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Owen McCarthy- Segment 5 · Newsradio WGAN

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For over 2 decades, Inside Maine has been your trusted source for
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political analysis and candid conversations with Maines most
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influential leaders, bringing you the issues that matter most,
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straight from the experts on 98.5 FM, AM 560 and wgan.com.
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And we are back on Inside Maine. It's twelve O 8.
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I'm Aaron Chadbourne, your host this week.
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As a reminder, I'll be back next week.
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So if you're having fun today, we're going to have even more
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fun next week as we continue to interview many of the candidates
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running to be Maine's next governor.
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If you have questions for them, feel free to send them into the
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text line, 207-879-9426. I've been trying to get many of
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them in. I think if you've been
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listening, you've been texting, you've heard some of your
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questions come up. And same will be true for our
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next guest. Joining us here in studio is
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Owen McCarthy, a Republican candidate for governor.
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Owen, good to see you. Good to talk to you again on
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INSIDE Maine. Happy to be here and I had to
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join the fun and come in the studios looking you in the eye
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and have this conversation. Jeremy, could you turn down his
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microphone though? Because I the other night I was
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watching the debate on WGME and your mic, I mean, first day
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David Jones's mic wasn't working.
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They, they stopped him from talking.
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They swapped it out. Your mic wasn't working.
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It was. It was.
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Tough I didn't know in the moment but I rewatched it and I
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was like wow I love this sniffle track in the background while I
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was. Talking So it's funny with Greg
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Lagerquist, I heard him on with Matt on Friday.
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He was saying that some of the the mics were dying.
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And I'm like, what? Did they not recharge them after
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the Democrat debate? But I actually thought on you.
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I thought it was a sound mixing issue because it sounded like
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they had someone else's mic up and yours down.
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I think that's right. I think that's, I think that's
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right. And it was definitely
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unfortunate. And it happens, mistakes happen.
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So all good fun to W Jimmy, but bad luck.
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But it was just tough because I wanted to hear what you had to
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say. You, you're at this point though
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in the campaign now. It's been When did you announce?
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About a year ago. So it's been about a year.
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Where are things at now? What are you most focused on at
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this point in the campaign? What is most important for you
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to make sure that people who maybe haven't made a decision or
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figuring out where they are, maybe they're just getting to
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know you because it takes people a while, just like with a
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product launch in in in business, right?
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Takes people a while to tune in. What do you think is most
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important for voters to know about Owen McCarthy?
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Well, so we're 30 days away, away from the primary right now.
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Most people make up the decision in the last two weeks and we're
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in the straight stretch. And so what's the most important
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to know about me? Look, I'm I'm deep roots in
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Maine. I grew up in rural Maine, patent
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Maine. My dad was a logger, my mom was
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a lunch lady. I had a great path.
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I went on to humane study of engineering.
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I built companies here, one of them raised $60 million, brought
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jobs into the state, helps people improve their walking
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with medical devices. I want to build that kind of
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experience for the next generation.
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My kids. I have a five of the three-year
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old. I also Maine is completely
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unaffordable for working class people like those people I grew
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up with and we need to turn it around.
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And that's what my candidacy is all about.
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I'm the only candidate with roots north of Augusta in this
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race. I've deeply embedded in the
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business community in southern Maine.
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I think I can imagine a future and I put out a plan Maine 2040
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that just pretty thick 70, 130 policies with how I want to do
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it because I owe it to voters to look them in the eye to ask me
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to vote that I want to tell them what I want to do.
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And that's what that's what I want people to know about and.
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People want to read the plan. Where do they go?
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You can go for go to owenfrommaine.com and this
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weekend I will release a teaser version of the plan.
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For those of you that don't want to read 73 pages, I'll release a
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few few a few pages that you can read as a brochure.
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What about some tik toks to go along?
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With that Tik Toks will maybe, maybe we'll do some Tik Toks,
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but you know, we've done some content.
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I actually had AI do do like a hand drawn version of the plan,
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which came out pretty good. I gave credit to AI so people
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didn't think, you know, I was throwing slop out there.
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But there's there's other ways other ways to get.
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There are great AI tools though. I use them all the time in my
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business, in my personal life. Now, I've had other candidates
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on today, a few questions that I asked them that I want to get to
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you on. Is this this issue that's going
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on in Lewiston? Lewiston, you've seen an uptick
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in shootings. I've had a lot of people say
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like, what can the governor do? Because we don't see anything,
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We don't hear anything from this governor about it.
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What can and should the governor do to address the rise of crime
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in communities like Lewiston? Well, that's one thing that I've
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noticed with this administration, with the
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governor is when there's a major problem, they just ignore it and
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hope it goes away. And my governorship, what will
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be different is I'm going, going to, I would go to Lewiston, I'd
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walk the streets, I'd assess the situation.
