The Ground Beneath the House of Words
underproduction of housing, density bonus, workforce, the trickle-down economy, public benefit
Welcome! I'm Mackenzie Andersen and this is my reader supported newsletter. I am narrating the very local story of culture war taking place on the Boothbay Peninsula in Maine, centering around such issues as the ownership class -working class divide and constitutional home rule versus the centralized economy. I have been independently studying the Maine statutes and the Maine Constitution and other historical documents, concentrating on the years since 1969, since 2007. I weave this long view into the contemporary political Peyton Place that is the Boothbay Peninsula today. It’s a local story but every local story has universality in our globalized world, sometimes change sometimes has to happen at the roots and in fact, it already is! You can subscribe by clicking on this handy little button:
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In 1942 the Germans had a code name for the extermination of Jewish people. and others whom they identified as undesirables, it was “the final solution”, which sounds much more copacetic than saying “genocide” Humans have a bias toward genocide. On a scale of 1 to 10 of draconian deceptions “the final solution” is in the hundreds of millions, at least.
One must wonder how “the final solution” came to be acceptable. This was due in part to the supposed achievement of the government to hide what they were doing from the people, even as the people’s neighbors systematically vanished. Many Ayrian Germans said they didn’t know about the concentration camps but could they not see what was going on around them?
Whether it is concentration camps designed for extermination or concentration housing zones, a concentrated solution is a product of a centralized authoritarian government that treats people as herds.
Mussolini’s Circular Reasoning
Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal, will of man as a historic entity (11). It is opposed to classical liberalism which arose as a reaction to absolutism and exhausted its historical function when the State became the expression of the conscience and will of the people. Liberalism denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual (12). And if liberty is to be the attribute of living men and not of abstract dummies invented by individualistic liberalism, then Fascism stands for liberty, and for the only liberty worth having, the liberty of the State and of the individual within the State (13). The Fascist conception of the State is all embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism, is totalitarian, and the Fascist State - a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values - interprets, develops, and potentates the whole life of a people (14).
No individuals or groups (political parties, cultural associations, economic unions, social classes) outside the State (15). Fascism is therefore opposed to Socialism to which unity within the State (which amalgamates classes into a single economic and ethical reality) is unknown, and which sees in history nothing but the class struggle. Fascism is likewise opposed to trade unionism as a class weapon. But when brought within the orbit of the State, Fascism recognizes the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonized in the unity of the State (16). Benito Mussolini- The Doctrine of Fascism
Mussolini posited that the individual man is an abstraction while the State stands for liberty of the abstraction (individual man) within the state, as only by being homogenized within the state can an individual be said to have an existence.
The State exists, therefore, I am.
And what is abstraction?
Abstraction is a conceptual process wherein general rules and concepts are derived from the usage and classification of specific examples, literal ("real" or "concrete") signifiers, first principles, or other methods.
"An abstraction" is the outcome of this process—a concept that acts as a common noun for all subordinate concepts and connects any related concepts as a group, field, or category.[1] wikipedia
In philosophy and science, a first principle is a basic proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption. wikipedia
I think, therefore, I am.
Today the official state language deals in less lethal concepts but no less Machiavellian.
No individuals or groups (political parties, cultural associations, economic unions, social classes) outside the State
Through the enactment of LD 2003- HP 1489, the state transferred home rule authority to itself, and is now reworking everything about how government functions, transforming municipalities into subsidiary corporations orbiting of the state, thus LD 2003 HP 1489 set up Municipal Housing Development Permit Review Board in which the State Department of Economic and Community Development ”shall make technical assistance for the purposes of developing and implementing zoning ordinances and land use ordinances available to municipalities in accordance with this section….Assisting in the formal review of municipal building and development permits.”
State control over municipal ordinances is implemented through redistribution of wealth. Money controls.
2. Grant program. The department shall develop a program to provide grants from the Municipal Planning Assistance Grant and Incentive Program Fund established under subsection to municipalities for the purposes of contracting for services and hiring staff to help administer municipal responsibilities under this chapter. The department shall adopt rules outlining the application process and criteria for a municipality to receive a grant under this subsection….
