Author: Liam Sigaud

Following a national trend, Maine lawmakers decided in June to raise taxes on tobacco products and e-cigarettes. Rep. Joyce McCreight, the bill’s sponsor, argued, “This tax increase must apply to all tobacco products. To be effective in prevention and cessation, we need a comprehensive approach to tobacco control and that means equivalent taxes, whether we are talking about combustible cigarettes, pipe tobacco, small and large cigars or e-cigarettes.” But by lumping e-cigarettes in with combustible tobacco products, Maine policymakers have lost sight of the bigger picture. So-called “sin” taxes typically serve two objectives. One is to generate government revenue. The…

This week, in honor of Labor Day, the Maine Center for Economic Policy’s James Myall published an article claiming that unions “promote [a] stronger, fairer economy for all workers.” The piece makes three main claims, all of which omit key information or gloss over important distinctions. Unions combat income inequality To demonstrate that unions reduce income inequality, Myall presents a graph showing that since the 1960s, unionization rates in Maine have exhibited a fairly strong negative correlation with the ratio of earnings between the rich and poor. Of course, this is a mere correlation, and drawing causal inferences from it…

A powerful committee in the U.S. Senate is considering legislation that could have significant negative effects on Mainers seeking treatment from cutting-edge drugs. The measure would remove the existing requirement that a biologic or biosimilar product sold in the U.S. adhere to public standards, called monographs, set by the U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP), an independent non-profit organization that has helped protect the quality of American drugs for more than a century. The USP’s standards dictate the purity, potency, and other characteristics of drug ingredients. The class of products under scrutiny, biologics and biosimilars, are large, sophisticated molecules produced in living organisms.…

Advocates of a higher minimum wage rarely appeal to scholarly research to bolster their case. Instead, you’re more likely to hear vague, evasive slogans about “living wages,” greedy employers or the top 1 percent. The reason is simple: The vast majority of empirical, peer-reviewed studies of minimum wage hikes find negative employment effects, particularly among teens and low-skill adults. When pressed for rigorous evidence that minimum wages help more than they harm, progressives often cite a study conducted in 1994 by economists David Card of the University of California and Alan Krueger of Princeton, who documented an apparent example of…

I’ve lived in Maine all my life, and I can’t remember a time when winter road conditions were worse than they were last winter. Ruts, frost heaves, and potholes were everywhere, from narrow city streets to state highways. On a stretch of Route 1 not far from my house, drivers slowed to a crawl to navigate the gaping holes in the pavement. Much of the damage has been repaired since, but road maintenance needs around the state continue to far exceed available funds. From a policy perspective, the central issue is that improvements in fuel efficiency (the average light-duty vehicle…

The decline of Maine’s manufacturing sector, whose workforce has shrunk by nearly half since the early 1990s, can seem inexorable, the unavoidable consequence of automation and globalization. In some ways, state policymakers can do little to resist these broader trends. Yet there are policies Maine could implement to re-invigorate our manufacturing industry. Perhaps the most important: Right-to-work legislation. Right-to-work laws prevent private-sector unions from forcing employees who choose not to join the union to pay union dues. In the absence of right-to-work protections, employees at a unionized workplace must financially support the union or lose their jobs. In Maine, the…

It is tempting to think of America’s economic classes as stable and sedentary. Talk of widening income inequality has cemented in the minds of many the notion that the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. An immutable line seems to be drawn between the top 1 percent (or the top 10 percent) and the rest of us, alienating both groups and preventing any cross-over. The data tells a different story. In reality, Americans are constantly moving up and down the economic ladder. “Nearly 60 percent of households in the bottom income quintile in 1999 were in…

Governments spend a good deal of time and money attempting to solve problems of their own making. Endemic poverty, the target of hundreds of billions of dollars in government aid each year, has been exacerbated by poorly-designed public programs. The charter school movement is an effort to provide alternatives to failing public schools. Government re-entry programs seek to reverse the harm done by an overzealous justice system. Maine’s housing crisis is a compelling example of this paradox. On the one hand, local governments in Maine — with the tacit approval of lawmakers in Augusta — impose draconian land use policies…

Turn on the local news or pick up a Maine newspaper and it won’t take long for someone to mention the “Two Maines,” a rather nebulous term meant to encapsulate the many differences between Maine’s relatively prosperous coastal and southern counties and the more economically-depressed northern and western parts of the state. Rural Maine is generally regarded as poorer, less educated, and more demographically skewed than coastal Maine. Unfortunately, discussion of the “Two Maines” concept is rarely accompanied by hard data. Below, I use the latest Census figures to provide some key facts to help understand how the “Two Maines”…

Every two years, the Maine Office of Tax Policy releases a lengthy report on tax expenditures, the multitude of carveouts in state law that reduce the tax liability of certain taxpayers. Buried at the end of the 239-page report is a separate analysis of tax incidence, including a distributional evaluation of Maine’s tax code. Simply put, it breaks down the state and local tax burden by income group, showing how much poor families pay relative to the middle-class and the wealthy. Since the analysis draws on confidential tax records and the latest available data, it provides by far the most…

