A message from our Founder, Jonathan Bush
Let’s start with something self-evident to most of us:
Maine is the best place on earth to live a raise a family!
My family has been in Maine since the 1890s. My wife Fay’s family has been here since the 1700s. Like so many others, we’ve chosen to make Maine our home and raise our children here because, quite simply, there is no better place to do that. The natural beauty, the town character, and the great people just can’t be beat.
But what about our business environment? Sure it’s stunningly beautiful and that helps attract people. We’ve also got a population of resilient, independent, hard-working citizens who have learned to adapt to whatever the next challenge may be.
That said, we seem to face some pretty rough economic headwinds and it seems to me that a lot of them are “self-inflicted.” We were a world leader in manufacturing, everything from paper to ships to shoes to poultry and textiles. But when the times changed and our major industries collapsed, nothing really stepped in to replace them as has happened in other states.
Instead of replacing legacy industries with a new economy, we allowed government funding to step in and fill the void. And government spending has become the dominant force in our economy, to the point where now one in every eight jobs in Maine is a government job. Maine received 21 billion dollars in federal funds in 2024 – nearly four times what our state collected in General Fund revenue.
In the short term, we’re fortunate to get support when we need it from the federal government. But Maine’s state government should be stewarding a growing economy that is MORE an expression of our own passions and less dependent on “committee approved” handouts. This is where we’ve really screwed up – instead of creating an environment that fosters economic growth and independence, Maine state government has slipped into a “learned helplessness” with regard to our economy.
Every dollar we take in from the federal government – thanks to our amazingly effective representatives in DC – comes with strings attached. This has created an economy that is completely reliant on and directed by the federal government. This not only strips Mainers of our ability to make our own decisions, but all this government red tape crowds out real economic development and hinders our ability to truly grow a thriving economy.
Coupled with all of this direct federal funding is the explosion of government-funded non-profits that serve both their intended purpose to prop up a struggling economy as well as the more nefarious purpose of perpetuating their funding sources through public advocacy. These groups cement our status as a welfare state, and they’ve also done a pretty good job stifling any discussion of doing anything different.
There are correctable barriers to progress across almost all of Maine’s public policy sectors. Our energy costs are too high because our over-ambitious pro-renewable policies have kept us from taking advantage of cheaper sources of power. We’re experiencing a housing crisis because a spider web of development restrictions has shut down new construction for anything but high-end homes. Our schools have dropped from among the best in the nation to the bottom of the barrel – despite a significant increase in per-pupil spending – after we watered down the use of test scores as performance metrics and thus backed off serious accountability for results.
To correct these problems, we need to and start looking to build a sustainable, independent economy and that is why we have launched Maine for Keeps. Our goal is to develop a game plan to revive what we call the Maine Dream – the ability to achieve the American Dream without leaving Maine to do it.
We’ve put together a team of technology innovators, policy experts, community leaders, and business owners to dig into the barriers we’re facing and come up with better ways to approach our economy. We’re building a Solutions Factory, and we need everyone to join in to make this work.
We’re also launching the Maine for Keeps Podcast to help foster a broader discussion of these issues. Each week we’ll be speaking with Mainers from all walks of life to identify problems and brainstorm on solutions. We hope you’ll subscribe and sign up for our email list to stay up to date with this exciting project.
Over the coming months, we’ll be rolling up our sleeves and doing the hard work to develop policies for a thriving Maine future. We’ll be elevating voices that have not traditionally been part of the policy discussion, and exploring new ideas and different approaches that we hope can shake our amazing state out of a decades-old slumber.
Maine’s facing headwinds, but this is an exciting time to be engaged in public policy. We are blessed to live in the best state in the nation, and together we can make the changes necessary to build an economy that lasts – truly, a Maine for keeps.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Bush
Founder, Maine for Keeps