Dear Editor,

In 1976, the small business economy was growing in Maine.

The Maine Legislature declared that centrally managing the economy is an essential government function to be done through public-private relationships and so was born the system of today that subsidizes the capitalization of large corporations, justified as job creation.

Corporate jobs promised wealth and economic security for all but the wealth divide expanded year after year. As the wealth of the people was transferred to the top, the worker’s paychecks stretched thinner until it no longer afforded home ownership. That was the straw that broke the corporate promise, sustaining the growth of the remote worker’s movement.

Many programs were devised to manage the living expenses of the people but with caveats. Programs for housing needs place income caps on the inhabitants of housing developments, first for low-income housing, next for affordable housing, and now for workforce housing. Income caps start with 60% of the median income for the area for low-income housing and reach 120% of the median for workforce housing.

For those around or below the median income, it’s not the opportunity economy, it’s the caste system economy.

Harris and Walz have reintroduced the concept of opportunity into the American conversation with the slogan “The opportunity economy,” its the way life should be in the land of opportunity.

LD 2003 calls for priority zones for residential housing of unregulated density in every Maine municipality. The financing targets developments that cap the income of the inhabitants. Short-term rentals are taking up existing homes and driving up the cost of housing so that options are few to housing with income caps unless municipalities innovate the priority zone and reconsider short-term rentals and their effects.

The Harris Walz policy supports assistance for new home buyers but there needs to be options in Maine to buying a residential home on leased land in a densely packed affordable housing development.

The Harris Walz policy incentivizes small business growth.

LD 2003 imposes a uniform grid defining uniform essentials of community character over every Maine municipality. This is not the way life should be.

Susan M. Andersen

Boothbay Harbor