A $15 federal minimum wage would wipe out 1.3 million low-income jobs and boost the wages of at least 17 million workers, according to a report released earlier this month from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Congress’s non-partisan number-crunching arm. Overall, one worker would get a pink slip for every 13 people getting a pay raise. Ever since a landmark 1992 study challenged the conventional wisdom that higher minimum wages reduce employment, the effect of minimum wages has been one of the most closely examined topics in all of labor economics. With so many dueling papers in the literature, CBO’s…

The effort to expand Maine’s estate tax, more aptly known as the “death tax,” was dealt a blow this week, but the issue is likely to be a perennial focus of progressives throughout Governor Mills’ tenure as they seek to raise taxes on the wealthiest Mainers. The estate tax, which is collected when property changes hands after the owner’s death, currently kicks in at $5.7 million in Maine. Under Governor LePage, lawmakers repeatedly raised the exemption threshold, imposing the tax on a smaller, richer slice of the population. Democratic lawmakers, backed by the Maine Center for Economic Policy, are eager…

As we approach the ten-year anniversary of Maine’s historic public charter school system, there is much to celebrate about how the expansion of educational choice has benefited Maine’s families, students, and taxpayers. Yet lawmakers in Augusta are poised to halt this progress by permanently capping the number of charter schools permitted to operate in Maine. Under the law, LD 307, which has passed both chambers of the legislature and sits on Governor Mills’ desk, only 10 charter schools could be authorized in Maine. With nine charter schools already in operation and multiple groups vying to create a tenth, LD 307…

To advocates of a limited public sector, there’s a lot to dislike about the scope of Maine state government. Billions of taxpayer dollars are doled out each year to fund corporate welfare, support ineffective social assistance programs and prop up a dysfunctional education system. But few policies are as blatantly anti-competitive and harmful to consumers as the way milk production and prices are controlled in Maine. While the markets for most goods and services are relatively open to the free influences of supply and demand, our dairy industry is so tightly overseen by bureaucrats that a farmer could be prosecuted…

To an obdurate defender of economic theory’s central simplifying assumption — that people act to maximize their long-run satisfaction — lotteries provide a formidable counterexample. Indeed, it’s difficult to imagine a clearer embodiment of humans’ irrationality. The math is simple: A few years ago, the Maine State Lottery made $272.3 million in ticket sales and awarded $178.2 million in winnings. In other words, the expected return on a $1 ticket was 65 cents. If everyone was driven by calculating self-interest, not a single lottery ticket would ever be purchased. Yet since its inception in 1974, the Maine State Lottery has…

For years in the Maine Legislature lawmakers have grappled with countless ideas to expand access to affordable health care services. Unfortunately, many of these proposals include provisions that would undermine the free market or saddle taxpayers with millions of dollars in new taxes. Two such proposals this legislative session are LDs 109 and 407. LD 109 would establish a public health insurance option while LD 407 would create a single-payer “universal health care” system. Both bills are scheduled for a public hearing on Thursday, May 9 at 1 p.m. before the Health Coverage, Insurance and Financial Services Committee. The idea…

Expanding access to affordable child care is of pressing concern to many Maine families. As we’ve noted in the past, Maine lost more than 600 child care providers between 2008 and 2018, most of them in family child care. This is typically the most affordable option for parents, meaning their exit from the market has hurt the affordability of this service. According to Child Care Aware of America, in 2018, the annual cost of center-based care for a four-year-old in Maine was $8,776. Legislators are often asked to tackle this problem, but more often the not, the so-called solutions end…

Lawmakers on Maine’s Labor and Housing Committee today will hold a public hearing on LD 1345, a bill that would require employers to provide their employees with at least two weeks prior notice of the employees’ work schedule. The bill would penalize employers for making scheduling changes without giving employees adequate notice, despite employers having little control over day-to-day events that cause scheduling changes to arise in the first place. The language of LD 1345 reads in part: “..an employer shall provide an employee with the following compensation per shift for each previously scheduled shift that the employer moves to…

Lawmakers in Augusta have proposed a spate of bills this session in an attempt to mitigate the negative effects of Maine’s 2016 minimum wage hike, which will bring our wage floor to $12 per hour next year. One of the bills under consideration, LD 612, would establish a lower minimum wage for teenagers ($1 lower than the general minimum wage for 16 and 17-year-olds, $2 lower for 15-year-olds, and $3 lower for 14-year-olds). So in 2020, when Maine’s $12 minimum wage is fully phased-in, an employer would have to pay a 14-year-old no less than $9 per hour (not too…

High school guidance counselors, parents and popular culture have spent decades telling young people that the key to success is a bachelor’s degree. The result is soaring student debt and a persistent disconnect between Mainers’ skills and in-demand jobs. The Maine Department of Labor estimates that over the next several years our state will have annual job openings for 984 truck drivers, 625 carpenters, 482 maintenance workers, 356 electricians, 254 plumbers, 244 painters, 204 HVAC technicians, 189 welders, 131 machinists, and on and on and on. A glance at any job board in Maine confirms that hundreds of employers are…

