Maine is one step closer to restoring the tip credit

My faith in government was restored Wednesday when the Labor, Commerce, Research and Economic Development Committee (LCRED) voted 11-2 in favor of LD 673, a bill that would reinstate the tip credit in Maine. After a marathon public hearing dominated by restaurant workers and a month of deliberation, the LCRED committee came to a bipartisan […]

Empty analysis and flawed statistics: MPA struggling to grasp impact of Question 2

He strikes again. Mike Tipping, the communications director of the Maine People’s Alliance (MPA), may be the king of tweeting with minimal context. On April 24, Tipping sounded off in response to a tweet by a WMTW political reporter asking viewers how much annual income one must earn to be considered “wealthy” in Maine. Tipping’s […]

Maine’s economic future looks bleak after the passage of Questions 2 and 4

This commentary first appeared in The Maine Wire. The recounts for Questions 1 and 2 are almost ready to begin, but there is no significant hope for either opposition campaign in seeing the results of the Nov. 8 election overturned. According to an article in the Portland Press Herald, Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap says […]

Question 2 hurts business and exacerbates disparities in education funding

This commentary first appeared in The Maine Wire. Maine’s citizen’s initiative process promotes civic engagement and gives every day Mainers a direct participatory role in our democracy. Over the years, however, this process has been abused by out of state plutocrats who target Maine and dump unfathomable amounts of cash into these races from start […]