Words fell BY AL DIAMON

The second best thing about receiving email from readers is devoting an entire column to the original and insightful things you have to say, thereby broadening the debate on important issues facing our state. The first best thing is not having to do any work.

So, I’ll just settle back and pour myself a Frye’s Leap IPA (hey, was that a product placement? I think it was. Outrageous!), while actual normal people offer actual normal opinions about actual non-normal events.

Speaking of beer, Lew Bryson, a correspondent from Pennsylvania, was motivated to write by recent proposals before the Legislature to raise the tax on brewskis.

"Why doesn’t anyone ask why there are beer taxes in the first place?" this astute fellow inquired. "Beer is groceries. Why isn’t it taxed like groceries? There’s no special tax on Coca-Cola, no special tax on light bulbs. Yet, here we are, every stinking year, debating whether to raise the tax on beer — ‘Because it’s been a long time since the tax was raised!’ — and NO ONE EVER asks: Why tax beer at all?"

If Bryson didn’t live in another state, he’d make an excellent candidate for governor of Maine. As would Steve Hoad of Windsor. As a former wage slave in the radio industry, Hoad is well aware of a major loophole in our tax system.

"My problem is that advertising, the paid corporate control of media, isn’t taxed," he wrote. " ‘Heresy,’ [the media] say, ‘the public service we offer far outweighs any sales tax we’d pay!’ "

Yeah, Fred Nutter’s editorials are priceless.

Of course, if we didn’t spend so much, we wouldn’t have to tax so much. Former Republican state Senator Phil Harriman of Yarmouth led last November’s unsuccessful referendum campaign to cap property taxes at one percent of a home’s assessed value. Harriman noted that the state’s appetite for our cash keeps growing.

"As you pointed out in a previous column," he emailed, "[former GOP Governor John] McKernan had actual revenue decreases [in the early 1990s, while former independent Gov. Angus] King had revenues grow so fast [in the mid-’90s] he could hide all of the future costs he created (albeit, he barely got out of town in time). [Current Democratic Governor John] Baldacci knew from day one he had expenses racing ahead of INCREASING revenues and still chose to take us down the path of creating new programs and expanding existing ones. Someone has to convince voters that the time for fact finding is over; it’s time for fact facing."

Gene Snyder of Portland doesn’t think Harriman is that someone.

"Politicians like Harriman talk a good game but don’t have the chutzpah to follow through," Snyder wrote. "The Maine governing body, the city leaders in Portland, and the current governor lack the intestinal fortitude to make the deep cuts needed for REAL tax reform on all fronts. We need to tell those clowns in Augusta, their ring leader, Bozo Baldacci, and the City Council of Portland that we don’t find their actions and attitude acceptable and vote their [butts] out of office. The people of this great state are hamstrung, and no matter how many referenda are voted on, we will always be in the top five highest-taxed states in the nation."

If this weren’t a column in which I’d pledged to keep my pie hole shut, I’d be launching a rant right here about the need for the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR), which caps government spending (learn more at www.taxpayerbillofrights.com), but I’ll save that for another time. Instead, let’s hear from Steve Pond of Mount Vernon:

"I would like to express my desire for a third-party candidate to grab the Taxpayers Bill of Rights and run with it. I am registered as a independent and easily find fault and some good in all political parties in the ways they plan to spend our money and govern our state, but as a circulator of both the "Don’t Mortgage Maine" and TABOR petitions, I am receiving a lot of feedback from both major parties that they want someone, anyone, who will cut spending and lower taxes, and TABOR is having a lot of positive response. Could you suggest any third party candidates who might be interested?"

To which I replied:

"Dear Steve,

No."

Finally, there’s Dave Kesel, who wonders, not unreasonably, why the Legislature squanders so much time on bills declaring Moxie the official state soft drink (a measure that passed and was signed into law by the governor) and requiring the sides of ice-fishing shacks to be covered with reflective tape to prevent collisions with snowmobiles (a proposal that was approved by the House, but died in the Senate).

"Wasting time is . . . not a luxury we ought to extend to our legislators in Augusta," Kesel wrote. "Besides, they’ve got it all wrong. Again. What would be valuable and progressive legislation would be to require the makers of Moxie to wrap their package in reflective tape warning snowmobilers, skiers, and flatlanders, among others, of the ill effects of drinking such a beverage."

I’ll drink to that.

Get your name in print by emailing me at ishmaelia@gwi.net.