Have you ever wondered where the poverty figures you read in the paper or see on the news come from? What qualifies a person as “poor”? The poverty statistics discussed in the media are almost always the “official” poverty estimates compiled by the Census Bureau based on surveys of American households. The official poverty measure was developed in the 1960s by an entrepreneurial young economist named Mollie Orshansky working for the Social Security Administration. The Johnson administration was launching its “War on Poverty” and wanted a measuring stick to gauge the success of its social programs. Orshansky was charged with…

Governor Mills is preparing to unveil her budget proposal for the next biennium and we’re about to learn if she resisted the pressure from her legislative allies to shift more of Maine’s tax burden onto the shoulders of top-earners. Whether or not she chooses to violate her campaign pledge to not raise taxes in her first budget, any significant proposals to change Maine’s tax code will likely revolve around the income tax — a new income bracket, perhaps, or a flurry of tax credit expansions. Since Governor LePage’s earliest days, most of the political discussion on Maine’s tax code on…

The tiny house movement is not a panacea for all our housing woes. But these homes do appeal to many millennials looking for financial stability and a simplified life. Arbitrary rules should not stand in their way.

Much has been made — for good reason — of the federal government’s fiscal imbalance. High and rising debt (fast approaching $22 trillion), large budget deficits despite a healthy economy and a growing debt-to-GDP ratio should make every American uneasy. While the situation at the federal level is bleak, the fiscal outlook for state and local governments isn’t much better. A recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a nonpartisan government watchdog, reveals that state and local governments are on an unsustainable spending trajectory that will be increasingly difficult to reverse as time passes. Over the next five decades,…

For the second time in 17 years, Maine has expanded Medicaid. Governor Mills has directed DHHS to take swift action to enroll newly eligible able-bodied adults, and at least 70,000 people are now able to sign up for free health care. Gov. Mills cloaked her executive order in rosy rhetoric, but the stark realities of funding Medicaid expansion can’t be ignored for long. Now that Medicaid expansion is here, we must find a responsible and sustainable way to fund it. Maine’s own previous experiment with expanding Medicaid to able-bodied adults shows that Maine taxpayers will soon feel the fiscal consequences…

It is no secret that the Mills administration and legislative Democrats are planning to launch a big push for a universal pre-K program this year. Universal pre-K has been on progressives’ wishlist for a long time, and they just might have the votes in the legislature to make it a reality in Maine. In the next few months, you are likely to hear politicians talk about how universal pre-K is a way to help disadvantaged children catch up to their peers, reverse Maine’s sliding national K-12 education rankings, and deliver tangible societal benefits that will strengthen our workforce and economy…

With Janet Mills poised to take control of the Blaine House in just a few weeks and strong Democratic majorities in the legislature backing up her policy agenda, there is little doubt that the swift implementation of Medicaid expansion — however ill-advised — will be a top priority for her administration. She said as much after her victory. But if Mills truly wants what’s best for Maine’s neediest citizens, she would do well to adopt — with federal approval — work requirements for newly-eligible, non-disabled, working-age adults. Medicaid work requirements are often couched in terms of making sure those who…

A federal judge’s ruling that the entire Affordable Care Act (ACA) — Medicaid expansion, subsidies through the exchanges, Medicare reforms, everything — is unconstitutional shocked the political world last Friday. The case had already been appealed, of course, and we can expect it to wind its way through the courts, perhaps even to the Supreme Court, in the months and years ahead. Legal scholars — of which I am not one — seem to question the grounds of Friday’s ruling, and it could easily be overturned by a higher court, defusing the threat to the ACA. Whether final adjudication will…

If you’ve followed Maine politics in the last two years, you know that contention surrounding the ballot initiative process has animated much debate, both inside and outside the Maine Legislature. Some, like the Maine Heritage Policy Center, believe that our referendum process is dysfunctional and easily manipulated by outside interests who use Maine to experiment with radical policies. Others, including the Maine People’s Alliance (MPA), a major contributor to several recent ballot initiatives, argue that the referendum process provides an important check on legislative inaction by enabling Mainers to directly enact popular but politically infeasible laws. After Mainers approved a…

It’s no secret that Maine’s public K-12 education system needs work. Bloated bureaucracies keep money from flowing to the classroom. Powerful teachers’ unions stymie efforts to make educators accountable for their performance. Maine’s once-exalted standing in national rankings has sharply eroded. But a new paper by the Cato Institute shows just how poorly Maine’s public schools are performing. The paper reveals that popular state rankings — like those created by U.S. News & World Report and Education Week — use a flawed methodology that inflates Maine’s position relative to other states. For example, state rankings reported by news organizations frequently…

After the sounds of boisterous campaign rallies fade and the realities of the job sink in, Maine’s next governor will face a state with serious long-term challenges. The bold policy proposals and big promises that characterized the election season will have to adapt to the realities of leading a deeply divided state and unifying a fractious legislature around a common vision. Politicians campaign in poetry, the saying goes, but govern in prose. Here are five public policy areas the next administration must tackle to set Maine on the path toward greater prosperity. Declining population Maine isn’t just the oldest state…

