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I was very interested when I saw the headline in the Sept. 6 issue of the Bangor Daily News, “New rule adds restrictions on Maine utilities political spending.” What I see as the manipulation of our state referendums and legislative processes by corporations who have a direct interest in the outcome and are profiting from utility customers has to stop.
However, I was extremely disappointed when I read that the proposed rules are so limited. According to the article, the new rule clarifies the difference between “political” and “educational” expenses in order to (supposedly) keep political expenses from being included in rate calculations. This is supposed to force shareholders to bear the expense of political campaigning. However, without more fundamental change, I think this is pure accounting fiction. Shareholders get their money to pay for “political” spending from profits, and the source of profits is revenue, i.e., the bills we consumers pay.
Milton Friedman famously argued that companies should focus single-mindedly on maximizing profits as long as they played by the rules of the game. By contrast, these companies are maximizing their profits by writing the rules of the game to their benefit. I believe the only real solutions are to ban their engagement in political lobbying and campaigns all together — or better yet, buying them out and creating consumer-owned utilities. The fact that these private utilities have spent so much to defeat reasonable public policies demonstrates to me just how much they value their profitability at our expense.
Bill Savedoff
Arrowsic
