Democrats decided to kick off 2025 by giving state legislators a pay raise while simultaneously raising taxes on ordinary, hard-working everyday Mainers.

These things are not directly related and they are not going into effect at the same time.

The tax increase, which went into effect on Jan. 1, is a 1% tax increase that will theoretically fund the new paid family leave program. Why they decided to fund this program with a tax increase when we had a budget surplus when it was passed is a mystery, especially since Gov. Janet Mills promised not to raise taxes when she ran for governor. But they went ahead and did it anyway, promises and surpluses be damned.

At the same time, a proposal to give state legislators a 61% pay increase, and raise the next governor’s salary from $75,000 to $125,000, passed on a bipartisan basis. So, at the same time they raised taxes, members of the Legislature raised their own salaries, on the grounds that they were too low.

If Republicans in Augusta were real fiscal conservatives, they’d have opposed this salary hike as well as the Democrats’ tax increase. Instead, they went along with this pay raise even as ordinary Mainers suffered from the Democrats’ tax hike, rampant inflation and an extraordinarily difficult budget picture. To be clear, that’s completely ridiculous.

It’s also ridiculous because, lately, legislators haven’t been doing their job, and neither has the governor. By any objective assessment, they don’t deserve a pay raise. They’ve been ignoring a whole slew of serious problems Maine must deal with, from the crisis in child services to the opioid epidemic to judicial ethics.

They’ve been carrying on like it’s business as usual despite a series of major challenges facing the state. That’s totally irresponsible, and it’s the sort of behavior that deserves a firing, not a raise. We got part of the way there, getting rid of quite a few incumbents last cycle, but not nearly enough — and there’s little to no sign of any major changes on those issues this session.

So, sure, just judging by the numbers over the years, legislators and the governor might have deserved a raise, but judging by their job performance they most certainly did not. Pay increases for elected officials ought to be based on merit, not on longevity, inflation or the cost of living.

There’s an argument that failing to increase their pay makes it harder for ordinary, everyday people to serve in office, thereby removing them from their concerns, but that’s only part of the picture. The real fact of the matter is that it’s up to elected officials to pay attention to the concerns of their constituents, and they shouldn’t be motivated to do so primarily based on pay. Instead, they ought to want to do so for two reasons: because it will help them get reelected and because it will help them fulfill their oath of office.

That ought to trump more ordinary concerns like salary. We don’t want people running for office because of the pay and benefits; we want them running for office because they want to do the best thing for the people of Maine. That ought to require a few sacrifices, in terms of both time and money.

By going along with this, Republicans missed the chance to portray themselves as opponents to an entrenched elite in Augusta. Instead, they look like part of it. Bipartisanship is well and good, but it only ought to be praised when it works out positively for the state, not for the legislators and the governor themselves.

This issue has been rattling around for a while. Former Gov. Paul LePage complained about the low pay making it harder for him to recruit talented people to his cabinet, but that misses the entire point. We ought to want public servants who are interested in, service, without regard to their paycheck.

Raising the salary of elected officials might seem like it moves Maine forward, but in fact it does the opposite, making the Legislature more a full-time profession that is further removed from the people.

We ought to want to keep our public servants low-paid because it keeps them connected to the Mainers they serve. Public service should be a temporary role, not a way of life, and raising their salaries — while simultaneously raising taxes on everyday Mainers — moves us farther from that ideal while being blatantly hypocritical. It doesn’t just look bad politically, it serves the state poorly.