The Maine Center for Economic Policy (MECEP) recently released an analysis of interstate migration, attacking the idea that Maine’s exceptionally high level of taxation drives away high-income families — a concept, popularly known as “tax flight,” which The Maine Wire and the Maine Heritage Policy Center have defended. MECEP’s report begins by presenting data that shows that high-income Americans are less likely to move than lower-income groups. MECEP reasons that this is because “wealthy people have deep roots in their communities through professional, family and friend circles” and that they “can afford to stay put in order to maintain those…

Last month, the Maine Center for Economic Policy (MECEP) published a study on the minimum wage in Maine, arguing that its effects on low-income families and children are overwhelmingly positive. Regular readers of the Maine Wire may recall a similar article last spring. It seems that time hasn’t improved the quality of MECEP’s work. MECEP’s report claims that new data from the Census Bureau “shows that as a result of the minimum wage increase, wage growth in Maine was concentrated among the lowest-paid workers.” MECEP offers no evidence to support its claim that wage growth is causally connected to the minimum…

The standard objection to increasing the minimum wage is that it will result in more unemployment for low-skilled workers. But for many voters, that’s beside the point. The real question most people have is, will a higher minimum wage reduce poverty? And while controversy persists in the professional literature about minimum wages’ effects on employment, there is little dispute among labor economists that minimum wage hikes are a poor anti-poverty strategy. Why? For two reasons: First, higher minimum wages make it harder for low-skilled workers to find and keep jobs. Second, few of the beneficiaries of higher minimum wages are…

1,700 fewer Maine residents. 1,800 fewer workers in our labor force. 3,800 fewer jobs. A $500 million reduction in personal income. A $300 million drop in state GDP. That, according to an economic impact report from the Maine State Economist’s office, is the worst case scenario (compared to baseline projections) if the universal home care initiative on the ballot this fall passes. In other words, these figures indicate how Maine’s economy would fare under the home care initiative, compared to what forecasters think would happen in the absence of the policy change. And that’s just the first year (2019) of…

The latest in a long list of misrepresentations from the Maine People’s Alliance regarding the upcoming Universal Home Care initiative came on Saturday in an article penned by failed two-time Lewiston mayoral candidate and MPA political engagement director Ben Chin. In the piece, Chin attempts to use recent comments by radio host Ray Richardson that only a small minority of Mainers would be directly impacted by the proposed tax hikes to argue that the home care initiative is a way to make Maine’s tax system “a bit more fair.” One of Chin’s central points is that some of Maine’s wealthiest…

Ever since the Trump administration signaled its openness to work requirements for able-bodied Medicaid recipients earlier this year, the onslaught from liberal groups has been fierce. Supporters of work requirements have been characterized as stingy and callous. Governor LePage has been relentlessly attacked for his support of the idea. But if you cut through the rhetoric and examine the issue thoughtfully, you’re tempted to wonder what the fuss is about. Here are a few facts to remember regarding this debate. The number of non-working, able-bodied Medicaid recipients has exploded since Obamacare’s passage, to the detriment of the truly needy Based…

Earlier this week, Maine House Republicans sustained Governor LePage’s veto of a bill to implement Medicaid expansion, preventing more than $31 million from being raided from the unappropriated surplus of the budget. Vetoing efforts to massively expand the Medicaid program to able-bodied, childless adults has become a perennial occurrence for LePage, who has consistently emphasized the importance of stabilizing the DHHS budget by prioritizing care for the elderly, disabled, and children. Since Medicaid expansion was approved by voters last year, the legislature has failed to offer a credible mechanism to finance this unprecedented expansion of the welfare state. Using budget surplus…

The biggest flaw in most social assistance programs — including TANF, SNAP, Medicaid, and WIC — is that they undermine the very thing that would help their beneficiaries secure long-term financial independence: work. In 2013, an analysis by the Cato Institute revealed that welfare programs in 35 states paid more than a minimum wage job. In Maine, a single mother with two young children could collect nearly $20,000 in annual welfare benefits. Welfare recipients who seek entry-level employment typically lose more in government benefits than they earn, reducing their total income. This perverse incentive structure removes any motivation for a…

Economists have long criticized politicians’ penchant for creating narrow legal carveouts and targeted tax exemptions to lure large corporations. Both economic theory and empirical evidence indicate that these incentives are ineffective ways of spurring economic development. The scale of this problem at the federal level is quite alarming. In 2012, the Cato Institute calculated that the federal government spends almost $100 billion annually on corporate welfare. That’s an average of $870 for every American family. It is confusing enough collecting data on federal agencies to come up with an aggregate figure, but, until recently, the task of doing so at lower…

Advocates of ranked-choice voting (RCV) commonly claim that their preferred method of deciding elections boosts civic engagement, channels the true will of the people and strengthens our democracy. But for all the empty rhetoric, RCV may actually have significant voter-suppression effects. A study from Stanford University found that voter turnout in mayoral elections declined relative to plurality elections after RCV was implemented, though the result was not statistically significant. Even more concerning, a great deal of evidence suggests that the number of spoiled ballots in RCV elections is substantial. During municipal RCV elections in Minneapolis, MN, in 2009, “10.5 percent…

