The two-year budget, proposed by the Democrat-controlled Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee, contained a 10% sales tax increase and a 14.3% increase in the meals and lodging tax.

During a heated debate on the state Senate floor at the time about whether to override then-Gov. Paul LePage’s (R-ME) veto of the multibillion-dollar budget proposal, Jackson’s GOP colleagues urged Senate Democrats to consider the budget’s financial implications for average taxpayers still reeling from the effects of the recession.

“The fact of the matter is there are significant new taxes involved in this, and it’s the folks that sent each one of us here that will be caught paying those taxes,” said Maine Senate Minority Leader Michael Thibodeau, according to an archived transcript of the chamber meeting.

Thibodeau questioned the budget’s spending priorities, which included special revenue funds set aside for Efficiency Maine, the state’s green-energy agency; industrial wind farm subsidies; and raises for state workers.

“Let’s make the family budget a priority over the state budget,” Thibodeau said. “I think right now we’ve got that the other way around. Folks are struggling at home to make ends meet, and this is going to make it just a little bit harder for them to accomplish that. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s be honest. Our government, our state government, has outgrown our economy and our ability to pay for it.”

DARK MONEY PAC DEPLOYS $1.5 MILLION AD CAMPAIGN TO SUPPORT TROY JACKSON

Maine state Sen. Douglas Thomas, a Republican, agreed that the budget “buys more government than the people of Maine can afford,” adding, “We cannot sustain a government this big with an economy this small.”

“If we raise taxes on the good citizens that are just barely getting by now, we’re going to hurt the state … I think we are going to hurt a lot of hardworking people,” Republican state Sen. David Burns said at the time. “We are going to hurt our economy for a long time in the future.”

Thomas argued that, by themselves, the tax hikes in the budget would be bearable if they were the only ones that taxpayers had to contend with. Residents, however, already had to pay Maine’s historically high income tax rate, one of the highest in the country.

“The problem is Maine already has a crushing tax burden that kills our economy,” Thomas told the rest of the Maine Senate. “When you add all these higher taxes, we make a bad situation worse.”

Jackson, meanwhile, defended the proposed budget, arguing in large part that approving it as is without continued talks would prevent a government shutdown.

“I don’t want to see working-class people told that they have to stay home, not able to collect a paycheck, money to provide for their families,” Jackson said of government workers who would be affected by a state shutdown.

Thomas urged the budget’s supporters to think of ordinary laborers over the needs of state employees making six figures annually on a taxpayer-funded salary.

“Granted, this budget saves some $100,000-a-year government jobs, but it’s going to make it harder for the majority of Mainers who get up every morning and go to work,” Thomas said.

Following deliberations, Jackson joined fellow Democrats and a handful of Republicans in overriding LePage’s veto of the budget bill.

TROY JACKSON OPERATED ALIAS ACCOUNT THAT TROLLED FORMER MAINE GOVERNOR: REPORT

Of the six Republicans who voted in favor, thus granting Democrats the two-thirds majority needed for the bill to become law over the governor’s objections, the conceding GOP lawmakers stressed that the tax increases were designed to sunset after two years.

However, the purportedly temporary tax increases did not expire when the sunset date arrived.

The subsequent budget extended the tax increases beyond 2015, with the sales tax remaining at 5.5%, the increased rate that was enacted two years prior, and the prepared foods and lodging tax rising again from 8% to 9%.

Maine’s current tax table shows that the sales tax rate as well as the lodging tax have remained the same ever since, while the meals tax went back to 8%, the original increased rate set in 2013, but never returned to the pre-2013 rate of 7%.

In his decision not to sign the 2013-15 state budget, LePage said senior citizens would be among the most financially affected by the tax hikes.

“Some have said that ‘no one cares’ about rate increases in our meals, lodging, and sales taxes. That could not be more wrong,” LePage wrote in an address to the state legislature. “Retired mill workers living on fixed incomes, elderly widows collecting social security, and our veterans who receive nothing more than their military pension — each of them care about this tax increase.”

LePage noted that Maine, “one of the highest taxed states in the nation,” also had one of the lowest per capita income in the country.

“Now is not the time to ask Mainers to give more to fund government,” LePage said. He suggested instead reforming “our overly generous welfare programs” to cut down on waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars.

LePage called on legislators to return to the negotiating table, highlighting that he has extended an offer to Democratic leadership that both allows them to avoid a shutdown in the near term and gives them time to eliminate the sales, meals, and lodging tax squeezes.

A spokesperson for Jackson’s Senate campaign told the Washington Examiner that he will work to cut taxes while in office.

“Troy understands that right now working Mainers are being crushed by a rigged system and paying too much of the tax burden,” the spokesperson said. “While Susan Collins helps corporations and the ultra-wealthy skirt paying their fair share, as he’s done in the State Senate, Troy will keep working to cut taxes so that Maine families can keep more of what they earn.”

TROY JACKSON’S NEW AD TOUTS AFFORDABILITY PITCH: ‘WE’RE GETTING SCREWED’

Since securing the Democratic nomination in the Maine Senate race, Jackson is increasingly leaning on affordability as an issue that resonates with voters across the political spectrum.

Last week, Jackson launched an ad spot, titled “Broke,” aimed at reaching people who are feeling squeezed by inflation, rising utility costs, and high housing prices.

“People in this country work so damn hard and still feel so damn broke. That’s no way to live,” Jackson says in the 30-second campaign video. “Susan Collins keeps telling us that everything’s fine, but we know it’s not. We all have eyes, paychecks, and bills. We know we’re getting screwed. You deserve better.”

The ad features childhood photographs of Jackson, as he tells viewers, “I grew up a poor kid in a town full of poor people, doing everything right and still struggling to get ahead.”

Jackson, a fifth-generation logger from rural Maine, has framed his populist messaging around his working-class roots and humble beginnings. His hometown of Allagash has a population of about 250 people.