The recent act titled An Act to Increase Opportunities for the Development or Preservation of Low-income Housing, omitted economic definitions of low-income renters (60% or below median income). An Act to Establish an Affordable Housing Permitting Process includes a definition of “affordable income”
HP 1070 An Act to Establish an Affordable Housing Permitting Process House of Representatives, April 13, 2023
1. Affordable housing. "Affordable housing" means a decent, safe and sanitary dwelling unit for which the cost of occupancy is no more than 30% of a family's household income for a family with an income up to 80% of the area median income for rental housing and an income up to 120% of the area median income for owned housing as established by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. source
As the low-income renter is sent to the back of the bus by the new rules of the permitting process, the affordable renter becomes the lowest income renter in subsidized housing. Since its inception in 1976 the centralized economy set up the bottom half of the economy to subsidize opportunities for the top half of the economy and then set up subsidized system for living rations for the lower half of the economy. One of the goals of Governor Longley’s original board was to charter The Maine Capital Corporation, spun as a means to help small businesses find capital, but I found little evidence of small businesses that benefited from the MCC, while the investors profited through a refundable tax credit that uses the taxpayers to subsidize capital investments.
In 1994 the repeal of the Maine Capital Corporation was coordinated by the Joint Standing Committee with the ending of the tax credits with a Statement of Fact that it had fulfilled its original public purpose.
However, there was one small section of the Maine Capital Corporation that was not repealed. It was this:
§5202-A. Small business investment companies exempt
Corporate small business investment companies, licensed under the United States Small Business Investment Act of 1958, as amended, and commercially domiciled in Maine and doing business primarily in Maine, shall be exempt from taxation under this Part. [1977, c. 640, §2 (NEW).]
Tax exemptions like this transform Tax credits like the Seed Capital (refundable) Tax Credit into a subsidy since a refundable tax credit means that if the recipient does not owe taxes, the public owes the recipient a cash payout equal to the value of the tax credit.
Misplaced pronouns in Mussolini’s construct.
It (the State) is opposed to classical liberalism which arose as a reaction to absolutism and exhausted its historical function when the State became the expression of the conscience and will of the people.
Decoded Translation: The (Fascist) State is opposed to liberty which emerged in reaction to totalitarianism. When the State declared itself to be the will of the people. it displaced individual rights with totalitarianism, and branded itself as the conscience of the people declaring that whatever it does is “for the public benefit”
Individual liberty is embodied in the Bill of Rights in relationship to the individual, Home Rule in relationship to the individual states and State Sovereignty in relationship to the federal government.
Code Word: Density Bonus
The code” density bonus” is categorically used by the State of Maine as if it is a first principle. It is nonchalantly incorporated into The Rural Affordable Housing Program in a plan for implementing concentrated housing zones in every municipality homogenizing community character across all of Maine as one big state municipality built by developers designing for herds.
Maine Housing encourages developers to work with communities in designing and siting projects. It is our understanding that a number of communities in the State are eager for additional workforce housing. Communities can assist developers through pledging local or county American Recovery Plan Act (“ARPA”) funds, providing for density bonuses or other land use and zoning assistance, donating land or agreeing to favorable Payment In Lieu Of Taxes agreements to benefit to the project.
The Boothbay Town Selectmen have done almost all of the above except purchasing the land. The non-profit cabal, the Boothbay Regional Development Corporation purchased the land with the intent to retain ownership of the acreage until it sells the development as a single parcel. The cabal has stated its intent to sell only a few of the units, while still maintaining ownership and governmental control of the land occupied by all the units.
The state-municipal government is recommending a policy wherein the municipality will purchase the land and then sell it to the developer at a favorable rate as a trade-off for exemption from property taxes. This idea corresponds with leveraged buyouts in which private equity purchases property with borrowed money, putting up only a small percentage of their own money. In this case the borrowers holding the debt are the municipal tax payers and the small percentage that that private equity pays are the “favorable terms” by which the town transfers ownership of the development to the private entity. How far has the municipal state thought this through? The developer-owner purchases the land back at a favorable rate but the municipal tax payers must still pay back the bond used to purchase the property and pay for the services that the housing concentration zone will require. This is a very good deal for developers and that seems to be as far as the state has thought this through, consistent with the way the state usually does things, to benefit its private partners at public expense. If it’s good for “the project”, it’s good for all! This means that other property owners in the municipality will have their property taxes increased to pay for the bond that purchased the property and to pay for the services used by the concentrated housing zone. Given that the concentrated housing zones are the solution to the short-term rental industry’s expanding need for residential real estate, that is not entirely unfair, except to those permanent residents who still maintain a property outside of the housing concentration zones, which is not used as a short-term rental. However, the state need not acknowledge those folks as they do not exist within the “conception of the State that is all embracing and outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value”.- a House of Words, which like the planned houses occupying the corporate owned acreage in the Boothbay housing concentration zone rests on a ground, which the House of Words denies having an existence. That ground includes our constitutional form of government which is still the ultimate rule of law no matter how many times and how many ways the House of words attempt to override it.