Last month, the Maine Center for Economic Policy posted an article on its website chastising Governor LePage and other Republican lawmakers for having the audacity to suggest that able-bodied adults who receive Medicaid benefits should be required to work at least 80 hours every month, or an average of 20 hours per week. The author of the piece, James Myall, cites research conducted by the Washington, DC-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) that used large federal datasets to calculate how many workers in the United States would currently fail to meet the minimum of 80 work hours per…

Earlier this year, the Maine Center for Economic Policy, a left-wing think tank, published an article written by its budget and education analyst, James Myall. The piece, entitled “Minimum Wage Increase Contributes to Largest Annual Wage Gain in 10 years,” makes bold claims about the minimum wage increase passed by Maine voters in 2016. In particular, Myall asserts that the minimum wage has not inflicted harm on Maine’s economy and has actually improved the lives of low-income workers. Yet Myall’s sloppy and fallacious analysis fails to offer any persuasive evidence to justify his claims, and should lead any reasonable person…

As Maine’s successful reforms to its health insurance market in 2011 continue to fuel the national conversation about ObamaCare repeal and replacement, progressives are desperate to paint those reforms as dismal failures. In a blog post last Friday, Mike Tipping characterized PL 90–the landmark healthcare reform law passed in 2011–as a “failed Republican experiment. Unfortunately for Tipping, the facts tell a different story. To understand PL 90’s impact, it’s important to consider the historical context. In 1993, legislators passed several health insurance regulations that weakened free market forces and increased health insurance prices for most Mainers. Two policy changes in…

Tired of being forced to have your car inspected every year? Do you think the only beneficiaries of Maine’s inspection program are car mechanics and government bureaucrats? We all know how it works. Your inspection sticker is about to expire. You bring your car to the dealership, where the mechanic tells you it’s going to need $500 in repairs before it’ll pass inspection. Wanting a second opinion, you drive to another mechanic. He wants to charge you $250, so you bring it to one more garage and they give you a sticker, no questions asked. Meanwhile, your car is only…

They’re at it again. Having repeatedly failed to achieve Medicaid expansion through the legislative process, liberals in Maine have succeeded in putting it on the ballot this November. Despite the new tactics, much has stayed the same in the Medicaid expansion debate, including the overwhelming evidence that broadening Medicaid eligibility would destabilize the state’s finances. In states that have expanded their Medicaid programs, enrollment projections have routinely been exceeded, per patient spending on new recipients has shattered expectations, and budget shortfalls have become commonplace. If those things sound familiar, perhaps it’s because we’ve been down this road before. In 2001,…

Many liberal groups, including the Maine People’s Alliance, the Maine Center for Economic Policy and the Economic Policy Institute, assert that higher taxes on millionaires does little to motivate them to move to more tax-friendly states. In 2014, the Maine People’s Alliance claimed that research “demonstrates tax flight is a myth.” A blog post by the Maine Center for Economic Policy in 2013 declared, “Tax flight, to be blunt, is anecdote-fueled mythology by careful analysis…” The data prove them wrong. When faced with high taxes, wealthy taxpayers often look for greener pastures to invest in their small businesses, create jobs…

This week, the Maine School Management Association (MSMA) – a nonprofit comprised of the Maine School Boards Association and the Maine School Superintendents Association – released a white paper on Question 2, the ballot measure which would impose a three percent surtax on high-income households in order to provide additional funding for public K-12 education. Though the MSMA stopped short of recommending that the ballot initiative be defeated, it offered several reasons why the measure would be ineffective. The report pointed out that a reliance on income taxes to fund basic services – especially education – makes us vulnerable to…

Last week, a memo was leaked to the press outlining the LePage administration’s intention to push for a dramatic reduction in Maine’s government workforce in next year’s budget proposal. The plan, according to the Portland Press Herald, would eliminate about 2,300 state jobs, a nearly 20 percent reduction. Labor unions and progressive groups were quick to condemn the proposal. “These cuts would add additional stress on an already greatly reduced workforce and further compromise our ability to deliver the quality public services Maine citizens deserve,” wrote Ramona Welton—president of the Maine State Employees Association—according to the Portland Press Herald. The…

In the last few months, The Maine Wire has drawn attention to the dangers of Question 4, a proposal on the ballot this November to raise the minimum wage over the next three years (and beyond). You can read those articles here, here, here and here. Up to now, critics have mostly focused on the proposal’s dramatic increase of the minimum wage to $12 an hour and ignored another alarming provision: the elimination of the tip credit for service employees. In Maine, where the restaurant and hospitality industries are an important part of our economy, this change could have devastating…

For many families with young children, especially single-parent households, child care is critical to being able work and earn a living. In 2015, an estimated 53,000 young children in Maine needed child care services outside the home. The availability of affordable child care often influences the decision to seek employment or rely on welfare. Despite its importance, the cost of child care is often prohibitive for low-income Mainers. In 2015, an analysis by Child Care Aware of America revealed that in Maine, “a single parent with two children pays 73% of their income towards child care. A married family at the…

