It's election season across America.

Here in Maine, there is an election for governor, as well as all 186 seats in the Maine State Legislature (House and Senate).

Although there are many important public policy issues, the state of Maine’s economy should be priority number one. And yet, we won’t hear nearly enough about the state of our economy before Election Day and how we can work together to fix it.

Our workforce is shrinking. We’re losing our economic base of foundational jobs, which are necessary to support jobs in the service sector and those in government. Maine is not competitive for costs of doing business or cost-of-living for families. While there are individual success stories, Maine overall is not attracting capital investment to start or expand businesses and create career opportunities for our residents to earn family-sustaining wages. As a result, Maine is not attracting enough workers to replace our declining population.

As we know, the political discourse in our country has become toxic, tribalistic and unproductive. Elections have become about not just winning candidates, but a winning ideology. Policymaking has become about scoring political points and advancing those ideologies for a certain “tribe,” rather than what’s in everyone’s best interest.

The result is short-term thinking and short-term policymaking that caters to narrow interests, only for the purpose of ensuring their support for the next election.



What Maine lacks is a long-term vision and a long-term strategy for our economy that exists above partisan agendas and political maneuvering. We need a plan that serves the best interests of all Mainers. The strategy needs the best ideas from across the political spectrum. All elected officials should be charged with implementing this vision. And it needs sustained support year after year, not just from one election to the next