“Workforce” is code for “instrument of the corporation” or the individual whose interests coincide with those of the State. The code “workforce” does not include other members of the working classes and especially not grass roots entrepreneurs, as exemplified by returning once again to these words spoken in 2018, by Erin Cooperrider, unelected legislative commissioner who wrote the framework for LD 2003-HP 1489 and VP and spokesperson of the Boothbay Regional Development Corporation:
Portland is among communities that have started referring to workforce housing as a household earning between 100 percent AMI and 120 percent AMI, she said. Cooperider added, other communities have been targeting more specific industries or types of jobs, rather than income brackets.
…..“It's also important to understand that unlike traditional affordable housing, there are no specific programs targeted to workforce housing, which makes it hard to build." source (emphasis by author)
Contemporary Circular Reasoning
Ms. Cooperrider is saying that it is hard to build housing for those making 100-120% of the medium income without government subsidies reflecting upon the fact that the wealth divide has expanded to the point that it cannot reasonably be expected that one can afford home ownership by working for a living and so once again the whole economy needs to subsidize the top of the economy so that those just barely making above median income can afford home ownership, but those subsidies are derived from the whole economy which includes the sector that cannot afford to rent in an Airbnb state let alone buy a home- so once again it systematically extracts wealth from the bottom of the economy and transfers it to the top of the economy as the subsidized low-income category is being phased out.
The government has been transferring wealth from the whole economy to the top of the economy ever since 1976, when the centralized economy was established in Maine, using the same mechanisms that Ms. Cooperider seeks to implement extending housing subsidies originally intended for low-income renters to housing for those above-the median income. The only mitigating factor in the government’s gradual transfer of wealth from the whole of the economy to the top of the economy are the general assistance programs targeting the bottom half of the economy. If these programs are reconfigured to target the upper half of the economy, the wealth divide can only become much more draconian. To make matters more totalitarian, Ms. Cooperrider is suggesting a new category of subsidized housing that targets specific jobs sectors, not just income. Since she is talking about government subsidies, her suggestion inevitably means subsidizing housing for those working in the government’s targeted industries whose jobs have long been subsidized in a tradeoff of “jobs that pay higher than average for an area”, for subsidizing the capitalization of targeted private industries via refundable tax credits calculated as 40% to 60% of an enterprise’s capital investment - see Seed Capital tax Credit. The shareholders of the private enterprise reap the profits made large by taxpayers subsidizing the capitalization of their industry, and the taxpayers get a tall tale about advantages of the trickle-down economy. The fact that the evidence was in, long ago, that the trickle-down economy is inconsistent with the expanding wealth divide is not included in state assessments or studies used in constructing the house of words, in which the ”trickle down economy” is treated as if a first principle of the economic system.
LD 2003- HP 1489 enacted in April of 2022. even attempts to normalize “overcrowding” but doesn’t quite manage to do so.
Sec. 3. 5 MRSA §4581-A, sub-§5 is enacted to read: 5. Housing development. For any municipality or government entity to restrict the construction or development of housing accommodations in any area based upon criteria that refers to the character of a location, the overcrowding of land or the undue concentration of the population. For the purposes of this subsection, the following terms have the following meanings.
……C. "Overcrowding of land" means the density of residential dwellings or other development in a municipality or specific area within a municipality or other political subdivision being too high. (emphasis by author)
To understand what this paragraph in LD 2003- HP 1489 is actually saying, one must insert the words at the top of Sec. 3. 5 MRSA §4581-A, at the beginning of sub-§5.
§4581-A. Unlawful housing discrimination
It is unlawful housing discrimination, in violation of this Act: (Complete with sub-§5. above, comment by author)
In short, pursuant to the Maine housing act, passed in April of 2022, it is unlawful to discriminate against a housing development because its density is overcrowded, which even the act defines as meaning “being too high”. My unverified speculation as to why that definition is included in the act is because it has to be included by a federal statute. Otherwise, it makes no sense but might explain why this amendment is not yet encoded in the Maine statutes, (it looks bad or even legally questionable) which doesn’t mean it isn’t part of the law as it was enacted in April of 2022.
In September 2022 in a Boothbay Register article titled Boothbay approves $50K in ARPA funds for housing project Erin Cooperrider said this”
Phase 1 includes land acquisition and extension of water and sewer to the site. Phase 2 is a “proof of concept” for affordable home ownership targeted to households between 80% and 100% of area medium income. Her research showed household income between $64,000 and $87,000 for a family of four met the criteria. Cooperrider believed the first available housing wouldn’t occur for at least two more years. The group envisions selling 1,200 square foot homes at a below-market, subsidized cost.( emphasis by author)
Affordable housing is defined as 80% or under the median income, but here Ms. Cooperrider says the affordable housing concentration zone will target a new category called affordable home ownership with a qualified income between 80% and 100% of area medium income. That excludes the previous definition of "affordable" which was 80% or under the median income but that category qualifies for renting only. None the less the ownership class will target the top income in every category so to say that an act that conflates the low-income category into the affordable income category is an act to preserve low-income housing is ludicrous! Low-income workers are being herded into boarding houses.
