My OpEd Against BIW Tax Giveaway Bill That Maine Papers Are Reluctant To Publish

I submitted versions of this opinion column to the Kennebec Journal's Maine Compass and the Bangor Daily News opinion page on January 14. An admin at the KJ called me the next day to confirm my submission, but the column has yet to run in either paper. So, I am self-publishing it here. 

* Note that since I wrote this piece, LD1781 has been revised to eliminate state tax withholdings by BIW from their employees as the source for the $60 million tax giveaway. It probably didn't sound too good to those of us who pay our fair share of state taxes via salary withholdings.

LD1781 tax giveaway for General Dynamics a bad idea

by Lisa Savage, Maine Natural Guard

The fifth largest weapons manufacturer on the planet has asked Bath legislators to sponsor a bill to shore up its already enormous profits. General Dynamics, which owns Bath Iron Works (BIW), wants Maine taxpayers to allow them to keep $60 million in state taxes withheld from their employees' paychecks each year.*

LD1781 is being sponsored by Rep. Jennifer DeChant and Sen. Eloise Vitelli on behalf of a corporation so wealthy that it has spent $9.4 billion since 2013 buying back its own stock. General Dynamics paid its CEO $21 million last year.

Last time General Dynamics got a tax gift from the state they claimed the money was needed for infrastructure that would allow them to remain competitive in shipbuilding for the Navy and provide jobs. But, despite tax giveaways by the state and the city of Bath, BIW cut jobs anyway.

Two years ago the Maine Department of Economic & Community Development commissioned a study by Investment Consulting Associates that evaluated the tax credit given in 1997 to BIW. The report's recommendations were not encouraging: “eliminate program or significantly alter it so that it applies to a broad selection of Maine’s shipbuilding community.” Their reasoning was that putting all of Maine's eggs into one basket -- Pentagon contracts-- was a bad gamble for the future of our state economy.

Inquiring minds may wonder why BIW is now seeking to retain its employees' state tax withholdings* rather than a reduction in its corporate taxes. Since neither the state nor General Dynamics will release tax records showing what's currently being paid, it's impossible to know but easy to guess that the amount they are currently paying is not much. So, relief from their taxes as a corporation is already in place, and they are now seeking yet another avenue to prosper at the state's expense.

As a working family in Maine, my husband and I pay a hefty tax rate on our income. If our tax revenue goes to maintain roads and bridges, care for the elderly, or provide health care for low income kids we are fine with that.

According to Maine Equal Justice Partners, there are about 43,000 Maine children growing up in poverty and of those 20,000 growing up in what is considered "deep poverty". They attend schools that have never been fully funded according to the Maine legislature's own goal of providing more than half the cost of public education; a recent study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found towns spending 12% more on K-12 education while state spending was -9% from 2008-2015.

How can we justify giving a mega wealthy corporation whose executives are millionaires a tax gift at the expense of Maine's children?

The justification that Rep. DeChant offers is the same as usual: jobs. She wrote in an email to me on January 9, "Bath Iron Works is the largest employer headquartered in my District. There are 477 BIW employees who reside in Bath. When a constituent (corporate or individual) asks me to put in a bill, I do so."

But building warships is actually an ineffective jobs program. Research by economists at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst has repeatedly found that a $1 billion investment in various sectors of the economy -- building public transportation or energy efficient building components, health care, education, even tax rebates to individuals -- creates more jobs than the same investment in Pentagon contracting. The data included only full time, full benefit jobs in their reckoning in 2006 and again in 2011.

So that is a second piece of research indicating that tax giveaways for General Dynamics are a poor way to shore up the Maine economy.

Many Maine taxpayers are opposed to LD1781 and some of them met with the bill's sponsors at Bath City Hall on December 21. A videographer who wanted to record the discussion was turned away by Rep. DeChant, who now admits she made a mistake. Perhaps General Dynamics did not want constituents' objections to about the pending legislation to reach our ears?

Mainers have a right to information about tax giveaways at their expense, and they have a right to have a voices heard. The Taxation Committee of the Maine Legislature has not yet announced a date for hearings on LD1781. In the meantime, we can contact our own representatives and senators in Maine to say: no tax giveaway for General Dynamics.

##

Here's the list of organizations opposing LD1781, which I could not fit on my cartoon:

350 Maine
Americans Who Tell the Truth (Brooksville)
COAST (Citizens Opposing Active Sonar Threats, Hancock)
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space (Bath)
Greater Brunswick PeaceWorks
Green Horizon Magazine (Topsham)
Island Peace & Justice (Deer Isle)
Maine Green Independent Party
Maine Natural Guard (Solon)
Maine Veterans For Peace
Maine War Tax Resistance Resource Center (Portland)
Maine Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom (Brunswick)
Peace Action Maine (Portland)
Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine (Bangor)
Peace & Justice Group of Waldo County
Peninsula Peace & Justice Center (Blue Hill)
Resources for Organizing & Social Change (Augusta)

Is Maine Legislator DeChant Gullible Enough To Believe BIW When They Dismiss Constituents' Concerns?

