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Maine Issue Brief 20

Maine Issue Brief

No. 20

 

Governor Jeb Bush: A Record of Leadership and Policy Accomplishment

 

by: Stephen L. Bowen, Tarren Bragdon, Jason A. Fortin, and J. Scott Moody

 

In his two terms as Florida’s 43rd governor, Jeb Bush challenged the status quo and reshaped state government in order to lead Florida, the nation’s fourth most populous state, towards a prosperous future.

 

Summing up his legacy in the Washington Post, Governor Bush said:

 

“This office has more authority to create the agenda and implement it…My gift is that we’ve shown that governors can be activists, they can be reformers, if they want to.”

 

 

Governor Bush proposed and signed into law meaningful education, fiscal/taxation, health care, and environment policies that have set a transformative course for the state.

 

Click here to read the report. (PDF)
Maine Issue Brief 19

Maine Issue Brief

No. 19

 

Maine’s “Town Tuitioning” Program

Milton Friedman’s School Choice Ideal?

 

by: Stephen L. Bowen

 

Economist Milton Friedman first described his vision for a school voucher program in a 1955 essay titled The Role of Government in Education. Arguing that government operation of schools could not be justified in what he called a “predominantly free enterprise society,” and convinced that the free market would produce a better educational product, Friedman developed the concept of school vouchers as a way that government could both fund the education of its citizens and create better schools.

 

Today, there are various school voucher programs in place around the nation. Long before Milton Friedman first put the concept of school vouchers to paper, students in many Maine towns were already taking advantage of a school choice option very much like what Friedman had in mind.

 

Click here to read the report.
Latest Report

The Maine View

Vol. 5, Issue No. 5

 

Maine’s Near-Universal Coverage for Children Makes SCHIP Expansion Unnecessary

 

by Tarren Bragdon and J. Scott Moody

 

As Congress debates a dramatic expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), Maine’s experience shows that SCHIP expansion is unnecessary, would dramatically raise taxpayer costs for the already expensive Maine SCHIP, further raise premiums for those with private health insurance, and reduce Maine’s private sector share of personal income.

 

This Maine View publication examines the five-year $75 billion federal SCHIP expansion that some in Congress advocate. The report findings reveal that such an expansion is not only unnecessary, but will likely result in higher Maine taxes. SCHIP expansion could also mean up to a 294 percent increase in FY2006 Maine SCHIP spending, requiring an annual increase in state spending of $25 million. Such a state spending increase will further erode Maine’s private sector share of personal income to 65.3 percent in 2013 from 66.1 percent in 2006 (latest year of actual data).

 

Click here to read the report. (PDF)

 
State Government Compensation

The Maine View

Vol. 5, Issue No. 4

 

The State Government ‘Gravy Train’

An Analysis of Private versus State Government Compensation

 

by J. Scott Moody and Jason A. Fortin

 

Government employment was once considered a “public service.” In public service, individuals were paid at a lower rate than for comparable work in the private sector. However, a new report from The Maine Heritage Policy Center reveals that the notion that these government jobs are to be performed at a lower level of compensation than private sector jobs has evaporated.

 

As part of an ongoing series on government compensation levels, this report examines the compensation differential between the Maine private sector and Maine state government. The major finding of this report is that a large disparity exists between their respective levels. Additionally, the analysis found that the disparity between the Maine’s private sector and state government is significantly greater than that of local government.

 

Click here to read the report.
Maine Piglet Book

Click here to view the report.
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