In a recent column my tagline (that’s at the end of the column) mentioned that the time may come where Maine might become a state too expensive to live in. I must admit that some of my taglines are in fun or are meant to create thought as to what might happen. And out of the blue I ran into someone last weekend who reinforced my thoughts on moving, at least, out of this state or maybe even to another country, which probably has both of my parents rolling over in their graves.

Let’s make no mistake about one thing about the state of Maine: It’s broke. It owes $500 million to hospitals in the state and has not made any effort to date to pay the debt. The Department of Health and Human Services is at least $100 million in the hole while at the same time the state has a deficit of tens of millions of dollars in projected spending. Some in Augusta call that a structural gap because the well ran dry instead of providing enough water (of course here I mean money).

I am sure most of us living in Windham have seen the news about a proposed $100 million bond to rebuild the state prison off of the River Road in South Windham. Oh, I am sure it is in some serious need of repair or replacement, which is no different than some of the infrastructure located in Windham and other municipalities across our state. What bothers me about floating bonds is the fact that money is above and beyond the budget of a town or the state until the payments become due in the future. Windham is doing something similar with its purchases of large vehicles like dump trucks and now I noticed a public notice soliciting bids for a street sweeper. What I can’t understand is why the governor is so gung-ho for this prison bond when he froze other bonds because he claimed the state couldn’t afford them at this time.

I mentioned in a previous column that Windham could face a huge increase in its property tax rate if the governor’s budget is approved. That budget proposal does away with revenues for municipalities, which could mean a property tax increase of perhaps $500 and that’s just for the town side. I can also bet that the RSU 14 school budget will contain at least a $1 million dollar increase. I must add those increases are only to keep the status quo so anything added to either of the budgets will cause an even greater increase in property taxes.

Although seemingly a good thing, the Maine Public Utilities Commission has given a preliminary green light for wind turbines to be located offshore in the Gulf of Maine. Maybe it isn’t such a good thing because this project is relatively small as far as the amount of electricity that could be produced. It would be better to state that this project is the beginning of the process to create the technology needed for even larger offshore wind farms. The Maine PUC was also kind enough to state that Maine consumers are willing to pay the more than double cost of electricity produced by the proposed wind farm. I can only surmise that the total cost to taxpayers and electricity consumers is going to be much higher. I’ll even bet the money, if you have any left, that’s in your wallet.

If you shop online or in New Hampshire, you might even kiss more of your money goodbye because it is now legal in some states for businesses to add a fee when you use certain credit cards. Those fees could be as high as 4 percent. Fuel prices are once again on the rise as well as the cost of postage at our local post office. To add insult to injury, the co-pays my wife pays for her medications are increasing almost 42 percent. Maybe the biggest mistake we made was working for a living.

Lane Hiltunen of Windham wonders why there is proposed legislation allowing motorists to proceed after stopping for a red light when Maine is broke.