Kool-Aid Shot: Rep. Seth Berry and Taxes

Every now and then you're served a Kool-Aid Shooter, whether you want it or not, and it often comes from the media and their syndicated columnists, or someone in the political business. Last night such a shot arrived courtesy of Representative Seth Berry in the Times Record.

As you might expect, Berry was congratulating himself and the permanent ruling class for the "major tax reform package" they passed.

Berry wants you to believe that they really, really want to cut the revenue coming to the State and shrink the size of State Government. He forgets to address what the fallout for your local property taxes is, although it must have been just an oversight.

Berry has a bit of a consistency problem in his letter. In the opening paragraph, he says this:

The changes we enacted in our tax policy will reduce overall taxes for many of our older citizens, particularly those on fixed incomes at the lower end of the income scale.

Further in he says this:

Maine citizens at every income level will pay less in taxes next year, and Maine’s elderly and working poor are no exception.

Evidently he can't decide whether many or all of us will pay less "overall" taxes.

As a final show of Augusta's desire to do anything it takes to grant widespread prosperity in Maine, we get this assertion:

Tax reform is a step towards the greater prosperity for which Maine has struggled for centuries. When that tide rises, we want every boat to rise with it.

Readers who believe that Berry and his associates are more interested in greater prosperity than they are in bigger government have a serious problem in recognizing reality. And the only struggle I'm aware of on their part is the struggle to squeeze more revenue from us without us realizing it.