Thread: This How My Government in Maine Works......... They All Need

Democrats slip in tax increases with night vote

(They wouldn't think of cutting SPENDING! Both Parties here SUCK...)

Central Maine Newspapers Editorial April 17, 2008


This is hard to swallow.
If lawmakers had held public hearings about raising taxes on beer, wine, soda, flavored water and even health insurance transactions in order to help pay for the Dirigo Health insurance program, they would have gotten a mouthful from Maine consumers tired of being taxed too much.

But they didn't.

Instead, the majority Democrats passed those tax increases late Tuesday night, with little to no public input. Gov. John Baldacci signed the measure into law on Wednesday afternoon.

Consumers -- who will be hit with a 54 cents per gallon tax on beer, 65 cents per gallon tax on wine, 42 cents per gallon tax on soda and a 1.8 percent tax on all claims paid by health insurance companies -- didn't get a chance to make their views known.

The unfortunate vote came on a bill to bail out the financially shaky Dirigo program.

That proposal originally relied on an increase in tobacco taxes, which raised the hackles of smokers, but few others.

While that original bill, sponsored by Rep. Hannah Pingree, D-North Haven, would have passed the House, it ran into trouble in the closely divided Senate.

That's where Sen. Nancy Sullivan, D-York and co-chairwoman of the Insurance and Financial Affairs Committee, dug in her heels.

"We just can't keep going after cigarettes," she said. "We've raised it too much."

With Dirigo slated to run out of money by next February, supporters of the program were pretty much stuck. Either find another way to fund it that would make the notoriously stubborn Sullivan happy -- or watch it run out of money.

So they unearthed an old (and justifiably ignored) proposal to pay for Dirigo with liquor and soda taxes. Under cover of darkness, they passed it.

Along with the dramatically increased taxes on beer, wine and soda, the legislation also allows the state to use $5 million in tobacco settlement money to prop up Dirigo and to borrow $3.6 million from the General Fund for its support.

Dirigo Health was a noble experiment meant to provide low-cost insurance for Maine's growing population of the uninsured.

But the noble experiment has not met its promise: Far fewer people than projected have signed up for Dirigo and it is not, as yet, able to pay for itself.

One key aspect of its financial support, called the Savings Offset Payment, has been mired in legal challenges.

And as all its problems became apparent, the program became a political football. Democrats defended the program -- a signature initiative of Baldacci -- and Republicans pounded on it as a failed experiment in socialized medicine.

If the Democrats wanted to hand Republicans a great issue going into the 2008 election, they've just done it. We can hear it now: "Paying more for your beer and wine and soda? Blame the tax-and-spend Democrats and vote for Republicans!"

There may very well have been strong arguments to be made about the need for sin taxes on liquor, flavored water and soda in order to fund the expansion of low-cost health insurance in Maine. But sadly, those arguments were never made in a public forum. The public couldn't respond to the proposal. And the result was a last-minute tax increase foisted on Maine consumers.

In the old days, that was called "taxation without representation."

We're waiting for someone to organize a mass dumping of beer, wine, flavored water and soda into the Kennebec.

I know there are 'committees" looking into the costs for their leeching.
(Hope it isn't a duplicate.)
************************************************** *******
What costs more per year than the Iraq War?

I hope the following 14 reasons are forwarded over and over again
until they are read so many times that the reader gets sick of
reading them. I have included the URL's for verification of the
following facts:

1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year. http://tinyurl.com/zob77

2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens. http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.
http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English ! http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/ ... ldt.0.html

5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/ ... dt.01.html

6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/ ... dt.01.html

7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/ ... t..01.html

8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare and Social Services by the American taxpayers.
http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html

9. $200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/ ... dt.01.html

10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two-and-a-half times that of white non-illegal aliens.. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/ ... dt.01.html

11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border. Homeland Security Report. http://tinyurl.com/t9sht



12. The National Policy Institute, 'estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.' http://www. nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf ( http:/// )



13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin. http://www.rense ( http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm ).com/general75/niht.htm



14. 'The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States ' ht tp://www.drdsk ( http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml ).com/articleshtml

Total cost is a whooping ... $338.3 BILLION A YEAR!!!

If this doesn't bother you then just delete the message, but on the other hand, if it does raise the hair on the back of your neck, then forward it.



Snopes is provided for doubters:

http://www ( http://www/ )..snopes.com/politics/immigratio n/bankofamerica.asp ( http:/// )



Social Security Change For 2008



The United States Senate voted to extend Social Security Benefits to Illegal Aliens beginning in 2008. The following are the senators who voted to give illegal aliens Social Security benefits. They are grouped b y home state. If a state is not listed, there was no voting representative.



Alaska: Stevens (R)

Arizona : McCain (R)
Arkansas : Lincoln (D) Pryor (D)
Califo rnia : Boxer (D) Feinstein (D)
Colorado : Salazar (D)
Connecticut : Dodd (D) Lieberman (D) Delaware : Biden (D) Carper (D)
Florida : Martinez (R)
Hawaii : Akaka (D) Inouye (D)
Illinois: Durbin (D)Obama (D)
Indiana : Bayh (D) Lugar (R)
Iowa : Harkin (D)
Kansas : Brownback (R)
Louisiana : Landrieu (D)
Maryland : Mikulski (D) Sarbanes (D)
Massachusetts : Kennedy (D) Kerry (D)
Montana : Baucus (D)
Nebraska : Hagel (R)
Nevada : Reid (D)
New Jersey : Lautenberg (D) Menendez (D)
New Mexico : Bing aman (D)
New York: Clinton(D) Schumer (D)
North Dakota : Dorgan (D)
Ohio : DeWine (R) Voinovich(R)
Oregon : Wyden (D)
Pennsylvania : Specter (R)
Rhode Island : Chafee (R) Reed (D)
South Carolina : Graham (R)
South Dakota : Johnson (D)
Vermont : Jeffords (I) Leahy (D)
Washington : Cantwell (D) Murray (D)
West Virginia : Rockefeller (D), by Not Voting
Wisconsin : Feingold (D) Kohl (D)