Maine Democratic Governor Janet Mills is debunking a Maine Republican Party 30-second TV attack that accuses her of imposing one new tax, a nonexistent grocery tax, and trying to raise another, the state's gas tax, which she never did.
Mills told me in an interview on Thursday, “I do not support a gas tax increase, will not support a gas tax increase, and there is no grocery tax. I do not support a tax on groceries."
The ad, which has been running frequently for the past week on WMTW and other channels first makes this claim: "Mills created a costly new grocery tax. Mills' tax could cost us almost $60 more per month."
The ad is referring to a law the Maine State Legislature passed, and Mills signed last year – the first of its kind in the U.S. requiring large companies like Amazon, Walmart, and Proctor & Gamble, that ship packaged goods into the state to reimburse municipalities the cost of recycling their boxes and containers.
The practice, known as Extended Producer Responsibility, has been adopted in parts of Canada and Europe.
Small businesses in Maine would be exempt from the fees, though some retailers fear costs would be passed onto consumers.
As for the cost?
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The Maine Republican Party relied on one, non-peer-reviewed, no-sources-cited paper by a Canadian researcher affiliated with York University, in Toronto, who estimated packaged good prices could increase 4 to 6%.
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