Reading reports on emails between General Dynamics' Bath Iron Works shipyard VP John Fitzgerald and Rep. Jennifer DeChant (D-Bath) has been illuminating, to put it mildly.

According to investigative reporter Alex Nunes, who filed a Maine Freedom of Access Act (FOAA) request to be privy to their email exchanges, DeChant wrote:

“Hi Jon- Have you see the LTE by Bruce Gagnon. Is there a communications plan around responding, etc.? I hope this bill is run early. Jennifer.”

Ok, I get why DeChant reached out for help responding to her constituent Gagnon's letter to the editor offering eloquent opposition to her corporate welfare bill to benefit BIW: “General Dynamics has no business asking for more tax breaks.” 

DeChant is in over her head and has been from the start in sponsoring a $60 million tax giveaway to benefit the 5th largest defense contractor in the world.

She's made a few blunders along the way, but here we see her being deliberately misled by Fitzegerald in his reply which read in part:

"...Bruce is a one man band who is also using this as an opportunity to raise the profile of his organization and its central message. While I have no doubt about the sincerity of his convictions, he is attempting to frame the debate about General Dynamics and to demonize the ‘big bad corporation.’ I am not going to oblige him and debate with him on his terms in the media.”

Fitzgerald wants DeChant to think Bruce is out there on his own, rather than one of dozens of people who've had similar letters published in 14 different papers over the last few weeks. Or of scores of people who have protested at BIW. Or the many who've been arrested there over the years.

Since Bruce has been so diligent in confronting BIW for years now from his perch right on their doorstep, I'm going to guess Fitzgerald knows that what he told DeChant is not true.

I bet he knows Bruce Gagnon works as a coordinator for a major international peace organization (Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space), that he is also an active member of a local chapter of the national group Veterans for Peace, and that he often organizes with a local group, Peaceworks of Greater Brunswick. Gagnon has also been the lead organizer for the annual Maine Peace Walk for years. He told the judge in the Aegis 9 case just concluded that he estimates having protested outside BIW at least 100 times. 

Certainly the judge assumed BIW executives know exactly who he is when he remarked to the prosecutor during the trial, "Do you really think Bruce Gagnon is getting through that gate?"

So DeChant underestimates the band that Gagnon plays in at her peril. That band numbers in the hundreds, and it successfully resisted an enormous tax rebate by the city of Bath in 2013 (BIW got something, but much less than they had been demanding).

In addition to 350 Maine and the Maine Green Independent Party coming out against the bill, there have also been many public statements against LD1781 by individuals other than Gagnon. A sampling:

The Right Thing by Eric Herter (Times Record  2/9/18)
Tax break for BIW by Jim Anderberg (Lewiston Sun Journal 2/2/18)
No tax giveaways for General Dynamics by Leslie Manning (Bangor Daily News 1/30/18)
No need for Maine taxpayers to subsidize BIW by Mary Beth Sullivan (Portland Press Herald 1/28/18)
General Dynamics doesn't need tax handouts by Robert Hayes (Bangor Daily News 1/25/18)
No Tax Giveaway for General Dynamics by Mark Roman (Morning Sentinel 1/18/18)
General Dynamics has asked for enough money by Peter Morgan (Portland Press Herald 1/3/18)
No more handouts for General Dynamics by Dud Hendricks (Bangor Daily News 12/25/17)
No More Tax Breaks for General Dynamics and BIW by Lisa Savage (Kennebec Journal 12/3/17)


Gagnon is the opposite of a lone wolf, but it's convenient for Fitzgerald to dismiss him as such. 

BIW wants to ensure that DeChant and co-sponsor Sen. Eloise Vitelli see the corporation as their most important constituent, far more important than the mere humans who make a mark next to her name at the ballot box.

Before she stopped replying to my emails and blocked me on Twitter, DeChant told me something that is probably not true but might come in handy for those who live in Bath: "When a constituent (corporate or individual)  asks me to put in a bill, I do so."

Unless I am completely mistaken, this means When BIW tells me to jump I ask, How high? 

But at least one of her constituents (and it's not Gagnon) is interested in asking her to put in a bill for conversion, that is, turning BIW production capabilities away from building warships and toward building sustainable energy solutions.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Meanwhile, LD1781 is tabled and its unclear when or even if the Taxation Committee will move the bill as amended to the floor.

