Maine needs a strategic plan to grow our economy.

A key challenge to growing foundational jobs, Maine’s economy, and our quality of life is that we do not have a long-term, strategic plan to guide our policies and actions.

In recent years, Maine has adopted plans that provide for a good start. These plans identify Maine’s economic strengths and weaknesses, as well as job sectors where Maine would like to see job growth in future.

Unfortunately, these plans fall short in two key, related areas:

1) Maine’s competitiveness against other states, and

2) what it takes to attract the investment necessary to create jobs and build businesses. 

States across the country are competing for jobs and workforce talent. Jobs go to where companies or investors believe they can make a good return on their investment in building a new factory, laboratory or other facility. That means competitive cost structures, efficient permitting, good access to customers, and enough skilled workers to perform the jobs. Maine simply isn’t competitive today, nor does it have a plan to make our state more competitive in the future.

Similarly, investment is what drives business and job growth. Investment comes from both companies outside of Maine, as well as those already here that want to expand their operations. Investment is a “bet” on the future, but Maine’s high costs, regulatory red tape, lack of workforce and other obstacles make Maine a risky bet. Investors might choose Maine if they knew the state had a vision for supporting job creators and working families, but we don’t have a plan to make Maine a good bet.

Maine needs a strategic plan that includes the steps we need to take to be more competitive and attract more investment. The plan needs to be long-term, strategic, and include goals and benchmarks that our leaders – and Maine employers – believe we need to hit to sustain economic growth today and tomorrow.

Most importantly, our strategic plan needs to be a roadmap that guides the decisions Maine lawmakers make in Augusta, so that their actions are tied to a larger, long-term goal for our state.