Your barber has to get government permission to cut hair, or risk jail time. In Maine, barbers must be at least 17 years old, have completed 10th grade or its equivalent, have finished a 1,500-hour course of instruction or a 2,500-hour apprenticeship, passed an approved examination and paid a $20 fee (renewed annually, of course). Practicing barbering without a license is a class E crime—punishable by up to six months in jail—and a civil violation punishable by a fine of up to $5,000 and not less than $1,000. Other charges, such as theft by deception, might also apply, potentially resulting…

As The Maine Wire has repeatedly shown here, here and here, proponents of a minimum wage increase in Maine seem more concerned with soundbites than responsible public policy. The Maine People’s Alliance’s website, for example, under the heading “Why increase Maine’s minimum wage?,” states that “it’s not right that a single mother of two can work full time and still not make ends meet for her family.” That’s true, but the website fails to provide any evidence that a minimum wage increase would achieve the goal of helping poor single mothers. The little scholarly research the Maine People’s Alliance has appealed…

Today, the state Senate voted on a party-line vote of 20-15 to pass the minority report of LD 1305. Legislative Document 1305, “An Act To Encourage Health Insurance Consumers To Comparison Shop for Health Care Procedures and Treatment,” is sponsored by Senator Rod Whittemore. If you’ve been paying attention to the news, or your own medical bills, you know that health care in Maine is exorbitantly expensive. In 2013, the average monthly premium in the individual market was $335.61, a 12 percent increase since 2010. In 2014, per capita health expenditures in Maine — including hospital, dental, paramedical, and nursing…

Following the scheduled public hearings and work sessions today, the Health and Human Services Committee will review amendments for Legislative Document 633, in addition to other bills, in COB Room 209. As reported yesterday in The Maine Wire, this bill would cost Maine taxpayers $500 million over the next five years- $185 million more than traditional Medicaid expansion, as outlined by the Affordable Care Act. According to Commissioner Mary Mayhew, “Medicaid expansion is not free, and the current proposal by Senator Saviello would cripple the financial stability this Administration has worked tirelessly to establish and erode the progress made to prioritize the needs of…

On Monday, Madison Paper Industries announced its decision to close, laying off 214 workers by May 2016. “Demand for supercalendered papers declined significantly in 2015 and the decline is expected to continue. The Madison mill is not cost-competitive and has lost a significant amount of sales in the recent past,” said a company executive. Commissioner of Labor Jeanne Paquette and her department’s Rapid Response team are working to help workers and their families adjust. “Our team can answer questions families will have over the next two months and help them plan for this transition,” said Commissioner Paquette. The pulp and…

For several years in a row, Maine’s business climate has ranked among the worst in America, with our regulatory environment earning especially low marks. In 2015, the Pacific Research Center ranked Maine 45th in the country based on an assessment of 14 regulatory policies. CNBC and Forbes both ranked Maine among the worst five states for business. The concern that Mainers have about excessive regulation was evident in 2011 when nearly 1,000 people across the state testified for more than 100 hours on LD 1, a piece of legislation that reformed several environmental regulations, created a special position to help small…

Proponents of a higher minimum wage, led by the Maine People’s Alliance, have gathered enough signatures to put their $12 minimum wage proposal on the ballot this November. The proposal, hailed by the Maine Small Business Coalition—a progressive organization—as “good for our communities, [and] good for small businesses,” has alarmed many economists, business owners, and policy analysts. Earlier this month, a group of business leaders and legislators announced their support for a competing $10 minimum wage proposal. Yesterday, Senator Roger Katz (R–Augusta), writing in the Kennebec Journal, warned that an increase to $12 an hour “would end up hurting thousands…

Among the many deeply flawed and harmful regulations and rules passed by Maine lawmakers or created by bureaucrats, none may be as detrimental to our economy, insulting to common sense, and punishing to poor families as occupational licensing. Cosmetologists, realtors, interior designers, funeral attendants, auctioneers, barbers — all must obtain a government license to work in Maine. According to the Institute of Justice, 39 low- and middle-income jobs in Maine require a license, representing about one-fifth of the workforce. Almost universally, research on occupational licensing indicates that government-imposed requirements — unless formulated with exceptional care — stifle competition, reduce employment,…

Over the past few months, I’ve spoken with dozens of business owners about regulatory reform. The specific issues they highlight vary. Some emphasize the need to overhaul labor laws and worker protection programs that are costly and time-consuming to administer. Some complain that environmental rules are guided more by bureaucrats’ whims than by sound science. Some talk about silly tax policies that discourage them from providing their employees additional benefits, or about unjustified zoning codes that prevent development. Though their grievances and policy recommendations differ, they all share a common concern – that government agencies in Maine view businesses not…

Recently, as President Obama approached his final year in office, his administration announced thousands of new regulations likely to cost businesses more than $1 billion. Ranging from rules on nutritional labeling to the sale of e-cigarettes and the responsibilities of brokers, these rules will add to the existing 78,000 pages of convoluted federal regulations currently being imposed on businesses around the country. Since 1936, the number of pages in the Federal Register – where rules and regulations are compiled – has increased 29-fold, and a report by the Competitive Enterprise Institute estimates that the annual cost of federal regulation on…

