Dear Editor:

At the first budget public hearing, Richard Rosen, former Maine member of Maine’s corporate American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and newly appointed Commissioner of Finance, reiterated the phrases “simplified” and “for the people” during his presentation.

When it comes to budgets, I have a birthright to claim how to tell when the words match the numbers. My father was an actuarial statistician and rose to vice president at Johnson & Higgins, the world’s fifth largest insurance/financial firm. At age 13, he invited me to the family budget table. Actuaries predict the risks and probabilities for life spans in potential pools of employees. Insurance companies cannot afford to lose money and neither can governments.

At 13, I learned that when someone presents you with words for which they have zero data, it is a clear sign that the data does not support the words — there is always data.

A number of those testifying seemed frustrated when questions were answered with “data is not available.” When tax expert Albert.A. DiMillo Jr. stood at the podium, his “passion” spilled over the table and throughout the room as he offered data after data that was openly available, and surprisingly confirmed that the majority of the commissioner’s prognostications of future “prosperity” did not hold true.

Clinching this conclusion was learning that all of the simplification for “the people” required more, not less staff, to review tax returns.

In business “simplified” has expectations of “efficiency” — same staff can handle higher volumes, or same volumes result in reduced staff. Either “simplified” is the wrong word, or “the people” are the wrong phrase, or both. The legislators need to figure that out.

Three people spoke in favor of the budget, two spoke neither in favor nor against, and 17 spoke against. Several against had provided data being sought by the legislature. Several, including one of the neither in favor, nor against, could clearly see where the wealthy were benefiting, but had not been able to see the dollar impact on the majority of Maine’s citizens. Can we conclude that “the people” whose pockets will have more money, are the wealthy, not the majority of Maine? That’s the people’s question.

Jarryl Larson

Edgecomb