Last week’s question: There are about 1.3 million Maine residents. How much did the State spend per resident last year? (Remember, you pay your real estate taxes to the town. So, these dollars are not part of the pot of money the State gets to spend.)
A. About $2,000 per person
B. About $5,000 per person
C. A little less than $10,000 per person
D. About $15,000 per person
E. Over $20,000 per person
I believe the answer is “C” but answers to simple questions like how much does our State government spend per Maine resident are not easy to find. A lot of the money Maine spent in 2022 was for “COVID relief” and came from the Feds via the “American Rescue Plan” and/or the “CARES Act”. The chart above shows State spending back in 2020 (before COVID) on a per capita basis was about $7,500, but I believe it includes the local share for education and does not reflect the massive injection of COVID money ($6.8 BILLION) that Maine was still trying to spend last year.
This Week’s Question:
For the last week, I have been loading the wood stove to stay warm! Crazy cold weather for June (especially after it was 90 degrees on June 1st!). The extended forecast shows more rain, but at least it will be a bit warmer! Back in 1816 Mainers endured the famous “year without a summer”, which reportedly included a frost on the 4th of July! What caused “the year without a summer”?
A. No one knows, it was just “weather”.
B. The eruption of a volcano in the south Pacific called Mt. Tambora.
C. The early 1800s was a period of global cooling known as the “little ice age”.
D. Huge forest fires in Canada blocked out the sun for most of the summer.
E. Al Gore’s great grandfather had one too many and forgot to turn-up the Earth’s thermostat.
F. The Sun was in a period of very low sunspot activity which cut the amount of solar energy that reached the Earth.
Randall Poulton
0 Comments