Source: http://americanpoliticalphilosophy.blogspot.com/2017/01/governor-longley-architects-of.html
Timestamp: 2020-08-13 17:24:25
Document Index: 576981633

Matched Legal Cases: ['§683', '§5202', '§5202', '§5202', '§4', '§67', '§5202', '§2', '§5202', '§5202', '§5202', '§5202', '§5202', '§5202', '§5202', '§5202', '§5202', '§5202', '§5202', '§5202', '§5202', '§5202', '§5202', '§5202', '§5202', '§12', '§12', '§12', '§12']

Governor Longley & The Architects of Transformation
CHAPTER THREE OF PUBLIC PRIVATE RELATIONSHIPS & THE NEW OWNERS OF THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION
GOVERNOR LONGLEY AND THE ARCHITECTS
In 1969 the Home Rule Amendment was added to the Maine Constitution. It provides to the inhabitants of the municipality, authority to amend the municipal charter and to run public referendums for economic development purposes.
We saw in the previous chapter that Article IV Part Third; Section 14 of the Maine Constitution grants the Legislature the authority to charter municipal corporations. The power to amend the charter of a municipal corporation belongs to the inhabitants of the municipality as granted by Municipal Home Rule. The Constitution instructs the Legislature to provide the process by which the inhabitants of the municipality can amend their municipal charter.
Section 2 of the Home Rule Amendment was originally added to the Constitution in 1962 as section 8A of Article IX of the Maine Constitution dealing with equal distribution of taxation. Section 2 requires an approval vote by registered voters of a municipality to establish municipal authority to issue bonds for economic development within the geographical area of the municipality, the cost of issuing the bond is apportioned among the municipal taxpayers.
Maine Constitution Article IX Section 8 Taxation
All taxes upon real and personal estate, assessed by authority of this State, shall be apportioned and assessed equally according to the just value thereof.
Article IX Section 8: Taxation, was relocated to Section 2 of the Home Rule section of the Constitution in the 1973 codification:
The Home Rule Amendment allows for taxation to be used to assist private economic development but only within the municipality and not without the consent of voters of the municipality.
When economic development bonds, sold as job creation initiatives, are issued by the state, the benefit is distributed across the entire state disproportionately to the just and measurable value of the benefit.
In example the just value of bonds spent for economic development within the physical boundaries of the municipal corporation of the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority is non-existent for the Washington County Development Authority. The last time I checked WCDA was receiving a budget of zero dollars from the Maine Legislature , even as the commercial real estate property, which the Maine Legislature had gifted to a non-profit development corporation, was returned to the base after two private development companies failed in plans to make the expensive-to-maintain-property-profitable.
Furthermore, the value of state bonds appropriated to the municipality of MRRA is vast in comparison to bonds appropriated to Washington County Development Authority, which are non-existent and have a value of zero.[1]
In 1969 the Maine people voted to add Municipal Home Rule to the Maine Constitution. As that was happening the Maine Legislature was creating the Land
Use Regulation Commission. [LURC is philosophically opposed to Municipal Home Rule. While the Maine people were voting for municipal sovereignty, the Legislature was installing a state appointed board to regulate every use of property and infringing upon private property rights in Maine's unorganized territories. The rhetoric establishing LURC uses a wide range of public interests to cloak a totalitarian takeover of individual liberty in the wild and natural territory of Northern Maine: Amazingly the Legislature did not deem their newly appropriated powers to be “an essential government function” perhaps because the Maine Legislature was not chartering a corporation and did not need to reconcile what they were doing with Article IV Part Third Section 14 of the Maine Constitution.
