Sounds like a Marxist heaven. We'll see how long that lasts.
Posted on 01/23/2005 10:39:12 AM PST by metesky
Considering some of the places I've been in Maine, they need to jack up taxes 50% in order for this to be true.
Well then, even HIGHER taxes should make the quality of life even better, right?
Here's an idea whose time has come, eh?
And if we pay 100% to the state life will be perfect.
The only ones Main taxpayers "enhance" are Clinton's Somali population
Sounds like a Marxist heaven. We'll see how long that lasts.
From the 2000 census:
White 96.9
Black .5
American
Indian .6
Asian .7
Hispanic .7
Not very diverse!!!!!
He's glad the state is demanding money from us. Isn't that special?
Only the Bangor Daily News would give a retired English professor a forum to bloviate on economics.
I'll also note that California ranks above Maine in taxation, yet is far worse in terms of crime, poverty, infant mortality, etc. If high taxes are the answer, this place ought to be paradise.
Doesn't add up to 100%. What are the rest of them?
Oh, and he thinks Bruce Springsteen is a writer.
This essay argues that traditionally the humanities have made claim to freedom but been in fact a part of the dominant order, contributing to its domination. I then argue that social science alternatives are at least as dangerous and complicit. I conclude by describing the ways certain writers, especially John Steinbeck and Bruce Springsteen, can be used as the basis for practice within the humanities that can lay claim to be part of a progressive project.
First of all, Bangor has about 30,000 people compared to half a million in OKC (the OKC metro area has 1.25 million people, the population of the entire state of Maine!)
Second, if the author doesn't think there are slums here, he's never gone to far off the main road. Our slums are more spread out and have longer driveways.
Third, our population is nowhere near as diverse as OKC's. Bangor is about 99 44/100% white, we have some "Native Americans", some blacks and they're not gang bangers, they're guys that came up to play ball at UMO, looked around and said to themselves, "This ain't Bed-Sty (or where ever), I'm staying here." A big time here is "Hockey Night in Canada" on the CBC (Yes, it's on our cable).
Interesting stats...must be tough to find a good Chinese or Mexican restaurant up there.
The Professor has had the good fortune to get in on the ground floor of a "spend yourself rich" scam. He will do OK if he doesn't outlive it. Like an individual with a healthy credit rating who qualifies for a mittful of credit cards, a state can expand services, raise taxes, borrow on its full faith and credit and provide all things for all people. But this serendipitous state of affairs cannot last forever. Eventually, a flood of bills comes due and, along with the flood of bills, comes decreased ability to meet them. New York City is no stranger to this pickle. The socialist paradise of New Zealand is a fine example. Certain counties in California are no strangers to this situation. As in any other pyramid sceme, the first ones in can do fine but Heaven help the ones stuck at the bottom. Imagine a situation, familiar to many in the Rust Belt, where your home, representing your life savings, is so heavily embonded that you can't sell it for more than peanuts. Imagine, also, an enormous gang of freeloaders relocating in your community in order to take advantage of its tax provided benefits. None for me, thanks.
It seems to me that here in Bangor values like community, compassion, decency - social responsibility of all citizens for all citizens - have a high place among the moral values most important to the community. What I want to suggest is that there is a connection between the high tax burden up here and those values, and the things that make Maine such a good place to live, make people want to move here.
David Gross, a resident of Bangor, is a retired University of Oklahoma professor of English and a 1960 graduate of Orono High School.
Other than making the observation that taking this person's logic to its natural conclusion, 100% taxes would create paradise, I will let his words speak for themselves.
Personally, I can thing of a dozen explanations why his conclusion, although quite "PC" is totally wrong.
I should add that the country is better off that he is no longer brainwashing children.
Maine's low crime and poverty stats are a result of its cold temperatures, just as North Dakota comes in first on educational achievement year after year. Figure it out.
For some reason which I have yet to fathom, the Bangor area is overrun with Chinese, Thai and Pakistani restaurants.
I think it might have happened when the Miracle Whip pendulum swung the other way.
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