STARTING WITH SOLUTIONS

Longtime legislator Peter Mills referred in an op-ed piece this week to Maine’s “start-and-stop government,” in which an antique tax engine is run hard until it breaks down, is patched at great expense of people and programs and then run hard until it breaks down again. He suggested that this did not make sense.

Maine government is in a “stop” phase now; a time, like 1991, when lawmakers must convene to cut services they had decided just weeks earlier were important to the wellbeing of Maine people. This is, in fact, a crucial time that will demonstrate how well the King administration prepared Maine for economic misfortune and what legislators learned from ’91, when, as Sen. Mills put it, “Workers demonstrated daily at the State House. Pensions were slashed. School funding was cut. Taxes were raised. Workers were laid off and programs curtailed.”

It is too late to avoid the pain of cuts for the year that begins July 1, but Sen. Mills, who is running for the House this year because term limits will end his time in the Senate, offers a reasonable way to rebuild part of the tax-and-spend structure to reduce the shock of breakdown during the next economic slowdown. He would do the following: Raise the Rainy Day fund to 10 percent of state annual revenues, which would equal $250 million currently, and add an untouchable $50 million capital reserve. Do less borrowing because debt payment is inflexible. Cut taxes but broaden the base so that it is less reactive to small economic changes. Cut property taxes “to relieve intolerable inequities.”

No matter what happens this summer with the budget, whether revenue forecasters find that Maine is not quite as bad off as thought in May, whether lawmakers cut responsibly or irresponsibly, commissions will be appointed to study how Maine can avoid repeating its current difficulty. If these commissions are to be of use at all, it will be to rally support for what seasoned legislators already know must be done. Sen. Mills’ proposals, it is clear, are an important part of the solution.