The impact of Obamacare on small businesses and employees will be dramatic. The cost will be the further denigration of the middle class, which will take the financial brunt of this far-reaching and expensive program.

Maine has the oldest population in the union. Those with wealth are moving to Florida or New Hampshire, where there is no income tax and more investment opportunities. An estimated 22 percent of Maine’s young are leaving to find better employment elsewhere. The state exports those with wealth and those with the greatest potential. That trend is not sustainable.

Government officials must review economic development programs and the method those programs are delivered, with emphasis on keeping the companies already in existence, helping those seeking to start businesses, finding ways to help those companies seeking to expand, changing the negative business climate, lowering energy costs and lowering the tax burden placed on business.

Lastly, decision makers must be educated as to the importance of better job opportunities. If small businesses don’t grow, Maine will continue its downward spiral, started three decades ago when access to welfare trumped access to better jobs.

As former executive director of the Lewiston Auburn Economic Growth Council, former president of the Economic Development Council of Maine and former chairman of the board of the Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce, my level of concern for the well-being of small business has never been greater.

John Turner, Auburn