PORTLAND – While a group of conservatives held an emergency summit on the state’s tax situation inside a city hotel, two dozen protesters who said limiting taxes on the wealthy hurts the state picketed outside.

The conference, titled “De-Taxing Maine,” was sponsored by the Maine Heritage Policy Center, which wants to reduce the amount of state and local taxes in Maine. The summit included a keynote speech by Grover Norquist, a polarizing figure in the tax debate and president of Americans for Tax Reform.

“Taxation involves taking money from the people who earned it and giving it to people who didn’t,” Norquist said during a lunchtime speech to the conference’s 150 attendees. “‘Fair’ strikes me as the wrong word for it.”

Norquist said it is easier for elected officials to raise taxes than to make hard decisions and choose not to fund certain programs, a message met with opposition from picketers outside Portland’s Holiday Inn on the Bay.

“I would like to thank Grover Norquist, who has done such a wonderful job of advocating for tax cuts for the wealthy,” said a top-hat wearing, cigar-smoking man who gave his name as Phil T. Rich.

One of nine extravagantly dressed men and women who emerged from a limousine marked the “Red Ink Express,” Rich was the alter ego of Dirigo Alliance director George Christie.

Dirigo is a coalition of advocacy groups that campaigns for social justice.

Christie said that although his group’s presentation was satirical, its message was serious.

“The notion that taxes are an affliction is ridiculous,” he said. “They are the dues we pay to live in a civil society.”

Bill Becker, director of the Maine Heritage Policy Center, said the government should figure out how to pay for the services it already provides before promising to expand them.

“The state is in an economic crisis right now,” he said. “Until we put some constitutional limitation on the rate at which government can grow, we will continue to be in this crisis situation.”

Rising property taxes have hurt retirees living on fixed incomes in the state, said Marta Badyk, who had come from Kennebunk to attend the conference.

“People who have dedicated their whole lives to the community, now they’re being told to pay up or get out,” she said. “That’s wrong.”

Norquist said he would support the 1 percent property tax cap that will be on Maine’s ballot this year.

“A property tax cap has been useful when put on through a citizen initiative,” he said. “It’s a big wake-up call to the Legislature.”