Dolo Pill is a surprising guy. Aside from being somewhat imaginary, Pill is also one of the few businesspeople in the state who agrees with Democratic Governor John Baldacci’s claim that Maine’s economy is doing pretty well.
“I’m up 17 percent over last year,” said Pill, consulting his spreadsheet, “and I know people who’re having even better years than me.”
Pill is executive director of the Maine Association of Marijuana Agriculturists, and he disputes claims that farming in the state is suffering. “Acreage is up. Yield is up. Profits are up,” he said. “People are stoked.”
Pill is not alone in offering high (heh, heh) praise for Maine’s business climate.
“We just got the latest government crime figures, and they confirm what we already knew,” said Ormolu Finster, state coordinator for the more-or-less-fictional National Federation of Sales Agents for Valuable Items of Questionable Provenance. “The big increase in drug-related burglaries in the last year has done wonders for our racket.”
According to the Maine Department of Public Safety’s figures for 2005, it’s not just fences and drug dealers that have prospered under the Baldacci administration, but also murderers, arsonists, and suppliers of frozen pig heads to bigots.
Then, there are the businesses that are experiencing an economic boom, even though, technically speaking, they’re not doing anything that’s against the law. Hollywood Slots in Bangor is generating more than $1 million in bets daily. And the lottery, boosted by sales of tickets for the big-money Powerball game, is enjoying a record year. These figures seem even more impressive when considered in light of the continued statewide growth of illegal gambling at fraternal organizations and veterans clubs.
Liquor revenues have increased 7 to 9 percent a year, boosted by the 2700 bottles of Allen’s Coffee Brandy now purchased in Maine every single day. And thanks to Baldacci’s far-sighted decision to sell off the state’s retail booze operations, most of the profits from our obsession with sticky, low-rent cordials are going directly to the private sector.
Baldacci tends to be modest about his economic accomplishments. He keeps making the dubious claim that he’s reduced the number of state employees, while failing to take credit for creating such new taxpayer-funded jobs as the director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs (providing, in the governor’s words, “improved connection and strategic coordination with our multicultural communities”), while also finding a new position for former commissioner of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection Dawn Gallagher at the state Department of Health and Human Services, where her erratic management style should fit right in.
The economic future looks bright, as well. While paper companies, manufacturers, and MBNA have all bailed out, those jobs could be replaced by positions at the nuclear waste dump the feds might build at the old Maine Yankee site. Even if that project falls through, there’ll be plenty of good jobs at LNG terminals on our scenic coast and wind farms in our scenic mountains, either of which could provide all the economic glow of spent-fuel rods for the same amount of environmental damage.
No wonder the governor seems pleased.