According to the Small Business Administration, the annual cost of federal regulations on business in the United States exceeds $2 trillion. Every year, about 8 billion hours (or the equivalent of 4 million full-time employees) are spent complying with the tens of thousands of tax and regulatory policies issued by hundreds of different federal agencies. These rules control the food we eat, the homes we live in, and the gas we put in our cars. They impact the air we breathe and the water we drink. A 2010 issue brief by the National Small Business Association noted that, “Unlike big…

If you’re like most people, you know very little about the costs of the medical services you receive.  The ubiquity of third-party payers in our health care system (be it private insurance carriers or the government through programs like Medicaid and Medicare), the complexity of billing practices and negotiated rates, and the resistance on the part of health care special interests against enhancing transparency have made it difficult for consumers to easily access cost information from medical providers. A look at recently-released data from the Maine Health Data Organization shows a disturbing trend of massive (and seemingly arbitrary) health care…

State lawmakers are renewing their efforts to expand Medicaid, despite Governor LePage’s continued opposition.  Two Republican senators – Roger Katz of Augusta and Tom Saviello of Wilton – have sponsored a bill to extend Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act to low-income Mainers earning less than 133% of the federal poverty level.  Currently, only poor children and their parents, pregnant mothers, the disabled, and a few other groups are eligible for health insurance through MaineCare. In a radio address in late December, Governor LePage, who has already vetoed five attempts to enact Medicaid expansion legislation, vowed to continue to “veto…

The Maine Department of Health and Human Services may face substantial financial penalties for failing to process food stamp applications quickly enough, according to a letter sent last week by the federal government to Maine DHHS demanding “swift and immediate action” to resolve the situation. According to the most recent data, Maine’s food stamp program (SNAP) – which serves about 230,000 people at a cost of $321 million annually – currently has the lowest application processing rate in the country; that’s a significant drop from Maine’s rank of 36th in 2014. While federal law entitles all eligible households to benefits…

For several years Maine has ranked among the worst states to conduct business, and 2016 will be no different, according to the Tax Foundation. Maine currently ranks 34th overall, but earns even lower marks in the areas of corporate taxes (45th), unemployment insurance taxes (41st), and property taxes (41st). In the Tax Foundation’s index of the business tax climate in different states, Maine ranked 33rd overall in 2015, 29th in both 2014 and 2013, 37th in 2012, and 38th in 2011. From 2010 to 2012, Forbes designated Maine as the worst state in the nation for business, citing its high corporate…

In a radio address on Monday, Governor LePage criticized the Obama administration’s decision to allow 10,000 Syrian refugees into the United States within the next year, saying that the President’s actions are “irresponsible” in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris and highlighting his efforts to ensure that “Maine is no longer a sanctuary state that harbors illegal aliens.” Governor LePage pointed to “gaping holes in our immigration policy” and asserted that the U.S. currently lacks the ability to properly vet refugees and apprehend potential terrorists, despite assurances by Ben Rhodes, President Obama’s deputy national security advisor, that “very…

An effort to raise the minimum wage in Portland to $15/hour was defeated last week, representing an important victory for conservative, free-market ideas in Maine. But several groups are already organizing a citizens’ initiative to put a state-wide minimum wage increase on the 2016 ballot. The proposal would increase the minimum wage to $9 an hour in 2017 and then by $1 a year until it reaches $12 in 2020. Thereafter, the minimum wage would increase at the same rate as the cost of living. Leading the effort is the Maine People’s Alliance, which argues: “Raising the minimum wage is…

Maine earned an F in a recent review of states’ transparency and accountability practices conducted by the Center for Public Integrity. With a numerical score of 56, Maine tied for 42nd among the 50 states. Maine received its lowest scores in the areas of ethics enforcement, electoral oversight, and public access to information. According to the report, the loopholes in the state’s Freedom of Information Act, upon which investigative reporters heavily rely, have become glaring. For example, after receiving a request from the Sun Journal, the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention destroyed documents regarding the state’s decision-making process…

The Lewiston mayoral race that some have called a proxy war between the Maine Republican and Democratic parties will continue to a runoff election on December 8th. Since none of the five candidates garnered a majority of votes on Tuesday, the two leading contenders – incumbent conservative mayor Robert Macdonald and liberal challenger Ben Chin – will face off. Macdonald, who was first elected in 2011, ran on a platform of welfare and immigration reform. Chin has championed a progressive agenda for the city, saying he wants to promote solar energy production, build more housing units, and create an Office…

On Monday, two pro-marijuana groups in Maine – the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol and Legalize Maine – agreed to join forces to support a 2016 ballot initiative legalizing its use for recreational purposes. Combined, the two organizations have collected about 40,000 of the 61,000 signatures needed by next January to put the issue on the ballot. “Either of these campaigns could be successful on their own, but together we can put our best feet forward in 2016. The voters are ready to adopt a more sensible marijuana policy,” wrote Paul McCarrier, president of Legalize Maine, in a press…

