On May 2nd something happened north of our border that went almost completely unnoticed by most of my political friends who seem obsessed with every twist and turn of the LePage administration and its right wing minions. That day voters in Canada went to the polls and elected a new government. While the voters gave the Conservatives a strong plurality at the same time they made the New Democratic Party the official opposition party eclipsing the Liberals. The New Democratic Party is Canada’s socialist party and the party responsible for the National health Care system which started in Saskatchawan in 1961.

If I lived in Canada I’d be a member of the NDP and regarded as a mainstream politician. Here in the United States to call oneself a socialist is to subject oneself to ridicule from Right Wingers who think, in the words of Michael Harrington, giving a band aid to a bleeding man is socialized medicine, but also from many liberals as well who often suggest that people not use the”S” word while pushing “Progressive “causes.

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As people living in Rural Maine we have a shared understanding of our place in the politics of this state. We know that the way of life we enjoy is second to none, but that somehow we are considered to be less important, or perhaps less impactful than the urban centers in Maine. We know that the idea of “Two Maines” is very much prevalent in the minds of most Mainers, but we differ in that we prefer the rural way of life.

Therefore it is a hard pill to swallow when our elected officials choose to pass legislation that makes it increasingly difficult to live in rural areas of Maine that are already economically depressed.

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When the U.S. enters trade agreements, we should go into them with eyes wide open. We need to consider not only the parameters of a deal, but also how we plan to enforce it. Doing so ensures that we have the best interests of our workers and businesses in mind. Unfortunately, the Softwood Lumber Agreement (SLA) that so directly impacts Maine is failing on the enforcement side.

The issue at hand is the U.S. lumber industry’s complaints against British Columbia’s illegal stumpage pricing scheme, which sets stumpage fees for lumber harvested on public lands in Canada artificially low. This practice, along with other Canadian government programs, creates an illegal subsidy. But here’s the rub: it will be a full five years by the time this case is resolved.

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Some of us may not like it but the reality is government can help grow the economy. Some say we don’t want government involved in our daily lives. But they don’t take the time to realize how much we depend on government’s services.

To get to work we depend on our transportation infrastructure. What private company is going to pay for our highways? President Eisenhower understood the necessity for commerce to get the goods to market on time in order to compete, so he started America’s Interstate Highway System. He put thousands to work for years, which gave industries the confidence to invest in innovative ideas. He also gave us the G.I. Bill — which gave a generation a new chance at life with a college education.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) put people back to work all over the country.

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While most of the attention on Augusta these days is less about policymaking and more about petty distractions, many important pieces of legislation are being vetted and debated. The commotion with the artwork in a state building is taking up more airtime than some very important labor-related bills that are frankly quite concerning.

There are two bills in particular being considered by the Legislature that would roll back child labor standards by decades. The measures would lower the wage paid to minors to $2 below the minimum wage and increase the number of hours teenagers could work during the school week.

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On Tuesday morning, Republican Representative Paul Ryan released a budget plan that would slash spending over the next few decades with no increase in taxes and very limited cuts to defense programs. It’s like a stool with only one leg. It will not stand.

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Two weeks ago, Gov. LePage ordered the removal of a mural depicting the history of organized labor in Maine that was commissioned by the Maine Arts Commission and displayed in the state’s Department of Labor building in 2008. At a rally at the State House Shetterly said the following:

“I think the job of the artist is to remind people of what they have chosen to forget.” Those are the words of Arthur Miller, the great American playwright

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As Republican senators, we all want the governor and his administration to succeed. Yet we feel compelled to express our discomfort and dismay with the tone and spirit of some of the remarks he has made. Were these isolated incidents we would bite our collective tongues, because we are all human. But, unfortunately, such is not the case. We feel we must speak out.

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In this time of budget crises we are hearing increasing calls to tax the rich. Working people paying the cost of our wars with both their lives and their taxes are outraged that corporations like General Electric, with huge profits, pay nothing toward the many government services which allow them to make so much money.

When a real estate investor buys land for $1,000 an acre and sells it five years later for $30,000 an acre, he has not created that wealth. That wealth was created by the community: the workers, business people, and governments that developed the city surrounding the investor’s land. The community creates the services, and the demand,that increases the value of this land. The investor may have done nothing but sign a promissory note to pay for that land, yet we have accepted a system where all of the increased value goes to the person who signed the note. We then tax that income, at the most, at approximately one third. We leave two thirds of this huge increase in private hands while the rest of us work and scrape to pay for the services that will multiply his next investment.
It doesn’t have to be this way.

President Kennedy used to quote Luke 12:48, “From those to whom much is given, much is required,” and he lived that simple concept of justice. Just 50 years ago, under President Kennedy, we recognized this principle and taxed the wealthy at a 70 percent tax rate. From those to whom much is given, much is required. Today, we tax the wealthy at approximately 35 percent, or one-half of the previous rate, and wonder why we face budget shortfalls at every level of government.

Donald Trump’s salary is reportedly $42,000,000 per year, primarily from real estate investments. Yet we—the community—create the conditions that increase the value of his investments every year. Increasing his tax contribution from 35 percent ($13,000,000) to 70 percent ($26,000,000) per year would not only make a significant
contribution to our budget problems, it would be fair. We resist implementing this simple and obvious solution to our budget crises only because we have been trained to believe that $42,000,000 he makes each year is entirely his money. It is not.

No one becomes wealthy without a lot of help from a lot of people, and Trump is no exception. It is time to demand that Trump and other wealthy individuals and large corporations pay their fair share of the costs it takes to fund our country and our states. Tax justice is a simple step we can take to address the financial crises we are facing
and stop the ever-increasing concentration of power and money in our country.
—————————–
Leeper is a Madison attorney actively supporting the protests against
Governor Walker’s attack on public employees and collective
bargaining. Leeper has served as a District Attorney in Wisconsin and
has taught human rights, peace and conflict, negotiations, and rule of
law courses in Ukraine, Spain, Zimbabwe, and the United States.
David D. Leeper
Attorney, Mediator, and Conflict Consultant
866 Terry Place, Madison, WI 53711
608-238-7177 daveleeper@gmail.com Fax 608-238-3312

As Republican governors vie to become the most anti-union executive in the land, Gov. Paul LePage of Maine has stooped to behavior worthy of the pharaohs’ chiseling historic truth from Egyptian monuments. Mr. LePage has ordered that a 36-foot-wide mural depicting workers’ history in Maine be removed from the lobby of the state’s Labor Department.

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