Division of Land Use Planning, Permitting and Compliance
§683 Purpose and Scope The Legislature finds that it is desirable to extend principles of sound planning, zoning and development to the unorganized and reorganized townships of the State: To preserve public health, safety and general welfare; to support and encourage Maine's natural resource-based economy and strong environmental protections; to encourage appropriate residential, recreational, commercial and industrial land uses; to honor the rights and participation of residents and property owners in the unorganized and deorganized areas while recognizing the unique value of these lands and waters to the State; to prevent residential, recreational, commercial and industrial uses detrimental to the long term health, use and value of these areas and to Maine's natural resource-based economy; to discourage the intermixing of incompatible industrial, commercial, residential and recreational activities; to prevent the development in these areas of substandard structures or structures located unduly proximate to waters or roads; to prevent the despoliation, pollution and detrimental uses of the water in these areas; and to conserve ecological and natural values. The Legislature declares it to be in the public interest, for the public benefit, for the good order of the people of this State and for the benefit of the property owners and residents of the unorganized and deorganized townships of the State, to encourage the wellplanned and well-managed multiple use, including conservation, of land and resources and to encourage and facilitate regional economic viability. The Legislature acknowledges the importance of these areas in the continued vitality of the State and to local economies. Finally, the Legislature desires to encourage the appropriate use of these lands by the residents of Maine and visitors in pursuit of outdoor recreation activities, including, but not limited to, hunting, fishing, boating, hiking and camping [2]
It is often said that there are two Maines. There is rural Maine and urban Maine, there is northern Maine and southern Maine, there is the Maine of long rooted local families and the community of new arrivals and summer residents. There is the upper income Maine and lower income Maine and there is the Maine governed by its Constitution. town halls and public referendums, and Maine governed public private relationships and unelected boards.
Home Rule vs Board Rule
In 1976 Governor Longley invited the heads of Maine Industry to create a report on developing legislation for state wide economic development management. .John M Daigle was president of Casco Bank Trust Co and Casco Northern Corporation. Perry Hudson was the general manager of New England Telephone. Phillip W Hussey, Jr, owner of Hussey Seating Company. P. Andrews Nixon was the head of the largest distributor of residential heating fuel in New England and the operator of the Dead River chain of 20 c-stores in New England. N Stowel Junior was the CEO, President of United Timber Corp, a family owned forest products company with multiple subsidiaries including wood products manufacturing, saw milling operations and extensive timberlands making it one of Maine's larger businesses.
The newly formed board proposed to change by statutory law, the municipal public referendums which seven years earlier had been added to the Maine Constitution as Section 2 of the Home Rule Amendment. The Report- Governor's Task Force for Economic Redevelopment, Recommended Legislation for an Economic Development Program -110th Congress, calls for the elimination of local referendums on municipal bond issues with precise language:
2: eliminate the requirement for a local referendum on municipal bond issues.14'
The Governor’s Task Force report recommended that two complimentary corporations be chartered by the Legislature, The Maine Capital Corporation and the Maine Development Corporation. The statute chartering the Maine Capital Corporation15 included the following rationalization:
The rational uses a conventional truth that few will argue against, that without capital, it is difficult to grow a business, but the solution disavows the rule of law of the Maine Constitution by which It is not lawful to appropriate public resources in service of private profit motives with there being an exception for economic development at the municipal level requiring a public referendum which approves it. Home Rule aligns the community which benefits from private industry development with the responsibility for the burden of cost and authority to approve it.
The Maine Capital Corporation
In 1977 a tax credit for investing in the Maine Capital Corporation is codified as §5202. The statute directly following it is §5202-A, which exempts small business investment companies from taxation.
1977 §5202. Credit for investment in The Maine Capital Corporation
(REPEALED) SECTION HISTORY 1977, c. 531, §4
(NEW). 1981, c. 364, §67 (RP).
1977 §5202-A. Small business investment companies exempt
Corporate small business investment companies, licensed under the United States Small Business Investment Act of 1958, as amended, and commercially domiciled in Maine and doing business primarily in Maine, shall be exempt from taxation under this Part. [1977, c. 640, §2 (NEW).]
As currently found in Maine statutes
§5202 does not say that the tax credit is a refundable, meaning that if no taxes are owed the capitalist is due a refund on his investments from the taxpayers, but since §5202-A is a 100% tax exemption for investment companies investing in Maine small businesses, §5202 makes little sense unless it is a refundable tax credit.
