Dear Editor:

This new year Congress has a clear choice with regard to balancing the budget: make even more cuts to funding for federal agencies (cuts to vital infrastructure and necessary services) or it can close corporate tax loopholes and have the large corporations pay their own way the rest of us do.

The taxpayers of the Boothbay region may wish to contact our senators, Susan Collins and Angus King, and ask the following questions:

Should we have a fiscal plan for the federal government that asks big corporations to pay their fair share in taxes?

Regarding revenue and being fiscally responsible, is it worth looking at closing offshore tax havens and other corporate loopholes as sources of revenue to be raised?

At the state level, according to an estimate by national organizations who study tax dodging and tax havens, Maine lost $9 million last year alone to offshore tax havens. Is this fair?

At the state level, the budget debate of the last legislative session made it is clear that there is not much of an appetite on the part of Mainers for cuts to revenue sharing. Revenue sharing would have led to a shortfall for Boothbay of nearly $280,000 of cuts to infrastructure and education.

Some of the nation's largest corporations pay almost nothing in taxes. Is it fair for the largest corporations in the nation to contribute almost nothing toward funding the nation they call home leaving the rest of us to pick up their tab?

Stephen Gottlieb

Alex Jackimovicz

Joe and Lisa McSwain

Michael Mayhew