Opinion |

Op-Ed: Infrastructure is the road to prosperity

By William P. Davis

Posted on Monday, October 26th, 2009, 12:55 am

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The Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR, is Question 4 on Maine’s Nov. 3 ballot. The citizen’s initiative hopes to tie government spending — and therefore taxation — directly to inflation and population growth. It gives citizens the power to veto any spending over that limit through special elections.

Before we get into whether it’s a good idea to place such limits on government spending, it’s imperative to remember that we do not live in a direct democracy.

The mass, as a whole, is uninformed and uninterested. The idea that we, as a constituency, should make decisions on each line of the budget can only result in one thing: chaos.

Our job as constituents is to tell our representatives what we want in the broadest terms possible. Our representatives should then accurately reflect the desires of their constituents in legislation.

If we disagree with the bills our legislators are voting for, we can tell them so, either by phone, letter or vote. Don’t want health care reform? How about public education or well-paved roads? Tell them so. But don’t tie their hands with overly simplistic and incredibly constrictive legislation.

More than a failed ideal of direct democracy, TABOR intends to cut government spending.

If anything, Maine needs more government spending. Before conservatives die of heart attacks, let me explain. In order for Maine to raise itself out of recession, infrastructure must exist to make this state more pleasing to businesses and residents. Maine must build high-speed Internet (really high speed, not DSL), pour millions more into public education (both primary and higher) and make sure our basic infrastructure needs (such as roads) don’t fall to the wayside in the process. And while I’m a great believer in the free market — really, I love competition — no company in its right mind would invest in Maine. We are a large state with a sparse population, spread out over vast distances, making infrastructure even more important.

If TABOR passes, such infrastructure will be the first to go. The state will no longer be able to pave roads, much less subsidize high-speed internet and cell phone towers. Maine’s technology gap will widen, making the state further unappealing to companies.

Infrastructure, not belt tightening, will raise this state out of economic depression. Maine has never been a prosperous state, and the era of manufacturing is over. People in Maine abstain from buying big-ticket items not because they’re frugal or because taxes are high, but because they’re poor. Maine has one of the lowest median incomes in the country.

The way to fix all this is to attract high-tech industry. Vermont, for example, has higher tax rates than Maine, but still has several forward-thinking companies, such as Green Mountain Coffee, Ben and Jerry’s, Cabot and Seventh Generation. It also has the fifth-lowest unemployment rate in the country. Maine has … lobster.

To micromanage our elected representatives is a fallacy of epic proportions. Such officials are elected to deal with our problems so we don’t have to. Few people can grasp the intricacies of a multi-billion dollar budget. It’s hard enough to get 188 people to agree on a budget. It’s even harder to get several hundred thousand to agree.

If people have a problem with an item in the state’s budget, they should oppose that item. Think we spend too much on roads or education? The best way to deal with it is to tell your representative. The worst way to deal with it is to cut your representative off at the knees. The upshot will be a decrease in funding for essential services, which I will guess nobody wants.

Maine has an active citizen’s veto process, of which dissatisfied residents are more than welcome to avail themselves. It is much easier to get people to care about a specific issue — same-sex marriage or medical marijuana, for example — than it is to get them to care about a budget.

William P. Davis is editor in chief of The Maine Campus.