But how do our leaders expect the jobs done by low-income workers to be done- when they are driving out available housing affordable to low-income workers? Do they expect low-income pay to be raised to the level of 80% of the medium? Percentages don't work that way!
Parsing this paragraph correctly, it does not say that the 1200 square foot space offered by the Boothbay Regional Development Corporation is intended for a four-person household but that intention is implied by the structure of the paragraph.
That puts the units at 300 square feet per person - above the overcrowding measure published by HUD, based on the point wherein overcrowding begins to fester disease.
Square footage is a tangible measure of crowding and is important when considering air-borne disease. The reason being that, all else held constant, human proximity is the key to disease transmission. We defined an overcrowding standard of 165 square feet per person. This standard was chosen because it produced a level of overcrowding equal to the 2.4 percent of the households overcrowded for PPR when using the 2005 AHS National data. Measuring overcrowding in housing published by HUD
However, the standard for “comfortable housing” for a family of 4 is 2400 square feet, found at multiple sources.
Back in the mid-eighties to mid 2000s, the average square foot per person was much greater and increasing:
While these are valid concerns and should ensure that researchers approach this measure with caution, the AHS National datasets includes high quality square foot data. Using these data, we see that homes, on average, have become larger over the past 20 years. In 1985, households had, on average, 740 square feet per person of living space (with the median being 596 square feet per person). In 2005, the size of the living space per person has increased, on average, by almost 24 percent to 916 square feet per person (with the median of 675 square feet per person).Measuring overcrowding in housing published by HUD
In 2007, Airbnb was born.
If you use the figure of 740 square feet per person cited above, the square unit for a four-person household is 2,960 square feet. At 916 square feet per person a four-person household becomes 3664 square feet.
However, Ms. Cooperrider and the Maine State Legislature recommend reversing that pre-Airbnb trend as a “density bonus”.
The Maine State Legislature has normalized the language of “density bonus” so that developers can use it freely without having to justify the values that it represents. By normalizing “density bonus”, the Maine State Legislature posits overcrowding the working classes as an uncontestable “public benefit” speaking to that fact that since its inception, the “public” served by the centralized economy are the ownership class, while the central managers forever spin a tale about a public benefit for the people, whose collective wealth is used to subsidize the ownership class. Nothing exemplified this policy more than the recent renaming of LD 724 as 'An Act to Increase Opportunities for the Development or Preservation of Low Income Housing' even as it removed protections for low-income renters from general law that applies to all corporations however formed and replaced it with a special law applying only to those working outside of the state and its orbit. Although there is no mention of the renter whose income is 60% or below median income, the Legislature changed the name of the act that originally correctly identified that it is for the affordable income bracket and named it as an act serving the low-income bracket
That is how the centralized economy grew the wealth divide year after year.
But their power and authority is not as totalitarian as central management would like us to believe, A world exists outside their house of words, Its the real world. It is the world of Maine and American constitutional law embedded in the principles of a natural order emergent from the complexity and diversity and wonder of nature. Even in the non-profit sector it is possible to use those tools to benefit individuals versus for-profit subsidiaries of non-profit organizations that merge non-profit funds with private equity behind closed doors.
The public-private state’s programs “for the public benefit” are promoted everywhere dominating the public discourse but it can waste one’s time, energy and focus if taken as real. It is best to develop resources individually in the ground underneath the House of Words. The true support for the people comes from their own sector. Individuals have to help individuals because the individuals do not exist inside the state. We are all unique but the state does not acknowledge that uniqueness. To the state the individual only exists as a unit it a herd.
We live in a world crowded with illusionary support structures but one must ignore illusions in order to identify what is real.
But today too many have grown complacent and the ground beneath the House of words is like the Ching Hexagram The Well
The Well. The town may be changed,
But the well cannot be changed.
It neither decreases nor increases.
They come and go and draw from the well.
If one gets down almost to the water
And the rope does not go all the way,
Or the jug breaks, it brings misfortune.
Now we are at the first line of The Well which says
One does not drink the mud of the well.
No animals come to an old well.
We need to be at the fifth line which says:
In the well there is a clear, cold spring
From which one can drink.
The Municipal-State has become very powerful but it is not as deep or nourishing or as real as the clear cold spring of the well. It’s going to take some work to get back to the garden but We’re worth it!