles of the 1980s and 1990s.
Since 2002, we've seen a lot of debate over these goals. There's been some progress and a number of false starts.
But we've never changed our view that Maine has both a spending and a tax problem, and we need to fix both -- together -- to make our communities more prosperous places.
Question 2 cuts the auto excise tax. With fewer excise tax dollars, municipal government will provide less service (particularly road maintenance and repair) or impose higher property taxes to make up for the lost revenue, or both.
As we did in 2004 when we opposed the Palesky tax cap, we see little merit in straight tax cuts that wind up reducing needed government services. You can't just cut your way to prosperity.
Question 3 would repeal ongoing efforts to reduce Maine's school administrative districts from 280 (2 years ago) to 200 (now) to even fewer. No one can argue with the fact we have a declining number of school-age children in Maine.
Yet the idea of a more efficient administrative system draws fire.
In our view, K-12 administrative consolidation is only one of many government efficiencies needed to improve public service quality as costs are reduced. This is a hard path, but we simply cannot afford to turn back now.
Question 4 offers a simple but effective way to check rapid growth in government spending or new tax burdens. It puts those questions out to a vote. Nothing scary there in our opinion -- we vote all the time, don't we?
The Portland Regional Chamber supported TABOR in 2006 with serious reservations. We worried about super-majority voting requirements, negative growth limits and hurtful impacts on local schools. But this year all those concerns, and more, are gone from the bill.
Question 4 does a simple, powerful thing -- it requires that elected officials check in with voters when budgets or taxes are going up beyond a certain level. That not only seems fair to us, but it also forces a conversation between elected officials and voters that we too often skip over, at least until the next people's veto is filed.
It's worth noting that Question 4 isn't everything supporters and opponents claim it is.
It is not a panacea for prosperity. It won't make Maine into Colorado, for good or for ill. It won't block a tax increase, or a big budget increase. It doesn't stop public budgets from growing each year -- they will.
What Question 4 will do is force us to pause, and talk, and vote before a state budget grows faster than the economy (like it has four times in the last 10 years), or before taxes are raised.
If new taxes or a rapid spending increase is justified, we can vote to approve it. If we don't agree, we can say no.
A reasonable spending limit with teeth, like Question 4, is just a part of a strategy that brings Maine taxes and government spending into line with our ability to pay and our opportunity to grow.
More effective and efficient government is needed, even at the cost of losing some (illusory) local control. Tax reform is still in order, even with the good start we made last summer in the State House.
And when the economy recovers (and it will), a responsible spending growth limit will make...
