J. Scott Moody, chief executive officer of the Maine Heritage Policy Center, spoke to the Lincoln County Republican Committee on February 12 regarding the fiscal crisis facing Maine and the center's plan to deal with it. In other major business, the LCRC heard about plans for the biennial Republican caucus scheduled for February 22.

Moody said that Maine has a government dependency problem; nearly one out of every three Mainers is on welfare. While reforming Maine's welfare system must be a priority, he said increasing economic prosperity must also be a priority in order to permanently solve the dependency problem. He said that the current trends are unsustainable.

Unfortunately, Moody said, the challenges to achieving economic prosperity in Maine are greater in the northern “Rim” counties (Aroostock, Franklin, Oxford, Penobscot, Piscataquis, Somerset and Washington) than in the southern “Core” counties (Androscoggin, Cumberland, Hancock Kennebec, Knox, Lincoln, Sagadahoc, Waldo and York). The Rim counties have a lower percent of private sector employees, lower population growth, higher unemployment and a higher percentage of people living below the poverty level than the Core counties.

Moody said the most effective way to increase Maine's overall economic prosperity is to direct attention to the areas of the state that need it the most. This is the fundamental idea behind Jack Kemp's “Enterprise Zones,” which became popular in the 1980s and have since been adapted by many states. Maine's Pine Tree Development Zone (PTDZ) program enacted under Governor John Baldacci follows the same formula of decreasing the burden of government in selected areas to increase economic prosperity, said Moody. Unfortunately, he said, the PTDZ's have not done much to improve the situation. Many participants have found the program to be too difficult to follow, with high compliance costs and a bias toward new companies versus established companies. Saving jobs is just as important as increasing jobs, said Moody.

Enter the Center's Free ME initiative, which is designed to avoid PTDZ problems. Moody said Free ME seeks to spur business and job growth by fully eliminating the personal and corporate income tax and the sales tax for businesses and individuals in a select area of Maine. The idea is to test the program out in one county and aim for three consecutive years of growth. Then consider applying the program to other counties. Based on a basic set of economic factors, Moody said the first county would be Washington. The loss of tax income would be relatively small. Washington already receives more government money than it pays in these taxes. And the potential loss of of income to the state would be small, a “rounding error” on state revenue, he noted.

There is evidence that the initiative would help attract businesses and customers from other jurisdictions, including Canada.

While the center is working to gain bipartisan support in the legislature, Moody said that they are willing to take the program to voters via a referendum if the legislature does not act.

In other LCRC business, Peter Lawrence explained plans for the Lincoln County Republican Convention scheduled for February 22 at the Edgecomb Eddy School, 157 Boothbay Road, Edgecomb. As part of the event, Republicans from Alna, Boothbay Harbor, Bremen, Bristol, Damariscotta, Dresden, Edgecomb, Jefferson, Newcastle, Nobleboro, Somerville, Southport, Waldoboro, Westport Island, Whitefield and Wiscasset are to caucus by town.

Registration for the event will begin at 12:30 p.m. Town clerks will attend from 12:30 until 1 p.m. so those needing to register to vote can. Following opening remarks in the gym, participants will adjourn to classrooms assigned for each town, where they will elect town officers and can register to attend the Maine State GOP Convention to be held in April in Bangor.

In other news, Stuart Smith, LCRC chairman, announced that Elizabeth Printy has been elected chairman of the Damariscotta Republican Committee.

Maine state redistricting has resulted in changes to many districts as well as new numbers. A number of candidates running for these state as well as county offices attended the meeting and spoke, including Les Fossel, Senate District 13, Deb Sanderson, House District 88, Jack Hanley, House District 87, Stephanie Hawke, House District 89, Anna Morkeski, House District 90, and Geoffrey Rushlau, Lincoln County District Attorney.

Smith said the next LCRC meeting will be held March 11 at a location to be determined.

For more information, email info@lincolncountyrepublicans.org, call 1-800-380-6831, or go to www.lincolncountyrepublicans.org.