The Maine Senate is advancing a budget proposal of more than $500 million that includes a “millionaire tax” and $300 rebate checks to assist with affordability.
Just after 12:30 a.m. on Thursday, the Maine House of Representatives passed the budget proposal with a vote of 76-71. The proposal is headed back to the state Senate for a final vote. Democrats narrowly control both Maine legislative chambers, allowing them to advance budgets along party lines.
The proposal includes a tax on millionaires, which is strongly supported by Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D-ME). Mills had previously opposed the tax in 2025, but she has flipped her position as she lags progressive Graham Platner in a contentious Senate primary race.
“When the Senate President and the House Speaker asked me whether I would support a surcharge on the very wealthiest in the supplemental budget in order to continue funding these investments, I agreed,” Mills said in a statement last week after the legislature’s Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee approved the measure.
“I requested that that revenue be used in part to provide property tax relief for hardworking Maine people who are feeling the pinch,” she added.
The proposal also includes $300 “affordability” checks, which would be sent out to an estimated 500,000 Mainers and paid for with $155.2 million in spending from the state’s “rainy day” fund.
The checks, despite being touted by Mills, faced some backlash from state Democrats. State Sen. Nicole Grohoski (D-ME) proposed an amendment to remove the affordability checks from the budget, but was shot down in a narrow vote.
The affordability checks were first promised in the governor’s January State of the State address.
“I propose that we help Maine people breathe a little easier with what we can, where we can, by sending them an Affordability Relief check… to offset in some small way the cost of goods and groceries that are increasing because of tariffs and other circumstances beyond our state’s control,” Mills said.
“We would cap this at an income of $75,000 for a single filer, $112,500 for head of household, and $150,000 for a married couple filing jointly,” she clarified.
Shortly before the budget proposal passed in the Maine House, state Rep. Michael Lemelin (R-ME) likened the proposal to wealthy teenagers taking their dad’s credit card and spending a lot of money.
Critics argue the proposal is merely a tactic for Mills’s Senate campaign, saying that Mills is lurching further to the left to appease Democratic primary voters.
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“[Mills] made multiple promises to mayors about not increasing broad base taxes during her tenure…because she is now running for a Senate against Graham Platner, who is much further to the left than she is,” said Jacob Posik of Maine Civic Action, a right-leaning grassroots organization, in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
Posik noted that the “rainy day fund” used to finance the checks should only be “used in the event of an economic downturn,” under state law.
