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BEST BILL FROM THE 2010 PROGRAM

 

Bill # LD 2010-102

Bill Sponsor:   Samuel Putney
Bill Co-Sponsor:   Devin Ward, Casey Thornton, Pat Brown
School / Club / YMCA:   Maine School of Science and Math
Endorsed By:   Sharon Gerrish
Fiscal Impact: $  +$20,000,000
Referred to the Committee on: Business & Labor

 An Act Relating To:

Support for Local Food Retail Sales Businesses   


Bill Summary:

  The State of Maine will give local retail food sales businesses an economic advantage over supermarkets such as Shaw’s Star-Market and Hannaford by regulating sales tax.

Be it enacted by the State YMCA of Maine’s 2010 Youth in Government Program as follows:

  1. SECTION 1: The State of Maine will issue a 2% sales tax on food sold at large grocery stores
  2. based outside of the state or that have more than 5 locations worldwide.
  3. SECTION 2: 66% of the revenue created by this bill will be granted to small, local business
  4. owners and entrepreneurs to quickly boost growth of their businesses. This is to assure that the
  5. citizens of Maine will be able to comfortably begin shopping at local stores without feeling any
  6. financial pressure from the new taxes at the supermarkets they may frequent. 
  7. STATEMENT OF FACT: Local foodservice businesses in Maine and throughout the United
  8. States have difficulty competing with large, public corporation department stores and
  9. supermarkets such as Wal-Mart.
  10. STATEMENT OF FACT: Many people drive longer and further to shop at larger stores because
  11. the closer, local stores have gone out of business or do not have as large a selection of items.
  12. Giving local stores an advantage will help to greatly reduce the burning of fossil fuels in the state
  13. of Maine.
  14. STATEMENT OF FACT: In the year 2002, an estimate of $16,053,515,000 worth of retail goods
  15. were sold within the state of Maine. The Maine State Planning Office estimates that 25% of retail
  16.  sales in Maine are sales of food, or approximately $4000,000,000/yr.
  17. STATEMENT OF OPINION: Large supermarkets are an asset to the State of Maine because of
  18. the jobs they create. However, there is a balance that can be met to allow local businesses to
  19. thrive without hurting or intimidating larger businesses. One intention of this bill is that jobs will be
  20. slowly redistributed into local business in a controlled manner.
  21. FISCAL IMPACT: Assuming that 75% of the foodservice goods sold in the state of Maine were
  22. sold at larger, chain grocery stores, the 2% tax issued on those goods will produce a positive
  23. revenue of approximately $60,000,000 for the state. Therefore, $40,000,000 will be set aside to
  24. support local businesses, while $20,000,000 will go to the state.
  25. REFERENCES:
  26. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/23000.html
  27. http://choosebangor.com/assets/Retail_Sales.pdf

 


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Criteria for being selected Best Bill:

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  1. Proper Submission emailed in prior to deadline
  2. Content, bill has all required parts, Bill Summary, Statement of Fact, References, Fiscal Statement,
    and is a relevant issue to State Legislature.
  3. Clarity, bill passes straight face test, and is easy to understand
  4. Debatable, bill is an issue that creates debate
  5. 5. Originality/Uniqueness, bill is a new idea
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