If you’ve never heard of the Maine Information and Analysis Center (MIAC), you’re not alone. Little information is publicly available regarding MIAC, a secretive agency within the Department of Public Safety, and its covert operations. Its budget is unknown. The exact location of its offices is uncertain. The nature of its activities, potentially involving domestic surveillance, is unclear. Law enforcement officials aren’t even willing to disclose which other agencies it collaborates with in its investigations. And to top it off, a three-member advisory panel meant to supervise the Center’s activities hasn’t met in years. But that may change if Rep.…

On Tuesday, Governor LePage requested that State Senator Roger Katz (R-Augusta) step down as co-chair of the Government Oversight Committee (GOC), claiming that Katz has shown “bias” against the governor which could jeopardize his impartiality in assessing a report released last month concerning the Good Will-Hinckley controversy. As co-chair of the GOC, one of Senator Katz’s responsibilities is to review the report released by the nonpartisan Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability (OPEGA) regarding LePage’s potential role in pressuring Good Will-Hinckley to rescind a job offer it had extended to Democratic House Speaker Mark Eves. “I request Sen. Katz…

An estimated 8,600 food stamp recipients in Maine whose assets exceed $5,000 may soon be ineligible to receive benefits, according to a new policy announced by the Maine Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday. Under the rule, disclosure of certain assets will be required when applying or re-applying for food stamps. If those assets exceed $5,000 in value, the applicant will be ineligible for benefits. The asset limit will apply to cash, snowmobiles, boats and motorcycles, among other items. Assets will not include home equity or the household’s primary vehicle. “For too long Maine has had a loose…

On Tuesday, the nonpartisan Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability (OPEGA) released its highly anticipated report on the Good Will-Hinckley controversy. Investigators concluded that the LePage administration had taken steps to withdraw $530,000 in state funding unless the charter school rescinded a job offer it had extended to Democratic House Speaker Mark Eves, though Governor LePage’s personal involvement remains unclear. OPEGA director Beth Ashcroft said that the Governor’s intentions to stymie Speaker Eves’ hiring were plain. The report reveals that Acting Education Commissioner Tom Desjardin told OPEGA that a meeting he had with the Governor shortly after news broke…

There are two common interpretations of Donald Trump’s campaign for President. The first views his campaign as little more than a farce designed to indulge his cravings for the media spotlight. His bombastic and incendiary attacks on his Republican rivals fit nicely within this model, as does his reluctance to offer specific policy proposals. The other, competing hypothesis about the Trump campaign is that his candidacy is being driven by his anger at the state of the country, and conviction that he can set it right. His unorthodox campaigning style and off-color remarks are seen as carefully crafted to appeal to the…

One of the bright spots for Republicans this legislative session was the passage of a bill that protects so-called “constitutional carry.” This legislation, which was sponsored by freshman Senator Eric Brakey (R-Auburn), removes the need for an individual to acquire a permit before legally carrying a concealed handgun in Maine. When the law takes effect this October, Maine will have joined six other States that have discarded their “shall-issue” concealed carry status (which is where a permit is issued to every applicant who meets certain criteria) in favor of allowing constitutional carry. Constitutional carry has become increasingly popular not only…

On Monday, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court announced that it will expedite the request by Governor LePage to determine whether or not 65 bills have become law. The Judicial Supreme Court will hear the oral arguments for the case in Portland on July 31, and will accept written arguments until this Friday. The 65 disputed bills affect a variety of policy areas including General Assistance for asylum seekers, enhanced use of a medication to treat drug overdoses and birth control for MaineCare recipients LePage asserted in his request for the Supreme Court to hear the case that the bills are…

It’s no secret that politicians often rely on polls to craft their message, sometimes to a fault. Hence the saying: “I must take a poll to find out where my people are going so I can lead them there.” Few things are more calming to political pundits than hard numbers. They provide an objective, mathematical anchor in the midst of opinion and conjecture. They form the basis of campaign strategies and marketing tactics. Based on voters’ opinions — and the ages, genders, and ethnic backgrounds of those voters — politicians may shift their stances, harden their tone, or back off…

On Monday, at a campaign rally in Portland that drew an estimated 8,000 people, Sen. Bernie Sanders argued that he was the candidate in the presidential race most committed to championing the interests of working-class Mainers. “From Maine to California, the American people understand that establishment politics and establishment economics are not working for the middle class,” he said to the cheering crowd. In a wide-ranging speech that lasted over an hour, Sanders claimed that income inequality is “the great moral issue of our time” and insisted that corporations and wealthy individuals should pay higher taxes to fund his envisioned expansion of…

Last week, the Obama Administration announced a proposal that would make nearly 5 million more workers eligible for overtime benefits, but could cost businesses close to $900 million. An estimated 20,000 Maine workers would be affected and would be subjected to the new regulations from the U.S. Department of Labor, which could take effect as early as January 2016. Industry and business groups, and many Republicans were quick to condemn the proposed changes. The National Retail Federation (NRF), the world’s largest retail trade association, accused President Obama of trying to “build the middle class by government mandate,” and not fully understanding…