Last week, the legislative majority pushed through yet another majority budget — seemingly the new normal under their one-party control of Augusta. The supplemental budget passed last week continues Democrats’ unsustainable spending addiction.
Hello, I’m Senator Bruce Bickford of Androscoggin County. I have the honor of representing the citizens of Senate District 20, and I serve as the Senate Republican Lead on the Taxation Committee.
The budget passed last week includes over $90 million in new taxes. And while the legislative majority is billing these tax increases as “tax fairness,”that couldn’t be further from the truth. Just last year, Democrats passed a slew of new taxes and fees that overwhelmingly affect Maine’s poorest residents.
And with a majority in both the State House and the Blaine House, that’s what John Adams and James Madison called tyranny of the majority.
Now, that tyranny is going after our state’s higher earners and business owners. And I’m confident, if they remain in control, they’ll attempt to raise taxes on the middle class next. The question is: why?
Democrats didn’t raise taxes because they care about “tax fairness.” They did it because no matter how much they spend, it’s never enough. Maine does not have a revenue problem; it has a spending problem. And if spending keeps growing at this pace, it is Mainers who will pay the price.
And in their typical fashion, as if all this wasn’t enough, Democrats went on an additional last-minute midnight spending spree just this week and authorized another $18 million in spending for pet projects.
My Republican colleagues and I have been very clear for months that we would not support a budget that didn’t provide much-needed and long-overdue financial relief for Maine taxpayers. When the federal Working Families Tax Cut Act passed last July, we were presented with an opportunity to lower taxes for working Mainers and seniors.
We could have adopted provisions like no tax on tips, no tax on overtime and an increased senior deduction. These provisions would have helped usher in true tax fairness — letting our state’s hardest workers and seniors with limited income keep more of their own money. In fact, these tax conformity provisions would have saved Maine’s working- and middle-class taxpayers $94 million.
We can and should agree on funding our state’s critical services, and this can be done without bleeding Mainers dry. I was on the Taxation Committee in 2011 when we took roughly 70,000 people off the tax rolls and lowered tax rates for all incomes. What happened? The General Fund continued to grow, and we started rebuilding the Budget Stabilization Fund and paid off the hospital debt.
By cutting taxes, we continued to fund our state’s essential services because our economy grew. In 2015, we did it again. We cut taxes for all brackets. The state continued to thrive, and essential services continued to be delivered.
Most importantly, we can do it again. And that future starts with a government Mainers can afford — one that lives within its means, respects taxpayers and focuses on the core responsibilities of government instead of chasing endless new spending. Maine families have to balance their budgets every day, and Augusta should be expected to do the same. We owe it to the people of this state to pursue responsible budgeting, meaningful tax relief and policies that make Maine more affordable for workers, seniors, and small businesses alike.
Again, this is Senator Bruce Bickford of Androscoggin County. Thank you for tuning into this week’s edition of the Republican Vision Series and make sure to follow Maine Senate Republicans on Facebook, Instagram and X.
Senator Bruce Bickford represents Auburn, Durham and Poland in Androscoggin County and New Gloucester in Cumberland County. He is the Senate Republican Lead on the Legislature’s Taxation Committee, and he served in the Maine House of Representatives during the 124th – 125th Legislatures and the 127th – 130th Legislatures.
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