The Maine Heritage Policy Center could find bad news in free beer.
I can see the headlines on the center’s news releases now:
“Saloon revenues decline.”
“State faces malt shortage.”
“Who’s going to return all those empties?”
Then, the group would blame the whole mess on Democratic Governor John Baldacci and his cronies in the Legislature.
The Portland-based center is a conservative think tank with a well-deserved reputation for locating the only dreary second in an otherwise happy hour. It regularly issues press releases and reports detailing why the state is slouching toward insolvency due to the initiatives of inept government officials, all of whom happen to be, coincidentally, Democrats.
While the center’s research is often thorough and thoughtful, its devotion to doom and gloom sometimes requires extraordinary turns of spin control. That was the case when it analyzed a story in USA Today in early May which reported per-capita income in Maine had grown faster than the national average.
According to the newspaper, average income across the country increased by 2.2 percent between 2000 and 2005, while in Maine, it jumped 6.1 percent. Since 1980, the nation has experienced income inflation of 44 percent, and Maine has enjoyed a 58-percent boost.
In response, the center rushed out a release headlined, “Maine Lags New England in Long-Term Income Growth.” As it turns out, the Pine Tree State’s 58-percent increase over 25 years looks pretty lame next to Massachusetts (76 percent), New Hampshire (65 percent), Vermont and Connecticut (both 63 percent), and manages only a tie with Rhode Island.
Absent from the center’s analysis — even though it received prominent coverage in the USA Today piece — is that trailing most of New England is hardly the worst economic situation for a state to find itself in, since the region led the country in income growth. Overall, the newspaper found Maine outpaced all but 16 states in per-capita earning increases in the 21st century. Among those trailing Maine in that category was New Hampshire, a state the conservative group never fails to mention without making approving noises about its low tax burden. Oddly enough, the center’s analysis is absent any similar shout-out on how well Connecticut did, possibly because it’s one of the highest-taxed states.
Could it be there’s no correlation between income growth and tax burden? If so, the foundation of the center’s universe — and that of every other pro-business group in Maine — is in danger of crumbling. Or is it possible the problem is just a disconnect between economic reality and press releases?
The truth is any state’s economy rises and falls based on factors that are largely (and fortunately) beyond the control of its governor and legislature. For years, northern Virginia led the nation in bigger paychecks because it received lots of federal money for projects in the suburbs of the District of Columbia. Louisiana is near the bottom of the income-growth pile because it got hit by a hurricane. New Hampshire benefits from economic spin-off from Boston. Georgia suffers from competition with low-wage foreign manufacturers.
Nobody in state government planned any of that. So, nobody deserves the blame when things go wrong. Or the credit when they go right.
