Author: Kimberley Rosen

This article was originally published in The Ellsworth American. The Maine Legislature is expected to adjourn in a few short weeks, but the March snowstorms put us somewhat behind schedule. There is a lot to be done and a short amount of time to do it in. We have some major bills before us that are still working through the process, but there’s one proposal in particular that is of great importance — tax conformity. Every state conforms to the federal tax code, either automatically or through legislation. Maine is a static conformity state, meaning the Legislature must vote on…

When it comes to Medicaid expansion, at one time, Maine was ahead of the curve. In 2002, long before the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) was established, Maine elected to expand Medicaid availability to able-bodied, childless adults at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty line. The result was an incredibly costly program that cannibalized other important state programs, such as education, as enrollment greatly exceeded all projections. It was ineffective at achieving its stated goals and left Maine hospitals footing the bill for hundreds of millions of dollars for services that taxpayers couldn’t afford to pay within a reasonable…

There’s been a lot of talk in Augusta lately about the implications of the referendum questions passed on last November’s ballot. This week, the Committee on Taxation held public hearings on a number of bills, all seeking to address Question 2, the referendum question that added a three percent income tax on certain filers in order to meet the state’s obligation to fund K-12 education at 55 percent. The bills that are currently before the committee range from a full repeal of Question 2 to simply tweaking the threshold of when the new income tax rate kicks in. Another bill,…