In 2014, I moved my family from the heart of Washington, D.C. to Falmouth, Maine. I grew up in Portland throughout much of the 1970s and 1980s but had not lived full-time in Maine since 1989. The reasons for coming back were simple: safe communities, low cost of living, and strong public schools for my two daughters. However, over the last six years, the quality of life in Maine has gone over a cliff, and that fact is inextricably linked to the Democratic Party’s complete control of state government since 2019.
Perhaps nowhere is Maine’s decline more evident than its collapsing public school system. In 2018, Maine’s schools were ranked 19th in the nation among all states. Today, those same rankings have Maine’s public schools dead last. Reinforcing this calamity, Maine students recently produced the lowest test scores in reading and math in 30 years, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a.k.a. the Nation’s Report Card.
[RELATED: Shocking Chart Shows the Alarming — and Expensive — Failure of Maine’s Public Schools…]
Despite students across Maine being unable to differentiate a preposition from a past participle, the Maine Department of Education under Gov. Janet Mills (D) is working hard to ensure students can accurately recite their pronouns and the innumerable genders that supposedly exist. Meanwhile, as the quality of Maine’s education system has collapsed, Maine’s education spending has grown nearly 45 percent over the last decade from a total of roughly 1.1 billion in 2014 to just over $1.6 billion in 2023.

While Maine currently enjoys the worst ranked schools in the nation, it’s excelling at producing some of the highest tax rates among the fifty states. According to the Tax Foundation, Maine ranks 48th when it comes to its property tax rate and 40th for business taxes. Despite this already heavy tax burden, Democrats in Augusta want to increase taxes on Maine people by millions of dollars. Gov. Mills has proposed hiking taxes on cigarettes, hospitals, ambulances, and entertainment streaming, while some Democratic lawmakers want to raise income taxes even higher.
In addition to high taxes and burgeoning education spending that produce negative education results, Maine has seen its total budget increase by 85 percent under Governor Mills and the Democrats in the legislature, or from $8.8 billion in 2019 to $13 billion in 2023. According to the Maine Policy Institute, the governor’s current budget proposal would increase general fund spending by an additional $1.1 billion compared to the last biennial budget. [Disclosure: The Maine Wire is a project of the Maine Policy Institute.]
Mainers have also watched in shock as the cost of living has ballooned from just a few short years ago. In 2018, the median sale price for a home in Maine was $215,000. Today, it’s $360,000, and rising. These out of control prices make it virtually impossible for most people to afford a home here, as they would need an annual income of $110,000 to make such a purchase and the median income in Maine is just under $76,000.
As housing affordability has decreased, homelessness in Maine has skyrocketed to record levels starting in 2022. On top of making homes unaffordable to buy, the increased property taxes that go along with rising home prices are pushing older Maine homeowners on fixed incomes to the brink. One Democrat mayor recently told the older people living in his city that their best option for paying sky-high property taxes might be a reverse mortgage!
Even as the housing and cost of living nightmare has progressed, the Mills Administration has welcomed thousands of illegal aliens across Maine at an estimated cost of $94 million annually for taxpayers, according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform’s 2023 assessment. This dwarfs the estimated $15 million these migrants pay in taxes each year. Such mass migration stresses health, housing, social services, education, and public safety resources across the state.
The most dangerous change in the quality of life has been the rise of violent crime across Maine. In 2018, there were 23 murders in the state. In 2023, the most current data, there were nearly three times as many. While 18 of the 60 victims were from the mass shooting in Lewiston that year, that still leaves a total of 42 victims statewide, nearly double the number from 2018 and a 50 percent increase from 2022.
Mainers have also watched transnational criminal organizations from China, Mexico, and elsewhere infiltrate our communities while the state government does little to intercede. These organizations have helped push the fentanyl crisis in Maine which has contributed to nearly 10,000 total overdoses in 2023, among which over 600 were fatal. Drug related deaths totaled 354 in 2018.
These horrific changes across Maine creep into our lives often slowly and become normalized over time. To that end, Mainers must avoid becoming the proverbial frog in the boiling water. As the water slowly gets hotter, they don’t realize it until it boils over and it’s too late to escape. A textbook example of this phenomenon is the once mighty State of California.
Democrats in Augusta and across Maine often look to the former Golden State for inspiration. Meanwhile, California is collapsing in real time with its population implosion, homeless crisis, record poverty rates, crime waves, emergency response failures, inflation, and budget deficits that exceed Maine’s total budget outlays. California is a dire warning for Maine people, not a model.
While elected Democrats have led Maine down this perilous path, it will be up to Maine voters to change course. Those voters shifted right in the past election, but not enough to turn either chamber of the State Legislature over to conservatives as a check against Gov. Mills. The next election is not for another two years, and Maine will need a revolution of common sense to undo the catastrophic damage wrought upon our communities over these last six years. The future of the state depends on it.