According to the United States Congressional Budget Office, refundable tax credits first made their appearance in 1975[3] when inflation began a radical escalation which has continued ever since.
A refundable tax credit means that when no taxes are owed, the taxpayers owe the credit holder a cash payment. The Maine Capital Corporation was set up to issue tax credits in §5202. At the same time small business investment companies in general were made exempt from taxation in §5202-A That effectively meant that Maine taxpayers would be required to refund the Maine Capital corporation’s investments in Maine small businesses to the size of the 50% tax credit but the Maine Capital Corporation would not be required to reward proportionately valued stockholder shares as would be expected from an investment company functioning under general law. §5202 chartered a corporation as a special act of legislation written exclusively for the Maine Capital Corporation. It is worth noting that in the structure of the statutes the general law §5202-A is a subsection of the special act §5202. Today the special act has been repealed but §5202-A, the general law which was originally a subsection of §5202 has never been repealed. Although It was originally arranged as a subsection of the Maine Capital Corporation §5202-A is worded as a general law governing all investment companies in Maine that invest in Maine based small businesses and exempting all from taxation.
Today refundable tax credits are prolific throughout the Maine economic development statutes. The media and proponents usually use the simplified term
“tax credits” The arrangement of §5202 & §5202-A has been replaced so that subsequent tax exemptions are codified independently but the relationship between tax credits and tax exemptions still applies. By arranging the tax exemptions and tax credits independently of the other, the relationship is less obvious to the unsophisticated observer.
Surrendering the Power of Taxation?
The two 1977 complimentary statutes are the template for veiling direct cash transfers from the taxpayers to private corporations as tax credits.
Before Section 2 of the Home Rule Amendment was a part of the Home Rule Amendment, it was placed in Article IX Section 8. Marshal J Tinkle explains why:
If general obligation bonds were used so that a particular industry got back tax revenue in the form of aid, this could be equivalent to an unequal tax rate and hence in derogation of section 8. [4]
Whether a tax credit is really a tax credit or whether it is a cash payment, it is using the tax system as a form of aid for a particular industry which prior to Municipal Home Rule was determined by the courts to be the equivalency of an unequal tax rate and a derogation of Article IX Section 8 Taxation. Home Rule allows municipalities to use bonds for industrial development and is intended only for municipalities. When the state issues tax credits they benefit special interests while the responsibility for the debt is distributed generally across the entire state, making for an unequal tax rate. For communities and individuals not included in the state's “targeted sector”, state management of economic development is the equivalency of taxation without representation. Targeted sector industries and communities benefit at the expense of everyone else. When the legislature refers to the jobs created by this system as “quality jobs” and those quality jobs are based on income and worker benefits negotiated by the state in return for redistribution of the taxpayer’s money to the private owners of the means of production, it adds insult to injury. When tax payer subsidized upper end jobs are defined as “quality jobs” by the Maine Legislature, every other job not meeting the income and benefits negotiated by the state are by default jobs lacking in quality or worth according to standards established by the Maine Legislature. Since a “quality job” as defined by the Maine legislature must provide a higher than average income for the area, that means that all jobs providing an average or below average income for the area are by default jobs of no worthwhile quality to the Maine Legislature and administration. Is it a wonder that the middle class has been withering away in Maine since the Maine Legislature declared that centrally managing the economy is an essential government function? The legislative classification of jobs measured exclusively by materialistic values as “quality jobs” does a disservice to the people of Maine, as if to say that if you work and earn your own living you are not a quality person processing anything of value to society or anyone unless you are making more than most of the people in Maine, and that means that over half the people in Maine are not quality people involved in quality work. Is there hidden in the language of “quality jobs” “creative class” and “world class whatever’ a massive inferiority complex operative in the overlord class which they attempt to resolve over the rest of society? This is a detrimental attitude for the overlords to maintain, in my humblest opinion- and in addition it is not a sound economic theory. Certainly, a society with a thriving middle class provides economic opportunities for all and because of that reduces public welfare programs and creates the possibility of dignity for all, no matter what their position on the economic ladder.
