NEW SPENDING State government’s fuel and electricity costs are coming in at $10.2 million more than budgeted, so an appropriation covered that increase. Legislators approved borrowing $50 million for road repairs and $160 million for replacing and repairing bridges, the latter to be paid off by a $10 increase in vehicle-registration fees, which will bring in $16 million a year. Legislators rushed passage of this borrowing through the tail end of the session, without requiring the bills to undergo the usual two-thirds-of-each-house and public-referendum bond-approval process.
Who are affected most?
CUTS AFFECTING POOR PEOPLE The Health and Human Services cuts total $64.3 million. Some of the most severe are in the "Some Big Cuts Affecting Poor People" chart, the numbers supplied by the department. Many other DHHS cuts are to jobs and administrative expenses in the department. The effect of many of the cuts will be tripled because the feds provide two-to-one matching dollars for a lot of programs that support low-income Mainers.
The poor pay a higher proportion of their income on food and drink than middle-class or rich people, so the Dirigo beverage-tax increase will hit them hardest.
CUTS MOSTLY AFFECTING THE MIDDLE CLASS Let’s put here the number $53.8 million — everything that was slashed besides the DHHS programs. Education cutbacks affect people across social classes, of course, but the middle class is the most numerously affected. Education Department cuts include a $43.5-million reduction in state aid to the schools, the University of Maine System took a $3.1-million hit, the community colleges had nearly $1 million sliced away, and Maine Maritime Academy lost $323,000.
The middle class also is the group hurt in the largest numbers by the $3.1 million in cuts affecting the rest of state government. These include, for example, a $240,000 cut at the overworked Land Use Regulation Commission, a $222,000 reduction at the State Planning Office, and a $223,000 subtraction from state library activities.
And, of course, the middle class, which collectively pays most of the local property taxes, will watch those taxes rise because in many towns and cities citizens will not accept slashing school budgets to reflect diminished state aid.
CUTS MOSTLY AFFECTING THE RICH AND THE CORPORATIONS None.
Well, some of the rich may encounter nuisances such as fewer open hours at the state library — if that comes to pass. But their resources can compensate more easily than in the case of the less-favored classes.
One could argue that the Legislature’s gimmick of delaying a corporate income-tax deduction — for operating losses carried forward year-to-year — will hurt some corporations, but they will be able to take the deduction in future years.
They wanted to give more to the rich
Although Democrats did reduce Baldacci’s proposed human-services spending cuts, they are still huge and will be felt sharply since they affect very vulnerable people at a time when the federal government also is reducing social-service spending and the country is going into a recession. Things have been getting worse for the worst-off for some time. Maine Equal Justice Partners, which lobbies for the poor, quotes the US Census Bureau that poverty among Maine children increased from 10.4 percent in 2001 to 16.7 percent in 2007 — the sharpest climb in New England.