First DeChant and some of the the other legislators have to get BIW to explain the amendments to them.

Evidence That Bath Legislator Colludes With Corporation To Rob Poor, Enrich Wealthy

Battleships versus health care -- which side are you on? Banner by ARRT!

The guns or butter conflict seldom comes to such a clear head as it did this week in Maine Rep. Jennifer DeChant's emails with General Dynamics' Bath Iron Works executive John Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald is the same guy who guided DeChant through her bumbling presentation this week of the $60 million corporate welfare bill she is sponsoring. My husband who attended the Committee on Taxation's work session on LD1781 February 8 said it was clear DeChant barely understood her own bill or the amendments that have been crafted to respond to public outcry against the tax giveaway. She fumbled through questions from committee members and deferred often to Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald does know what he wants and he knows how to sell it, by alternately playing the victim and threatening Maine with job loss if they don't vote his way.

DeChant and Fiztgerald's email exchanges, obtained via a public access request by investigative journalist Alex Nunes, included this gem:

Hi Jon- Have you see the LTE by Bruce Gagnon. Is there a communications plan around responding, etc.? I hope this bill is run early. Jennifer 

Fitzgerald responded: I agree earlier in session the better, I have no illusions about the difficulty we may have amidst the Medicaid expansion debate. [emphasis mine]

Former state legislator Jeff Evangelos explains the connection:

"..the state's Medicaid expansion local matching money is $54 million, which will unlock a $550 million federal grant to Maine. Ironic that the State share of $54 million for health care is almost identical to the $60 million bailout, something the Bath fellow seems to have taken notice of."

Medicaid expansion has been refused to date in Maine despite glaring need. The result is that my low income students who have health services through MaineCare have parents who lack health care. Mom and dad's teeth may be rotting, they may need mental health care, insulin, or a myriad of other things that wealthy nations provide for their citizens.

Banner by ARRT!

But if Democrat DeChant gets her way, low income adults in Maine will continue to go without so that a corporation that paid its CEO $21 million last year can get a tax giveaway.


Go without, or go to the emergency room -- if they can find one. This fall a town about an hour north of us closed its 24 hour emergency services facility. Folks who are injured logging, white water rafting or snowmobiling now have to travel about 70 miles to reach the nearest emergency care. This is in a region with an economy heavily dependent on tourism. 

I find government in service to corporations not only disgusting but dangerous.

I'm not surprised that it took DeChant several weeks to comply with the request for her emails with General Dynamics' BIW executives. I suspect she likes the free lunch but knows she is on dangerous footing with any claim to be representing the actual people, her constituents in Bath.

Stay tuned for more gems from DeChant and Fitzgerald's email exchanges.

Maine Rep. Jennifer DeChant Wants To Hear From General Dynamics But Not From Mainers

Here in Maine we're still waiting for an LD number for the bill that Rep. Jennifer DeChant and Sen. Eloise Vitelli are sponsoring for General Dynamics.

The fifth largest weapons manufacturer on the planet needs Maine taxpayers to pony up $60 million in tax breaks next year or else (insert repeated threats of job loss at the Bath Iron Works shipyard owned by GD).

Ironically, Rep. Jennifer DeChant has blocked me on twitter after I sent her this photo of my Sunday bridge vigil:

That's the Kennebec River in the background, the same river that General Dynamics regularly pollutes and dredges in order to make enormous profits, buy back its own stock, and pay its CEO $21 million a year.

Here's the informative article by investigative reporter Alex Nunes that I wanted to share with Rep. DeChant: Extending Bath Iron Works Tax Break Would Ignore State Consultant’s Review. The article details how a study in Maine determined that continuing to put all our eggs in the weaponized ship building basket was a bad gamble for the future of our state economy.

Also ironically, the Maine bill's co-sponsor, State Senator Eloise Vitelli, had this to say on twitter about the GOP's recent corporate tax giveaway:

Tax bill will not get better in conference1 https://t.co/lU2Y8UolYt

— eloise vitelli (@evitelli) December 5, 2017

There’s still time for lawmakers to reject the tax bill abomination https://t.co/6p5aHAGm4A via @bangordailynews #mepolitics #goptaxscam

— MECEP (@MECEP1) December 5, 2017

Both DeChant and Vitelli are Democrats, carrying water for General Dynamics. They barred a videographer from a meeting with concerned constituents in December, and now one of them has barred me from tweeting information that her followers might see.

You can check out my twitter account in case you think I might have gotten blocked because I had sunk to name-calling, threats or vulgar language. But that's not my style.

The ugly, naked truth is powerful enough.