Compliance with the Maine Constitution Section 9, Power of Taxation is also in question when the state issues a tax credit to investors for investing in a private corporation, which is transformed through the application of tax exemptions into a public debt owed to the private entity. The question becomes Is this a surrender of the power of taxation?
Section 9 Power of taxation The Legislature shall never, in any manner, suspend or surrender the power of taxation.
Reversing Public-Private Roles in Taxation
Through refundable tax credits a role reversal takes place within the publicprivate relationship in which the public becomes the party owing taxes to the private sector. The Legislature, purportedly the public servants, codified private and special interests into law, permitting a transference of the power of taxation to occur via the chameleon identity of public-private relationships. Within that shadow government, the Legislature has become the servants and partners of private interests granted special access to taxpayer money used to capitalize the public-private ownership of the means of production, this is sold to the public as “job creation” initiatives. In this concept of job creation, first the taxpayers must capitalize privately owned means of production in order to generate wage earning jobs for a special faction of taxpayers.
The architects of Maine's transformation justified their moves by pointing at the burden of providing assistance to the most unfortunate in society A new taxpayer burden was then created in the form of corporate welfare, an opportunities entitlement class, while general welfare which distributes only rations and not opportunities, continued to expand. Those entitled to opportunities are glorified as “the creative class” Those who are relying on rations for survival are commonly and collectively denigrated as never do well lazy drug addicts. Since the public is made aware of the burden of general welfare, while corporate welfare is cloaked in complimentary language, general welfare recipients are made into the scape goat of the entire welfare system but it is not until the institutionalization of a centrally managed economy organized through public private relationships capitalized by corporate welfare that inflation soars and the middle class – the opportunity zone for the bottom - starts slipping away. The burden for both welfare systems lands on the middle class – the backbone of a free enterprise system, which promotes opportunities at all levels of the economy, not only within a legislatively targeted sector and thrives within a free enterprise system diametrically opposed to an economy centrally managed by the state.
REPORT OF THE JOINT STANDING COMMITTEE
ON TAXATION ON ITS STUDY OF THE MAINE
11OTH LEGISLATURE COMMITTEE ON
TAXATION (1981)[5]
Tax factors related to MCC[6] were detailed on pp. 34-35 of the Offering Memorandum (see Appendix I). The major provision that would affect State tax revenues was the Maine income tax credit of fifty percent spread over a minimum of five years, available to investors in MCC's stock. We have no knowledge of which investors have availed themselves of this credit and to what degree. We do know it ls instrumental in mobilizing the capital, as intended by the Legislature
This tax credit is capped by a number of features, all included in the legislation. At a maximum it would be $500,000 spread out over at least five (5) years. As MCC makes more investments, with positive economic consequences, tax benefits to the State will accrue which sooner or later will surpass the costs. [7]
It is astounding that the Tax Report says “We have no knowledge of which investors have availed themselves of this credit and to what degree. We do know it ls instrumental in mobilizing the capital as intended by the Legislature”. One can speculate that the reason for not knowing is due to tax privacy laws and can only hope the Legislature had knowledge of the aggregate total of tax credits issued. That information is needed to know if benefits eventually overtake the costs. Even then the benefits are only measurable by what the state takes in through taxation or the direct benefit to the Corporation of Maine which is not a measure of the benefit to the general economy of Maine. The government is but a faction of Maine's economy.
A system in which there are winners and losers cannot be said to serve the common good. Among the citizenry the only winners are those who land the high paying jobs targeted by the Legislature. General taxpayers must cover the burden of capitalizing the high paying jobs. The taxpayers of Maine do not see an individual benefit from the burden they share other than what hypothetically occurs through the trickledown effect but the burden of costs also have a trickledown effect. In targeted sector economics, the bottom half of the economy subsidizes the upper half of the economy It is not surprising that the gulf between the haves and the have nots has increased in Maine and across the USA since the late 1970's when refundable tax credits first came into use.