The Maine Republican Party needs to start their “ vote for us “ advertising campaign TODAY.
Don’t wait until September / October of 2026 to run a few commercials on TV .
The voters of Maine need to be educated even more than the school kids.
This article could not say it better .
Democrats are destroying our state
“ Maine Can’t Wait “ to vote them out of power .
Save Maine .
Janet Mills and the democrats have spent us to the edge of the proverbial cliff .
Joe Biden gave her truck loads of money which are now just a distant memory .
There is no more money to spend .
Janet Mills will take it from the taxpayers of Maine .
She will give what little money we do have , to the windmill and herbal tea crowd .
She will give Maine towns “ Grants “ if the towns will then agree to indoctrinate their kids with Green Energy BS. Don’t worry about learning the three R’s …..we will let AI do that for them .
What little money we have left she will give to illegal aliens who have come to Maine and who are now taking over . NONE of the Maine TV news stations , and NONE of the major newspapers, want
Maine voters to see just how screwed we really are . They show us stories about snowmobile trails and maple syrup festivals .
THIS News Website is about the ONLY hope we have of educating the low information, feel good , virtue signaling voters of Maine . Tell everyone you know .
Our lives as Traditional Mainers depend on it .
Democrat voters won’t vote any differently and ME media, except the couple including MW, will continue to act as Mills & co propaganda arm.
Check out USA Watchdog.com Gregg Hunter interview Jerome Corsi. Trust Me, it will shed much more needed light of the Truth in this matter.
What has happened to our schools?
The Maine deaf community has shrunk badly because of closing Gov. Baxter school for the Deaf. It’s ethnic cleaning up and push deaf kids in public schools with hired interpreter, the best was removing the stained abuses of the past. Now special education funding by state and federal has become a pocket book for other spending problems. I used to be an ASL mentor with 2 young boys for 3 school seasons and fight for my earnings was just gas mileage rip off. I helped to bring up the morals and excitement to excellence in these boys life with an evaluation from 10% to the end of the school 100%. This experience put a stumping road block for me to do moreover but I would not want anymore with it. Always best Deaf kids being together in the same class and same school. Most young deaf have little motivation to take education after school because of identity of who they belong with and Maine has continued to abuse the Deaf education rights.
I lived there for 45 years before leaving in 2017. It was a living nightmare. Being an endless target was just too much. I wasn’t allowed to have a productive life—only to struggle and live in total misery, always paying them. I couldn’t take it any longer.
Even before 2017, I could see the direction the state was headed. Sadly, I was right, and leaving was the right choice. When I left, I discovered that they use the state fusion center to monitor who buys plane tickets and keep an eye on bank account balances. This is why I call it Despicable Maine.
The zeitgeist in Portland, Southern Maine and Coastal Maine is a re-worked “noblesse oblige” NOT with their own money, but with taxpayer money. That way they don’t have to bear the costs all themselves or even think about budget deficits and good economics! Just raise taxes, we don’t mind is their logic. Beliefs change very slowly. Most of the dems I know assume that they have great heart and that those who don’t like what they–the majority– are legislating are heartless and cruel. Telling them the truth of what vast government involvement and spending really means for everyone and for our state, just seems to make them burrow into their ideology even deeper. It’s very difficult to renounce a religion, after all. I’m about ready to quit my long-time church because of dem-think!
Very sad to see all this in Maine. We also relocated here for all the reasons the writer gave. The GOP in Maine needs to start a strong out reach program to connect with all walks of life in the state. Getting the message out and educating folks around what is actually happening in this state is critical over the next two years.
Ok, here’s the link for the “busy” people. (2 thumbs up just ain’t cutting it) Intel Agencies Caught in Massive Voter Fraud – Dr. Jerome Corsi | Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog
Sadly, we are getting what we vote for. I have almost 60 of my 72 years in this state. Unless Mainers can start opening their eyes to the information coming out and via this and other independent news services, we will continue down this self-destructive road. How ironic that so many people choose to be starved of veracious reporting this deep into the information age. Thank-you Maine Wire.
I agree with everything others have said, couple of observations. Mainers can’t even clear the snow off of their cars just look around. How do you expect them to stand up and vote out the communists taking over the state? The Maine GOP is as useless as te@ts on a bull!! Many, many people have tried to help them and they do nothing, absolutely nothing!!! Once I retire the wife and I are going to become snowbirds and then I don’t have to be continuously raped by this state and its clueless citizens. Yes this is harsh, but its the truth and feel free to prove me wrong!!
The Governor who has access to the State’s test data could, and most likely has, diced and sliced it to answer the question the question ” Was it the large number of Illegal children taking the test which dragged down the scores so quickly? Or did the “old American” children just get stupide real fast.
With all that test data She should and with all those ED’s at the U of M, should have an answer. BUT she is not telling us!
Suggest she call in Big Balls for an answer!!!