If courage is grace under pressure, what do you call pratfalls under pressure? State government has slipped often on the banana peel of tax reform, but this week’s landing was spectacular. On the day the Maine Taxpayer’s Action Network rejoiced over having its destructive property tax cap approved, the Legislature’s Tax Committee got serious and struck back by welcoming a former television star, Loretta Swit, to the State House to discuss the many benefits of pet spaying.

Peel. Step. Slip. Wham!

Government is a durable creation. It can rise from this latest fall just as it has from its other failed attempts at reform. But the cumulative effect of these and of so much else – manufacturing departing faster here than anywhere, low wages, an education system dropping in national rankings, an overall tax burden that scares businesses away, a lack of investment in research – leaves Maine bruised and desperate for a new routine.

The tax cap would cut Maine’s average property tax rate of 18 mills to 10 mills. Municipalities, especially service-center cities, would suddenly find themselves with millions or tens of millions of dollars less for schools, fire departments, police, sanitation, housing and dozens of other services. The loss of revenue would have interesting effects. For instance, fees – for trash, for school sports, building inspections – would suddenly become popular.

But those wouldn’t begin to make up for the lost revenues, even after municipal layoffs. Increased state taxes – sales or income, maybe both – would be inevitable. Whatever state tax is chosen the result would be the same: surrender of local control. When the state pays the fiddler, the tune it calls is regulation. This is understandable. The government spending the tax dollars has an obligation to ensure they are spent wisely, but I doubt more regulation is what Maine residents want.

Another effect of the tax cap, which includes a strict limit on increasing property valuations: Maine would have its own version of New York City’s rent control, in which taxes remain low for those who keep their homes and are higher for people who have purchased them more recently. This disparity could make it uneconomical for homeowners to sell and move elsewhere, leaving some retired couples, their children grown and gone, living in large houses they don’t need, keeping these homes off the market. The result is widely varying property taxes on similarly valued homes depending on when they were last sold.

This is not only inequitable, it may be unconstitutional. Article IX of the state constitution says taxes “shall be apportioned and assessed equally according to the just value thereof.” Under the MTAN plan, the just value of a home is tossed out and replaced with a base-year value.

(The investor Warren Buffett makes this point about California’s Proposition 13, on which the Maine tax cap is based. Mr. Buffett wrote last fall in the Wall Street Journal that he owns two nearby homes in Laguna Beach, one worth $2 million, on which he pays $12,000 a year in property tax, and one worth twice that, $4 million, on which he pays only $2,264 in property tax. Fairness, apparently, lives out of state.) And what affects homes also affects businesses. Under the tax cap, a new business owning property similar in value to property owned by an established business would pay significantly higher taxes. Why would Maine want to discourage new business?

These are all reasons for opposing this idea, but that’s not why I am writing about it. I’m writing about the tax cap because two other tax-reform plans were also presented this week. One was from a mostly liberal coalition called Taxpayers for a Fair Budget, which wants to trade higher or broader sales taxes for lower property taxes, and one from State House Republicans, who want spending restraint and a milder form of a property tax cap. Both plans have strengths – the GOP plan would make the governor’s pledge for budget restraint meaningful, the coalition would target tax relief to those who need it most – and both have shortcomings. For instance, the coalition’s plan relies on bringing Maine’s three major taxes to each equal one-third of the total tax mix but have no good reason for doing so; the milder tax cap in the GOP plan would eventually have results similar to the MTAN plan. But the biggest problem with them is that they both exist.

Consider that: Maine is losing good jobs (the three hottest jobs for the decade on the Department of Labor list are cashier positions, food prep and retail sales), can’t pay its current bills without selling off state assets, can’t lower its tax rates without causing havoc and now has a citizen’s initiative that would devastate town budgets and still the two political sides have not figured out they must work together.

The announcement that could have been made this week would have come from both groups and said something like this: “The MTAN proposal has woken us up across the political spectrum. We understand the depth of Maine’s economic difficulties and understand Maine’s tax system is a part of the problem. After many weeks of hard work and compromise, we have agreed on a combination of spending restraint and targeted property-tax relief to those carrying the heaviest tax burden. We pledge to see this entire package of reforms passed in the Legislature and will work together to defeat the tax cap.”

Instead, separate announcements, ideas that won’t go anywhere for lack of support, time wasted as the tax-cap referendum grows nearer.

That pet-spay bill, by the way, passed the committee unanimously.

Peel. Step. Slip. Wham!

Todd Benoit is the BDN editorial page editor.