Is Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) a millionaire’s tax convert — or is she just worried about losing her next race to a far-left political novice?
On Thursday, the governor endorsed a millionaire’s tax in a supplemental budget proposal. The two percent surtax would push Maine’s top tax rate to 9.15 percent — exceeding nearby Massachusetts, which had the seventh highest top marginal individual income tax rate in the country in 2025, according to the Tax Foundation. Mills requested that some of the revenue be used to lower property taxes. The Maine Legislature’s Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee advanced the package on Thursday.
Mills knows better. She opposed a 4 percent millionaire’s tax last year, and in 2024 she vetoed legislation that would have put Maine’s top rate at 8.45 percent. She said in an interview last month that it would have raised revenue in the short run, but that the effect eventually would “fade away.”
Only around 2,600 of Maine’s roughly 1.4 million residents would be affected, but alienating that small group could have outsize effects on the state’s finances. If wealthy citizens flee to sunny Florida or nearby New Hampshire, for example, the politicians who voted for this tax hike will have to choose between cutting the budget or raising taxes on even more people.
Massachusetts passed a 4 percent millionaire’s surtax in 2022, and supporters point to the $6 billion in revenue it has raised since. But the year after it was passed, the state lost $4.2 billion in adjusted gross income. “Taxachusetts” had a net outflow of more than 30,000 people last year.
Mills currently lags political newcomer Graham Platner in the polls, and the rookie candidate has seemingly inspired his opponent toward even more fiscal irresponsibility: Mills threatened not to sign the budget unless it includes $300 “affordability checks” bankrolled by the state’s rainy day fund.
Maine’s governor has spent decades in elected office. Yet for all her political experience, she is making the classic mistake of trying to replicate her opponent rather than be herself. Her socialist challenger will always be able to outbid whatever fiscally irresponsible plan she proposes.
Better to run as an adult than try to mimic someone whose politics are as sophisticated as a college student who just got back from a semester abroad.
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