Mighty rearranger' BY AL DIAMON

Maine does not impose a sales tax on broccoli. Or cauliflower. Or Brussels sprouts. Or other alleged foodstuffs that taste like the underside of a damp rock.

Maine does tax beer. And cheeseburgers. And the Bananas Foster French Toast they serve for breakfast at that Mexican place in the Portland Public Market. (I know, Bananas Foster French Toast is about as Mexican as Mexico, Maine, but trust me, this dish is worth the tax, regardless of its heritage.)

If you want to avoid taxes, you should plan to buy bull semen, which will soon be exempt from all state levies. However, the bull by-product ejaculated by the Legislature will continue to cost us all money.

As a result, there’s a tax on books, but none on movie tickets.

There’s a tax on wigs, but none on haircuts.

And you’ll pay an extra five percent on every bottle of aspirin, but headaches are free.

Doesn’t seem fair. Even worse, it doesn’t make financial sense. By limiting the sales tax to a narrow range of items, Maine’s leaders have made future budget deficits a certainty. Every time there’s a downturn in the economy, people stop buying the two biggest revenue producers for the sales tax: cars and home-improvement materials. It takes the tax on a ton of bottles of Bayer to make up for one person’s decision to keep the old Hyundai on the road an extra year.

Now two courageous legislators have come up with a plan to correct that problem. I use the term courageous for Democratic state Senator Joe Perry of Bangor and independent state Representative Richard Woodbury of Yarmouth in the same sense Stephen Jay Gould used it to describe William B. Travis. Travis was the co-commander of the Alamo when it was overrun in 1836 by the French-toast-eating Mexican, Santa Bananas Foster. Gould said Travis had "a lust for martyrdom combined with a fearlessness that should not be disparaged, whatever one may think of his judgment."

Perry and Woodbury have proposed expanding the sales tax to cover groceries, heating fuel, recreation, and many services. They’d also hike the tax on hotels, restaurants, cigarettes, and (sigh) beer. This would generate a lot of extra revenue for the state (nobody has exact figures, but let’s say it’s around a bazillion bucks). The two brave souls would use that cash to:

• Lower the sales tax rate from five to four percent.

• Abolish the current state income-tax brackets and replace them with a flat tax of six percent.

• Provide a variety of tax breaks for low-income people and homeowners with high property-tax bills.

What does that mean in practical terms? For a family of four spending $200 a week on groceries, the plan would bite into their budget by an extra eight bucks in sales tax. On the other hand, if that same family had an annual income of $40,000, the changes would result in savings of over 15 bucks a week in state income-tax withholding, enough to pay the sales tax and still take the spouse and offspring out for Bananas Foster French Toast once a month.

Naturally, a plan this bold has generated opposition, mostly from people who can be lumped in two categories: Democrats and Republicans.

Dems claim a sales tax on food will hurt the poor (ignoring the part of the plan that exempts low-income people from paying state income tax). Christopher St. John of the Maine Center for Economic Policy, a liberal think tank, told the Lewiston Sun Journal that taxing groceries was "extremely regressive." As for a flat income tax, St. John dismissed it as "politically insane."

A naïve person might assume that since the GOP has long advocated the flat tax and consumption-based levies, Republicans would be tripping over their trunks to endorse the Perry-Woodbury plan. A naïve person wouldn’t realize that members of one party never endorse ideas proposed by members of another party, even if they agree with them. "This is a trap for Republicans," House Minority Leader David Bowles told the Sun Journal. "We’re not going to get dragged into a discussion of raising some taxes, lowering other taxes, if in the next Legislature they’re going to come back and increase the taxes they just lowered."

If there was a tax on legislators’ common sense, it wouldn’t raise enough to cover the tip on an order of Bananas Foster French Toast.

Which is not to say Perry and Woodbury have done a perfect job. Their plan redistributes the tax burden in Maine, but doesn’t reduce it. The proposed six-percent rate on incomes is still higher than in most states. And the expanded sales tax skips over professional services, such as lawyers, accountants, and other weasels. This thing needs some serious tweaking, including a long hard look at that tax increase on beer.

Still, Perry and Woodbury deserve credit for trying to reform Maine’s tax system. Once the wackos of the left and right have finished tearing them to shreds, we should take up a collection for a monument commemorating their bravery.

It won’t cost much. There’s no sales tax on funeral services.

If I drive you bananas, email me at ishmaelia@gwi.net.