Maine needs to shift its tactics in reviving its economy. The heyday of manufacturing and papermaking is over.

Would attracting these types of jobs be better for Maine’s economy? Of course. Are the chances this will ever happen, good? Of course, not.

It is time for Mainers to get over living in the past and focus on the future.

Maine needs to revive its economy from the bottom up. It has been proven nationally that the trickle down economic theory does absolutely nothing. As the rich get more tax breaks, the lower class get a higher tax burden and higher poverty.

The childhood poverty rate in Maine alone jumped 17 percent last year.

The economy needs more jobs. Period.

There are those in the state that oppose part-time, minimum wage jobs in the service and tourism area, calling them “trinket” jobs. Maine needs to get over this anti-trinket mentality. A job is a job.

Two hundred minimum – wage jobs at 20 hours a week equals roughly $1.3 million annually pumped into the economy. More importantly, this money will go where it is needed – to the lower class families that are struggling. This $1.3 million is nothing to turn down.

So why are we fighting this? In a time when the nation as a whole has had stagnant growth over the past five years. Growth is growth.

Maine should step up again and lead the nation and create jobs – any jobs.

Bruce A. Fleming

Bangor