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that between 2009 and 2011, the top one percent in Maine captured 60 percent of all income growth
Between 1979 and 2007, the top one percent took home well over half (53.9 percent) of the total increase in U.S. income,” the EPI report found. “Over this period, the average income of the bottom 99 percent of U.S. taxpayers grew by 18.9 percent. Simultaneously, the average income of the top one percent grew 10 times as much— by 200.5 percent.
…EPI reinforces MECEP’s own analysis which shows that wage inequality in Maine is growing,” Martin said. “While Maine has some of the lowest levels of income inequality among states, the economy continues to fail too many hard working Mainers who are experiencing very little income growth. MECEP’s report, The State of Working Maine in 2013 (http://bit.ly/1fhcBqU), released in November 2013 highlights this fact showing that between the late 1970s and the mid-2000s, the average income- after federal taxes and programs such as food stamps -for the poorest fifth of Maine households grew just 27 percent, from $18,720 to $23,825 Middle-income households fared slightly better, growing 47 percent over the same period. Meanwhile, average income for the top
20% of Maine households grew by 67 percent. Maine
Center For Economic Policy February 2014 [8]
Factor in that the purchasing power of the dollar decreased by 70% between 1979 and 2007.[9]
In claiming success for the new tax credit program, the 110th Joint Standing Committee on Taxation writes “We do know it ls instrumental in mobilizing the capital, as intended by the Legislature”- Why wouldn't that occur given the combined effect of §5202. Credit for investment in The Maine Capital Corporation and §5202-A. Small business investment companies exempt, the one a refundable tax credit of 50% of the investment and the other a 100% tax exemption?
There is another loop hole in the bills definition of purposes and limitations of the Maine Capital Corporation. Subsidiaries of foreign corporations which do their business primarily in Maine or do substantially all of their production in Maine are defined as Maine Corporations. I am speculating at this point on the purpose lying behind the construction of the law. The combination of §5202. Credit for investment in The Maine Capital Corporation and §5202-A. a 100% tax exemption for small business investment companies either functioned to transform the tax credit into a refundable tax credit or there could have been other Maine taxes generated by subsidiaries of foreign corporations via investments not located in Maine to which Maine tax credits could be applied. The Standing Committee on Taxation's Report merely states ““We have no knowledge of which investors have availed themselves of this credit and to what degree”. Is it because ambiguities in the interpretation of the law may be handled differently by different tax preparers? If so, how cognizant was the 1977 Legislature of that flexibility within the law which they codified under the leadership of the heads of Maine's most prosperous industries?
The Legislature shows as little concern about the fact of individual losers as it does about individual winners. It measures the public benefit collectively. If the corporate state sees an increase in tax revenues over time that means that the public has benefited, a collectivists world view. The state functions as a corporation calculating its own profits, not as public servants serving the common good. Like any private corporation, the state has its targeted sector which are its own special interests. The state has become one large development corporation, different from private development corporations only in the fact that the state writes the laws under which the general economy of Maine must function.
If the new private leaders of the state's public private government didn't concern themselves about the Maine Constitution, perhaps some among the Legislature were aware of Article IV Part Third Section 14's prohibition against chartering corporations by special act of legislation. In 1977 a statute was passed to reinvent the definition of “corporation”, paving the way for the corporate state, which is arguably that which Article IV Pat Third Sections 13 & 14 of the Maine Constitution is intended to prevent.
A Corporation. Title 13-B Section 102(4) defines the term "Corporation" as used in the Maine Nonprofit
Corporation Act. Certain entities are excluded from the definition. Among the exclusions are "an instrumentality, agency, political subdivision or body politic and corporate of the State." The Secretary of State interprets that phrase to mean an administrative unit or corporate outgrowth of State, county or local government created by statute, order, resolution, ordinance or articles of incorporation to perform functions traditionally associated with government activities. By way of example, entities, which will be considered excluded from the definition of corporation, include, but are not limited to:….[10]
Once again we see the authority to interpret the law granted to an inappropriate branch of government, in this case the administrative branch of government which does not constitutionally have interpretative authority under the United States Constitution or the Maine Constitution. The separation of the powers of government is basic Are we to believe that the entire legislative body of Maine is so ignorant of one of the fundamental premises of the United States and Maine Constitutions? The corporations which are said to be not corporations in the Maine Nonprofit Corporation Act are chartered as corporations in the special acts of legislation serving as their corporate charters. Despite the fact that the Legislature is trying to define a corporation as not a corporation, the language used to convey what is cannot find a way to articulate the concept without using the language of incorporation. Despite the clear need for Maine's new government by public private relationships to get around the Maine Constitution, it still needs to use definitions legally recognized in national and international law if it aspires to be a world class player.
