On Tax Day, Maine leaders and all Maine residents must take a hard look at our tax and budget policies. Over the last several years, the Bush administration and Republican-led Congresses have dramatically shifted the tax burden onto the shoulders of middle-class American families while millionaires and corporate special interests have been allowed to avoid paying their fair share. It’s time to reverse that course.

Six years of irresponsible budget cuts and reckless tax breaks, which favor the well-heeled and well-connected over working families, have created vast inequity, concentrating wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer and leaving most of us behind. It’s hardly a secret that since 2001, the Bush tax cuts have increased the gap between the rich and everyone else, concentrating more income in the hands of millionaires and billionaires. Some startling statistics show that income inequality has reached levels not seen since before the Great Depression: The top 300,000 Americans collectively take in almost as much income as the bottom 150 million Americans combined, and the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans are now more than 400 times richer than the average American.

Among the tragic effects of America’s growing income gap is the one-sided effect President Bush’s war-without-end in Iraq has had on low-income families. In addition to shouldering the bulk of American deaths and serious injuries, working families have lost access to vital health care, education and other services whose funds have been cut to make room for war spending. If this country is truly committed to supporting strong public education and quality, affordable health care for all, among other priorities, we cannot ignore the very real financial toll President Bush’s war has had on our ability to invest in America’s future. America cannot continue to cut funding for education and health care to siphon money into an endless war while handing millionaires and corporate interests reckless tax giveaways. The people who ran the country for the last six years had their priorities upside-down. Former House Majority Leader Tom Delay once claimed, “Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes.” The new Congress must seize the opportunity to reverse this course. Our nation and our economy work best when we invest in our future and all of us pay our fair share.

We all have a shared responsibility to pay for investments that will serve the common good. This should be accomplished by implementing a fair and progressive tax system. This shared responsibility will only be achieved if we eliminate the tax handouts that overwhelmingly benefit those making more than $200,000 a year and eliminate corporate tax breaks and other subsidies that do little to create broad economic opportunity or sustainable prosperity.

It means that the percentage of income we all pay should be similar and that all income is taxed uniformly regardless of how it is achieved.

It is time for Maine’s elected officials to lead us in a new direction and begin building toward a brighter future. On Election Day 2006, Americans demanded a new direction and a new set of national priorities that reflect our values. Our leaders must implement fair tax and budget policies so that all have the opportunity to achieve the American dream.

My fellow Maine residents, please take the occasion of Tax Day to be a vocal community advocate for a just tax system and maintain communication with your state and federal legislators urging them to take the lead on implementing a fair and equitable tax policy that reflects America’s real priorities.

Milt Hillery of Orono is co-chair of the board of directors for the Maine People’s Alliance.