Term limits needed for all Maine legislators

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An item caught my eye in the Bangor Daily News recently. It is the attempt to end term limits for our legislators supported by this newspaper and naturally pushed vigorously by our representatives in Augusta.

Let’s look at the time frame 1945 to 1985 when we had no term limits and all-powerful Senate and House leaders ran the Legislature as a personal fief. During this time the Legislature presented us with more than 40 tax increases and innumerable regulations concerning business and private affairs culminating in making Maine the undisputed leader in the United States in taxation per capita and resulting in the closure of most manufacturing operations in the state.

Most corporations avoid even considering Maine as an operating location because of the totally inhospitable way they are being treated in this state. The few operations that set up shop in Maine were only enticed by tremendous tax breaks and abandon the

state the minute those breaks are gone.

At the same time these legislators for life created a welfare state that went from proud self-reliance to a culture of total dependence on the government dole. More than 50 percent of the Maine population is participating in some kind of support

program sponsored by the state. Thirty cents of every dollar budgeted by government entities in Maine is supplied by the federal government.

Without the federal dole the state of Maine would be bankrupt.

Thanks once again to the “experienced” legislators who were guiding Maine into this abyss. Presiding over this program of dependence on handouts is a state, county and municipal bureaucracy that saps the vitality out of the private sector through its constant demand for more funding. Maine is one of the few states in the nation – maybe the only one – where civil service income per capita is substantially higher than per capita income in the private sector.

Look around you. Every municipal, county, school and state operation throughout the state has a huge number of double dippers on the payroll. Private citizens need not apply.

Somehow every termed-out or turned-out-of-office legislator also seems to immediately find a home in this civil-service structure; a vicious money-consuming cycle that was instituted by the so-called “experienced” legislators that you pine for so much.

No wonder these so-called “service providers” spent so much of the taxpayers’ money in opposing ballot Question 1 that would have put a lid on their racket.

While the feeding and taking care of the government workers took a lot of effort and time from our “experienced” legislators they still found time to work on other issues to help Mainers. In 40 years they were unable to get an east-west highway built to allow for economic development in northern Maine. Come to think of it they were not even able to get a decent highway built to connect Fort Kent and Presque Isle with Madawaska.

They were able to create a Department of Human Service that routinely loses tens of millions of dollars without any consequences to the personnel involved. They created a Department of Transportation that believes maintenance is a dirty word and let one of the most important bridges on the midcoast rot for 30 years until it became unsafe.

Again no “service provider” is called to account.

At the University of Maine there are fully staffed departments that have an enrollment of five or seven or nine students per semester.

Oversight of other government entities had been completely abdicated by these “experienced” legislators. Let’s compare the record of these “experienced” legislators you pine for so much with our neighboring state – New Hampshire.

Forty years ago Maine was far ahead of New Hampshire in economic activities and personal income.

Now after an extended rule of 40 years by “experienced” legislators we have the following:

In 2003 Maine family income was approximately $35,000 – in New Hampshire it was $ 52,000.

New Hampshire taxes are almost the lowest in the United States – Maine has the second-highest taxation load.

New Hampshire has a vigorous and active private sector that keep its people in prosperity – Maine relies on transfer payments from Washington, D.C., to stay afloat.

People from all over the United States, including college graduates from Maine, move to New Hampshire to start a new life and create new business opportunities. Most people who move to Maine come for the easy availability of welfare support or to live out their retirement dream while their tax domicile is somewhere else. All thanks to the climate created by our “experienced” legislators.

Maine’s legislators collect $18,000 per biennium – New Hampshire legislators get $300 a year. Who do you think gets the better deal?

It is amazing that a poor engineer like me can see a connection here but the leading newspapers in Maine can’t.

The only reason I can see for your call to eliminate term limits and subject us again to the tyranny of “experienced” legislators like former House Speaker John Martin is to keep the people of this state in perpetual, economic and political bondage to the self-styled political and intellectual elite of Maine that always claims to know what’s best for the people of Maine.

Certainly your paper is not shy in telling Mainers how we should conduct our affairs. Only recently since term limits have been instituted some feeble attempts to reform the excess taxation problem and improve the business climate in Maine have come to fruition. Naturally the ruling elite feels threatened and wants to go back to the “good old days” when they were running things their way from the throne of the Senate presidency or the House leadership position in close cooperation and consultation with the civil service unions, the state judiciary and the editors of Maine’s largest papers.

Naturally the will of the people of Maine for fair treatment will only interfere with such a directorate, so the people be damned even though they spoke loudly – twice – for the institution of term limits. I ask all Mainers to do their utmost to maintain term limits for our legislators.

Peter Petersen is a chemical engineer who lives in Swanville.