Lane/Tommy: The Maine Legislature finally passed the state budget last week. One would tend to believe that it is a balanced budget that produces tax reform for Mainers.

Webster’s New World Dictionary and Thesaurus defines reform as “to make better by stopping abuses.” Some readers may not realize that the approved state budget increased by more than $400 million, which means some kind of tax increase for every Maine citizen is imminent.

With such an increase in the budget, we would not use the term tax reform but rather label the state budget as a method to rob more from Peter to pay Paul even more. It’s all smoke and mirrors. Watch both hands when a politician shakes hands with you. The left hand is going for your wallet.

Lane: Approving the state budget is done. However, now the debate begins over how to pay for a larger budget while claiming it produces tax reform. Please remember that some members of the legislature haven’t a clue what they just approved and how we taxpayers are going to pay for it.

One of the proposals is to decrease the income tax to 6 percent and then broaden the sales tax to make up for the loss of revenue for less income tax. The problem is that the new budget is higher so somewhere someone is hiding how we must pay for it.

So when a buffoon sitting in an office in Augusta tells you that the next budget is revenue neutral, all one has to do is ask a simple question. Who’s the idiot here?

Tommy: As the old song goes, when will they ever learn? Will our elected officials ever learn? It appears that they never will. Not today, not tomorrow but maybe when the entire system crashes into financial ruin will the insane desire by government officials to spend our money cease.

Government at all levels appears to have a hunger to extend its piggish hands deeper and deeper into our wallets without any regard to the financial consequences they impose upon us. Not all taxpayers are created equal. We have state and local government workers who have assured benefits such as an annual increase in salary and free medical coverage which are extended into retirement for life. The financial obligation of providing these benefits is an economic tsunami that will drive the taxpayers of Maine into guaranteed poverty.

Lane/Tommy: It’s time to ask who is responsible for our ever-increasing tax burden in Maine. Under Gov. Baldacci, our tax burden has increased from 12.5 to 14 percent and, yet, if you listen to him, you would swear the taxpayer got the gold mine, not the shaft. State officials have stated numerous times that local spending is out of control while local officials blame our tax burden on state mandates. Who’s lying?

Now for our response to the Windham Town Manager’s response last week to a column where we stated it’s time for citizens to be able to vote once again on proposed expenditures over $25,000. Our complaint was that the town council approved spending $400,000 for a piece of property that was supposedly in the budget approved at a town meeting although we never saw such a line item in the budget specific for that piece of land. Most people we spoke with had no idea what the town manager’s response was even about.

Lane and Tommy, of Windham, are volunteering to replace the town manager and superintendent of schools without any salary, health benefits, free car, free cellular phone, free travel to conventions and credit cards in order to spend $5,000 of tax dollars on a daily basis. Promise us that all you say is true, that’s all that we ask of you.