Should the sales tax be cut by a half-cent because of a pledge made six years ago? Should the gas tax not be raised a nickel because the state survived recession in part by raiding the Highway Fund for non-highway purposes? Formulating tax policy is always tricky, more so when the formula includes issues of public trust.

The Maine Legislature faces such difficult questions in the weeks ahead. Finding the correct answers will be easier if lawmakers, especially all those who ran for office swearing to do something about property taxes, first agree that the biggest, oldest promises are the most important ones to keep.

Such as the promise made in 1985 to fund 55 percent of the cost of education. It predates the sales-tax promise by a good eight years; the failure to keep it — funding is down to 44 percent now — has caused far greater damage than any pothole ever could.

Evidence of that damage surfaced again Tuesday at an Education Committee hearing on several bills that overhaul the school funding formula. It was the same, sad story: Southern Maine vs. Northern; rich town vs. poor; the haves vs. the have-nots.

Coincidentally, this also is town meeting season in Maine, time once again for irate property owners to shake their fists at selectmen and school board members over the rising mill rate.

And all because the state — the legislative and executive branches going back more than a decade — broke a promise. It was unavoidable in an economic downturn. It is inexcusable today.

General Purpose Aid to Education stands at about $590 million this year. It is the largest single item in the state budget and, due the difference between 55 percent and 44 percent, it is $171 million short. That $171 million gets dumped onto local property taxpayers — cost shifting. The public ire over what the State House does gets dumped onto Town Hall — blame shifting.

Past debates on full school funding have run aground because increasing GPA invariably gets cast as spending, backed by big spenders. This year, when the state has a generous surplus and the “Two Maines” rancor is high, is the right time to restate the terms of the debate. Full funding for GPA is a tax cut. It cuts the local property tax, the tax that does more than all other taxes combined to spoil the state’s political and social climate. And those who back full funding for GPA are the biggest tax-cutters going.

Small potatoes

Nothing wrong with cutting the sales tax by another half-penny. It went down by a half-penny last year and, other than knocking $60 million out of the General Fund, the difference was hardly noticed. Which is exactly why there’s nothing particularly right about cutting it. The sales tax is just too broadly based, too spread out for a half-cent to matter.

Of course lawmakers would like to have their names attached to a $60-million tax cut for Maine people (actually, since tourists pay about one-fourth of the sales tax, it would be a $45 million tax cut for Maine people). But the best tax cuts are targetted, aimed at a particular group of people, a deserving subset of the economy. A half-cent off the sales tax saves a paltry 50 cents on every $100 of taxable purchases, $5 per thousand. If the sales tax cut is intended to help, say, the working family of four with the median household income (about $33,000), that family would be lucky to have $20 to show for it. That’s not getting much for $60 million.

The other leading contender in the General Fund sweepstakes is the gasoline tax. Raising the 19-cent tax to 24 (the first increase in eight years) would add $60 million to the Highway Fund during the next two-year budget cycle, money that is sorely needed by Maine’s deteriorating roads and bridges, paid by those who cause the most wear and tear. Yet many Republican lawmakers, who usually love user fees, are opposed and want to take that $60 million from the General Fund. Lawmakers of both parties continue to insist that the increase would be especially hard on rural Maine, despite solid data that city and country folk drive the same number of miles. Worries that the gas tax could be siphoned off for other uses can easily be addressed in the law.

Tourists pay a big chunk of the gas tax. The five-cent increase would cost the average Maine driver about $24 a year. Again, not much for $60 million. If the General Fund proposal, combined with the sales tax cut, is intended to be a targetted break for working class Mainers, the Legislature is using marshmallows for ammunition.

The recession of the early ’90s did a lot of damage in Maine. The economy is recovering, but a bitter aftertaste lingers. North and South, urban and rural, townsperson and town hall — unnatural enemies have been created by the state’s failure to fully fund education. It will be a pleasant surprise, but little more, if the Legislature can cut the sales tax and fund highway repairs without raising the gas tax. First, though, it has a promise to keep.