Below is a list of corporations that are said to be not corporations for the purposes of Maine's new public-private system of government: Note that churches are still classified as corporations but non-profit religious corporations that are not churches are deemed to be not corporations, although even the Legislature couldn't figure out a way to identify them for the purpose of saying that they are not what they are without saying they are what they are said not to be: Reinventing the significance of language for the purpose of getting around dusty old Constitution is sometimes a very convoluted process and so we must bear with clumsiness of such a heroic attempt!
(15) The instrumentalists and corporate or political subdivisions of any of the above.
On October 14 2013 When I published a blog post titled How Maine's Home Rule Amendment Was Superseded By Statutory Law, The Rules for Non-Profit Corporations were posted online. Those rules are now available only by downloading the document-
Since the only robust way to challenge the constitutionality of statutory law is through the courts, anyone attempting to use the rules of this chapter before a court of law could present problems for Maine's corporate state which has entrenched an ever expanding network of corporations chartered by special acts of legislation. To have standing in a court of law one must show personal and individual harm done. Could these re-definitions hold the key to that? I cannot say. Clearly the intent of an 1876 constitutional Amendment cannot be defined by re-definitions of a key concept created by the Maine Legislature in 1977. The progressives who are implementing their new system of government do not have the consent of the governed. The consent of the governed is codified in one place only, the Maine Constitution.
The Maine Capital Corporation and The Maine Development Foundation had "sunset laws" in their charters, providing that each would be phased out at a specified date. The Maine Capital Corporation was phased out in 1981. The Maine Development Foundation Corporation still exists today and has generated an ever-expanding network of state corporations.
[1] This subject is covered in the chapter called The City States,
[2] http://www.maine.gov/dacf/lupc/laws_rules/rule_chapters/Statute_2014.pdf
[3] https://www.cbo.gov/publication/43767
[4] The Maine Constitution: A Reference Manual
[5] http://preservingtheamericanpoliticalphilosophy.com/report%202.pdf
[6] Maine Capital Corporation
[7] http://www.maine.gov/dacf/lupc/laws_rules/rule_chapters/Statute_2014.pdf
[8] http://www.mecep.org/new-report-the-income-gap-between-those-at-the-very-top-of-theeconomic-ladder-andeveryone-else-is-growing-wider/
[9] for communities and individuals not included in the state's “targeted sector”
[10] The quote presented here is as it was when I originally encountered the bill. When I went back to it on 9/20/2016, it was changed to 4. Corporation. "Corporation" or "domestic corporation" means a nonprofit corporation subject to this Act, including a nonprofit hospital and medical organization subject to Title 24, chapter 19. It shall not include: A. A foreign corporation; [1977, c. 592, §12 (NEW).] B. A corporation subject to the laws regulating banking and insurance companies; or [1977,
c. 592, §12 (NEW).] C. An instrumentality, agency, political subdivision or body politic and corporate of the State. [1977, c. 592, §12 (NEW).] [ 1977, c. 592, §12 (RPR) .] “ The explanation about the Secretary of State’s interpretation was gone. The exclusion of corporations serving as instrumentalities of the state are still arguably unconstitutional pursuant to Article IV Part Third Sections 13 & 14 of the Maine Constitution. There was no notation reflecting that the text of the statute had been edited.
corporatism. corporate state Governor Longley Home Rule inflation LURC Maine Maine Constitution public private relationships
Labels: corporatism. corporate state Governor Longley Home Rule inflation LURC Maine Maine Constitution public private relationships