Maine Can Do Better

My organization wants to endorse to this Statement of Principles.

I personally want to sign this Statement of Principles.

Like people throughout Maine, the partners in Maine Can Do Better believe in working together for the common good.  We know that Maine’s prosperity depends on the strength of our public structures – our laws, our schools and universities, our public health and safety agencies, our roads and bridges, and our natural resources.  Maine’s infrastructure is the machinery that propels our economy, and must be responsibly managed and maintained to ensure the health and vitality of Maine communities now and into the future.

In this challenging economy, we must think creatively to advance innovative solutions that will keep that machinery in good working order. That’s why we stand together behind the following principles.

• Fiscal policies should be founded on sound economic principles, fairly considering the costs and benefits of all options. Budgets should be built on reason, not rhetoric. In good times and in bad, spending cuts, use of cash reserves, and the need for revenue should all be weighed in meeting Maine’s needs.  By working together to find solutions that raise resources equitably and invest resources wisely, we can maintain our essential public structures and promote shared prosperity.
• Maine's longstanding tradition of town meeting and representative democracy should be upheld. Efforts to alter, circumvent or replace citizen leadership and governance structures with arbitrary and inflexible caps on spending and revenue (i.e., TABOR or Palesky) would create chaos in public budgets even in the best of economic times.
• State policies should support Federal efforts to stimulate the economy.  It is essential that we employ strategies that complement Federal efforts to promote immediate and continued job growth and economic security. Significant state spending cuts could potentially reverse the benefit of Federal stimulus.
• We should strengthen our communities and not shift costs to expensive and inefficient outcomes. Some of the least desirable and most costly settings to meet community needs are emergency rooms, institutional care, and jails. When the state cuts access to preventive health care, or cuts supports that allow individuals to remain at home, or cuts substance abuse treatment . . . it often forces care to be delivered in more costly ways – literally at the expense of families, local governments and the state itself.
• We’re all in this together. Facing our challenges as one community allows us to tackle big challenges that would be impossible to address on our own. Our state should support Maine people and our desire to work together so current and future generations can prosper.

My organization wants to endorse to this Statement of Principles.

I personally want to sign this Statement of Principles.