Maine Conservative organization says school funding being held hostage

The Maine Wire, a project of The Maine Heritage Policy Center, sent out a commentary this Wednesday morning via e-mail that discusses what it calls a hostage situation in the Maine Legislature.  It concerns school funding in return for conformity of Maine's taxes with the federal tax structure.  The commentary, written by State Representative Larry Lockman represents Maine House District 137, which includes parts of Hancock, Washington, and Penobscot counties. He may be contacted at Lawrence.Lockman@legislature.maine.gov, claims the Maine Democrats want to put 22 million dollars in the fund that gets distributed to help local school costs.

That commentary begins, "If there were ever any doubt that Democrats in the Maine House of Representatives are willing to kill tax conformity if they don’t get their way on raiding $22 million from the state treasury for another round of school subsidies, we now have a smoking gun that should remove any lingering doubts. A recent email exchange exposes the Democrats’ strategy of holding tax conformity hostage to the spending spree. And it appears they’re prepared to shoot the hostage if legislators refuse to pay the ransom demanded."

You can read the whole commentary in The Maine Wire.  You also can start getting your copies of The Maine Wire simply be signing up using your email address and the link at the top of the linked page.  Remember, though, this is a conservative organization.

Dave