AUGUSTA – Over the past 50 years, Maine legislatures and governors have added millions of dollars in tax breaks for businesses without ever doing the detailed analysis to find out which are effective and which are wasteful. But now that may be changing. In recent weeks, a growing list of legislators have called for a review of programs that leading economists have critiqued for not delivering on promises to create jobs. “We put a lot of stock in these programs, but we never go back to see if they work,” Sen. Emily Cain, D-Orono, told the legislature’s taxation committee last week. Cain has proposed a bill, LD1488, that would require the tax committee to recommend which tax expenditure programs should be kept, repealed or changed and then would require the full legislature to hold an up or down vote of them as part of the budget approval. Continue Reading →
