It wasn't exactly an earthquake, but when GrowSmart Maine released its Brookings Institution Report, "Charting Maine's Future," in October 2006, it took the state by storm.

Thousands of citizens signed up to help pursue the recommendations. The report's conclusions received editorial support statewide. Gov. John Baldacci and many legislators moved quickly to take advantage of the momentum for change.

The bright people at Brookings brilliantly linked our exceptional environment with our small villages to define our "quality of place," and explained how this could help us achieve economic prosperity.

Real accomplishments followed, including a bond of $55 million for research and development and our "innovation" economy and two bonds for "quality of place" land and river conservation and community revitalization.

Tax credits were enacted to encourage rehabilitation of historic buildings and a state building code was finally created.

Committees were put to work on the key issues identified by Brookings, including a prosperity committee, an innovation committee and a quality of place council.

I got so excited about all of this that I joined the GrowSmart Board of Directors last year, eager to make sure this dynamic organization advocated strongly for the rural Maine attributes and values that Brookings recognized as our strength.

Most states have great cities but few places on earth have the combination of natural resources and small villages that define Maine.

Unfortunately, many of Brookings' recommendations have been misapplied, misinterpreted and perverted.

Example number one: consolidation of schools. Here's what Brookings said: "Maine could realize between $10 million and $35 million in annual K-12 education-costs savings without closing or consolidating a single school by reducing administrative costs to various national or Maine consolidated-district standards."

That's right, we could have reduced administrative costs substantially "without closing or consolidating a single school."

But we made a mess of it, didn't we?

Because most of the state budget goes to health and human services and education, the Brookings' recommendations on health care are especially important. They questioned the efficiency of the state's health services and reported, as a percentage of income, we're spending three times more on health care than the average in other rural states. Where are the health initiatives to bring us into line?

Sitting in the Appropriations Committee room not long ago listening to a presentation of the governor's budget, I was struck by how much of the problem was being loaded back onto local government in reductions in a host of municipal aid programs.

Checking with my Brookings bible, here's what I read: "for its part, non-school local government appears relatively frugal... (And) relatively cost-effective in most places. ... in fact, Maine's local spending on such services as police protection, parks and recreation and libraries appears low in comparison to the nation, and in most cases is competitive with other rural states."

Brookings reported, "Maine's top revenue problem ... may well be its over-reliance on high local property taxes." And now, the governor's budget choices will result in higher property taxes, given the leanness of local government.

Our other most-pressing tax problem, according to Brookings, is the income tax, where "the state's 8.5-percent top rate remains the eighth-highest in the country," noting that the top rate "kicks in at a taxable income of just $18,500 for singles or $36,550 for joint filers."

Brookings recommended reducing property and income taxes and broadening the revenue base by "exporting more tax burden onto Maine's millions of visitors and tourists." That's another controversial call, getting a lot of resistance from the tourism industry, which was particularly enraged by Brookings' statement that "Maine is a cheap date."

Rep. John Piotti, D-Unity and also a member of the GrowSmart Board, has worked tirelessly to implement at least a portion of this recommendation with his tax reform proposal, but appears poised on the brink of defeat once again. Comprehensive tax reform is hard -- if not impossible.

And then there's one of my favorite Brookings' recommendations: a Maine government efficiency commission "to methodically review the structure and operations of state government and propose specific reforms to eliminate duplication and inefficiency."

This didn't happen because the Legislature choked on the suggestion that the commission's recommendations "be subject to a single up-or-down vote by the Legislature."

Few legislators are willing to give up their right to defend favorite state programs and jobs in an up-or-down single vote.

The momentum of the Brookings' report may be lost to a morass of mistakes.

George Smith is executive director of the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine. He lives in Mount Vernon and can be reached at george@samcef.org.