Ad title: Untitled

Length: 30 Seconds

Produced by: Goddard Claussen, based in Washinigton, D.C.

Fed up with Taxes?  Vote Yes! On 1.

“Fed up with taxes?” 

“Vote Yes! on 1.” 

A list of supporting organizations scrolls past. 

My name is Rene Noel.  I’m fed up with taxes and I’ll be voting yes on question one.

MPBN's Barbara Cariddi researched the claims made in this political advertisement by Fed Up With Taxes, the group promoting repeal of a newly-enacted beverage tax to replace the funding mechanism for the state-subsidized Dirigo Health program.

This reflects the notion that Maine has the highest tax burden in the country.  Recently, the so-called Tax Foundation, a fiscally conservative group, challenged that perception, ranking Maine 15th in the nation on its annual measure of state and local tax burdens. In the past, the foundation has ranked Maine much higher; last year, it pegged Maine's tax burden as second-highest in the nation.  But this year, the organization figured its rankings differently:  It did not include property taxes paid by out-of-staters who own second homes in Maine, a change that significantly lowered Maine’s ranking.  The ranking reflects the amount of taxes residents pay compared with their per capita income.

Nonetheless, a University of Maine School of Economics professor has concluded that the beverage tax will have a significant impact on Maine taxpayers, businesses and beverage consumers.  According to Todd Gabe’s study, the tax will cost Maine households and businesses $40.7 million a year, leading to a reduction in beverage sales and, ultimately, job losses.

The study was funded in part by the Fed Up With Taxes coalition, the group that’s campaigning to repeal the tax, and it’s being met with heavy criticism.  Kit. St. John of the Maine Center for Economic Policy calls it an “embarrassment” based on flawed logic.  St. John says the study fails to note that the tax won’t generate new revenue from Maine households and businesses; instead, he says, it shifts the burden from one revenue source—the higher insurance premiums residents are currently paying to help fund Dirigo--to another source, the beverage tax.  And rather than costing jobs, St. John says the tax could result in more jobs in the health care industry as the new funding mechanism stabilizes the Dirigo program, allowing it to cover more of the state's uninsured.

Amy Fried

University of Maine

• Associate Professor of Political Science
• Associate Dean for Research in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

The two ads on Question 1 demonstrate how framing an issue – making a case for what an issue is about – is key to political communication and persuasion.

The Yes on 1 ad emphasizes taxes, the cost borne by taxpayers.  It never mentions what this dedicated tax pays for nor the actual cost of the tax, but instead links the tax to the economy and the difficulties Maine people have in facing energy costs and other economic challenges.  Furthermore, the ad links the tax to the Maine legislature which, it says, “every time they turn around, they have a new idea, they want to increase taxes to fund their new idea.” With this phraseology, the legislature’s policy positions and legislative enactments are separated from what the people want.  State legislators are presented as out of touch with the concerns of Maine people.

The imagery and language of the ad reinforce this message.  The narrator is outside in the woods, has a Maine accent, and uses straightforward, clear language to lodge his complaints against the tax. A list of endorsers is provided but it screens through quickly at the end and does not appear to be intended to constitute much in the way of persuasion, except perhaps to demonstrate that various Maine groups support the anti-tax position.

In contrast, the No on 1 ad frames the issue in terms of the health care program supported by the tax. The narrator states that this effort has led to “improving and saving lives” and touts preventative care. When turning to the cost, it is presented in terms of pennies per drink consumed and the ad shows a large picture of a penny.  A woman physician, shown in her office with a young boy, narrates the spot.  Dr. Madden conveys warmth and caring and the music is soft and pleasant.  The list of endorsers is much more present than in the Yes on 1 ad and both the narrator and these endorsers convey concern for the health of Maine people.  While the Yes on 1 ad places legislators as their opponent on this issue, the No on 1 ad instead presents health care providers as the key group against the referendum.

Ron Schmidt

University of Southern Maine

• Associate Professor of Political Science
• Specialties: Political Theory, Racial and Ethnic Politics and Urban Politics.

The "No on One Coalition" and "Fed Up With Taxes.org" are campaigning not just on the outcome of Question One, but on its meaning. Employing competing types of expertise, the campaigns are arguing over whether the initiative is a penny-wise, pound-foolish measure that endangers children's health care or a restraint on an irresponsible state legislature.  Both ads nonetheless draw our attention to their missing middle ground, the hard choices forced by Maine's economic uncertainty.

The two ads don't just disagree; they read Question One completely differently. The ad from "Fed Up With Taxes" begins with a man who identifies himself as "a forester" and one of many Mainers who are struggling in the current economy.  After describing a general state of economic hardship in Maine, he criticizes the state legislature as unable to "prioritize," and as quick to "increase taxes to fund" any number of vaguely defined "new ideas."  In the narrative of this ad, then, Question One is a rebuke of an idealistic and fiscally irresponsible state government, and an attempt by economically vulnerable citizens to resist taxation; children's health care is not mentioned, except, by implication, as one of the legislature's many expensive and "back-breaking" ideas.

The "No on One" ad features Dr. Amy Madden treating a child.  Dr. Madden is identified as a citizen of Rome, Maine.  Thus before she begins talking, her white lab coat, hometown, and patient combine to present an image of overlapping models of expertise: she can speak to issues of health care as a physician and to the financial concerns of ordinary Mainers as a resident of a small town in Kennebec County.  She speaks in a no-nonsense tone of voice, and, rather than using the toxic word "taxes," pairs children's health care with "beer, wine and sugar drinks."  She reiterates this point later in the ad ("One penny for a glass of wine, three pennies for a beer, four pennies for a can of soda") over a visual of a slowly spinning coin.  She also cites Maine's success in extending health care coverage to families; the ad thus asserts that the new Dirigo funding plan is a small but necessary investment in an important and functioning system. The ad's message is that Question One and the law it was created to veto are, simply put, two sides in a debate on funding children's health care.

Watching these ads together can be frustrating; in important ways, they talk past each other.  One side employs the expert voice of a sensible Maine physician to speak in defense of children's heath  insurance while the other presents the expert voice of a struggling Maine forester in an attack on out-of-touch legislators during economic hard-times.  They do, however, direct the voter to the crucial topic that lies between their messages: the fate of health care for children during a time of disappearing public and private resources.  If taxing beverages is too regressive a way to fund  children's health care, how *will* that vital need be met?  Neither campaign answers that question in this ad, but clearly this is a central issue which needs to be addressed.