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Local voters reject beverage tax, say no to casino in Maine landslide

Posted by FEDUPWITHTAXES on Thursday, November 06, 2008 6:52:51 AM
By Jim Kanak
jkanak@seacoastonline.com

Voters in Maine overwhelmingly approved the People's Veto on Tuesday, and rejected a new tax on beverages to support the Dirigo Health Plan.

Question 1 on the ballot won by a vote of 389,479 to 220,193, according to the Bangor Daily News, with 87 percent of all precincts reporting.

"We never took this for granted," said Ted O'Meara of Fed Up with Taxes, the group that led the citizens' initiative to repeal the tax. "Ballot questions can be challenging and volatile. We were hoping for a very convincing showing and we got one."

O'Meara said the signs of the landslide win were evident early on.

"It started to form with only five to 10 percent of the votes in," he said. "Once we got to the 60 to 40 percent range it held there. That leads me to believe that we ran very strong across the state."

In fact, the final percentage difference was 64 to 36 percent of the votes in favor of the question.

An attempt to reach Gordon Smith of the group No on One, which sought to defeat the question, thereby maintaining the tax, was unsuccessful.

Voters faced two other questions on the state ballot.

Once again, a proposed casino, this one in Oxford County, was defeated by a 343,790 to 282,307 count.

Finally, a bond issue to support public water system infrastructure projects led by 301,070 to 292,946, only a one percent difference, again with 87 percent of precincts reporting, according to the Bangor Daily News.

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UMaine Economist Calculates Tax and Job Impacts of New Beverage Taxes

Posted by FEDUPWITHTAXES on Monday, October 06, 2008 9:19:10 PM

October 6, 2008
Contact: Todd Gabe, 581-3307; George Manlove, 581-3756 

ORONO – Maine’s new beverage taxes, at the heart of Question 1 on this November’s ballot, will cost Maine businesses and households as much as $40.7 million annually in higher taxes on beer, wine and nonalcoholic beverages, according to new research by University of Maine economist Todd Gabe.

These taxes, imposed by Public Law 629, also would result in the reduction of $17.5 million in beer, wine and soft drink net sales revenue. Including multiplier effects, the total economic impacts are an estimated reduction in sales revenue of $26.3 million statewide, with a loss of 395 full- and part-time jobs that provide about $8.8 million in income, according to Gabe.

"These total impacts are spread across the entire Maine economy, but concentrated in restaurants and bars, retail stores and other companies that sell and distribute beverages," he says.

"Many people might be tempted to combine the $40.7 million in additional taxes and the $26.3 million in reduced sales revenue into a single impact figure. But that would be comparing apples and oranges," Gabe said. "They are different types of impacts, but the bottom line is an increase in the price of beverages and a loss of sales revenue to the beverage industry."

Gabe’s study on the fiscal and economic impacts of the beverage tax was commissioned by "Fed Up With Taxes," a coalition of businesses and individuals, and several associations representing stakeholders.

The report does not take a position on Question 1, Gabe says. "It simply estimates the effects of the new law on beverage taxes, as well as the economic impacts of the statewide reduction in beverage sales revenues associated with the tax hike," he says. "Other aspects of the law need to be considered to make a judgment about whether Public Law 629 is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for Maine."

The intent of the study is to inform the debate on Question 1 – the repeal question – on the upcoming ballot, Gabe says.

"This kind of information is important for voters to consider," he says. "It’s a lengthy report, but the majority of it is about how the numbers were generated."

Gabe can be reached for comment at (207) 581-3307.
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SECRETARY OF STATE CERTIFIES PEOPLE’S VETO PETITIONS

Posted by FEDUPWITHTAXES on Tuesday, August 19, 2008 10:00:49 AM

SECRETARY OF STATE CERTIFIES PEOPLE’S VETO PETITIONS

Released 8/18/08

New taxes on beverages and health care claims to be on November 4 ballot.

AUGUSTA, Maine – Maine people will have the last word on $75 million of new taxes on beverages and health care claims, now that the Secretary of State today certified that the Fed Up With Taxes/YES on 1 coalition submitted more than enough signatures to put the issue to a statewide vote on November 4.

“These taxes place an significant new burden on Maine consumers and small business owners at a time when we already are struggling with the high cost of energy and just about everything else,” said Alisa Coffin, one of the six citizens who initiated the people’s veto last May and the owner the Great Impasta restaurant in Brunswick. “Maine people have had enough. If we don’t repeal these taxes now the politicians in Augusta will just continue to tax and spend. It’s time to send them a message.”

The new taxes, passed late at night in the closing days of the last legislative session without any public hearing, increase the price of beer, wine, flavored water, teas, sports drinks, juice drinks, soda, and many other popular beverages. The same legislation also created a new 1.8% tax on paid health insurance claims.

Fed Up With Taxes, a bipartisan coalition of Maine people, businesses and organizations, submitted more than 95,000 names to the Secretary of State on July 15. At that time, more than 80% of the names had already been validated by municipal clerks. The Secretary has now ruled that petitions containing 72,432 were properly completed.

Newell Augur, chairman of Fed Up With Taxes/YES on 1, said that his group expected a certain number of petitions to be disqualified for technical reasons, as is usually the case with any citizen’s initiative or people’s veto, but that he was pleased that they still ended up with many more than the 55,087 signatures needed to force a vote on the new taxes.

He also said that he would not be surprised to see backers of the new taxes to launch an effort to try get more petitions thrown out.
“The same special interest groups that didn’t want a public hearing on these taxes and then spent more than $100,000 to stop Maine people from signing our petitions will probably make one last desperate attempt to keep Maine people from having their say,” Augur said. “We know that these petitions reflect how most people feel right now, and we are moving full speed ahead with our campaign to urge all Maine people who are fed up with high taxes to vote yes on question 1.”

# # #



Contact:

Contact: Newell Augur

(207) 622-2990

(207) 446-3430

naugur@fedupwithtaxes.or


Alisa Cofffin

207-729-5858

The Fed Up With Taxes can be found here--please join!--->http://www.fedupwithtaxes.org
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