Minding Maine business

Stephen Bowen argues that Maine’s tax burden is bloated and needs to be reduced (BDN oped, Jan. 31). Although the system could use restructuring, Mainers should be very careful about radically reducing taxes. Here’s why.

Reducing taxes shifts power from government to corporations. The primary function of government is the protection and health of the people. The primary function of corporations is to turn a profit. Moreover, we’re seeing more and more business in our state that has its headquarters and primary set of concerns outside our borders (as we’ve all witnessed, small business usually cannot compete against such giants, barring protection, and is assimilated or replaced). More money to such business is more money taken out of Maine to establish capital wherever these national and multinational companies can best impress their shareholders.

When profit comes first, education, health care, and environment tend to suffer. Do you want an extra two weeks of salary to invest in your child’s college fund, as Bowen suggests, or do you want the state to subsidize that education? Do you want more tax breaks for Wal-Mart so more workers can get low-paying service jobs without health care benefits, or do you want universal health care coverage? Do you want rampant growth that will reduce the amazing beauty of Maine, or do you want the already rare and precious kind of environment that we possess defended for our peace of mind and collective esteem? Do you want the road rage, anxiety, crime and general loss of community that comes from generic globally focused industry? Or do you want a legislated standard of serene human dignity long associated with Maine, the good life’?

My hopes for environmental, health and education benefits are not utopian. America is the only industrialized country without universal health care. The Scandinavian model for example, with its high tax rate, provides a wonderful standard of living for its people, including paid vacations, paid maternity and day care, plus education and health subsidies-all this with concurrent economic growth.

There’s no reason that a strong government cannot complement a strong economy. Extreme concentrations of power in either government or business are dangerous. Right now, corporate lobbies are dismantling protections against “free trade” everywhere, which means big business gets to do what it wants without lots of oversight. Maine, along with the rest of the world, is changing at an alarming rate. The scientists, demographers and scholars who talk about a massive global environmental crisis, and an enormous shifting of the wealth even further into the hands of the wealthiest, should not be simply ignored.

Don’t let greed run rampant in the state. Keep vigilant against big developers and corporations as well as government. Don’t strip power away from the institutions that are more concerned with the splendor of Maine and the weal of its people than abstract notions like productivity and growth rates, notions that don’t necessarily correlate with increased happiness.

Chris Crittenden, Ph.D. lives in Lubec.