In an Economic Downturn, Increased Taxes Trump Spending Cuts

With the new revenue projections out last week, it now is clear that Maine faces a far more serious General Fund budget shortfall than had been imagined only several months back. Not surprisingly, much of the budget talk is focused on spending cuts.
The Governor’s latest biennial budget proposal, for example, makes roughly $1 billion in spending cuts to help close the gap between a “current services” budget and expected revenues. Even compared to “flat funding” at the level of the 2008-2009 biennial budget ($6.3 billion) the Governor’s latest proposal cuts spending by half a billion dollars (to $5.8 billion) in the comin....