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I, I, we, you know, as the governor, the state police
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report into you and we have underfunded them compared to our
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neighbors in New Hampshire. We need to make sure our funding
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for state police is up there, that we focus on recruitment and
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training and that they work collaboratively with the local
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police in in the Lewiston, Auburn area.
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Addition to that, the process, the system of how we find
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criminals and take them through the criminal justice system is
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broken. Like we, we have cashless bail,
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so people are out on the street before you can even write the
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paperwork of something and they could commit another crime.
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We have we don't have public defenders in some places.
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We, we haven't resourced that appropriately.
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And so there's no access to, to a lawyer, we, we don't have
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appropriate mental health care. And so you, we have to both go
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there, acknowledge it, shine a light on it, back the back the
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police, make sure there's funding and then fix the pipes
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of the system. And if not, this is just going
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to keep happening over and over again.
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So you talked a little bit about spending, and I think that's one
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of the things that everyone in this race on the Republican side
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has focused on the spending. The Democrats not so much, but
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the the Republicans have. And everyone talks about cutting
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spending. But like, how do you actually do
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it? Because my experience working
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for Governor LePage is that whenever he proposed to reduce
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spending on something, cut. Spending people come out of the
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woodwork. Whoever is getting the money
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comes out, they go to their senator, they go and they, they,
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they know how to mobilize. And there's like a a real person
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that's getting that money. They fight it.
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The legislature loses it as well.
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How do you get spending cuts to actually happen?
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Well, so if you, you look at the perspective, we've gone from 7
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billion to 12 billion in the state budget and it's, you know.
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We're probably even more than that now based on what they
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didn't. Supplement.
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I know I have it probably. Closer like 14.
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Yeah, Yeah. OK.
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So double, it's doubled, right. How many people out there
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listening have doubled their personal budget in the last
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eight years? No one, like almost no one.
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And so the few things to look at, I proposed with the main
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performance review, which is an audit of everything.
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And when I say that anytime you grow anything by that much,
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there's a lot of fraud and waste that that pop up there.
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And, and we've seen that with the reporting of the main wire.
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They've been able to find fraud report on it with limited
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information. They get say from the federal
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government when they dump some Medicaid data.
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As the governor, and when you're there, you have access to all
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claims, all billing, all information.
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And, and as someone that comes from technology, you can apply
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technological tools to flag fraud and then go after it,
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return the money to the people of Maine and cut that spending
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'cause they're not actually delivering services in a lot of
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cases. And, and you can do that and you
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can also have consequences for the people that commit fraud.
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So it limits that. There's a big chunk of funding
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dollars you can find right there.
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You give it back. I proposed a 10% income tax cut
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for working families under $200,000.
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That's where I'd find that money.
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Also, you look at all these open positions, they, they roll over
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open positions every, every year.
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Like we got to shrink that amount.
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You shrink that amount, you shrink the budget there
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immediately. And then we need to grow the
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economy and then change the mix of the revenue sources and we
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need to, we need to flatline spending out into the future,
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which then allows the revenue equation to, to pop up.
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Because you're right, like, you know, like going in and, and
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carving out tons of programs is going to create lots of chaos.
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I'm OK with chaos, but it, it's really hard to do.
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You got to find, you got to have used tools that are appropriate
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for the occasion that you have. Now I think it's interesting
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because you know, I had Ben Midgley on last segment and he
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really points out that if you're going to look to cut spending,
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the money is really mostly in three buckets.
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You got it in HHS, right through welfare, Medicaid, it's an
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education. Education.
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A lot of it just flows out through the funding formula, not
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in the most efficient way or the most, you know, results oriented
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way. And then?
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We don't talk about results. Transportation, which has its
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own budget, is this other thing. But those are the three areas
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where the the money actually is. It becomes really hard to find
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any way to like claw on either back and cut anything with
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meaning other than in, in welfare and Medicaid, correct?
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That's where the money is. And those are the people that
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have the like most entrenched interest groups because those
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are where all the money is going.
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Mary Mayhew tried so hard and did a great job, by the way, she
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and her team, Sam Adolfson, they did a great job finding examples
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of fraud, but they couldn't get the attorney general.
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You might know her, her name is Janet Mills.
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They couldn't get her to prosecute them.
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They couldn't get them to actually go and take out it.
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How do you if you have if you have divided government, you
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have a. Democratic federal crime too.
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I mean, these are, these are, it could be a state level
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prosecution, it could be a federal government level.
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I mean, Medicaid dollars come from the federal government.
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And so there's a way that you could work with AUS attorney on
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the prosecution as the state, in my opinion, particularly with
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the Trump administration in place, that they would be really
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keen to help us go after those sort of fraud cases and give it
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back. We can also just stop payments.
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You know, there's two parts of that.
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It's like stop giving them money and then prosecute the fraud,
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right? And each of those will have
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different strategies depending on the type of government that
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we we have. Why do you think the mainstream
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media isn't covering this? Because I the main wire comes
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and they'll, they'll go down deep into it and then you see
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nothing on any of the main publications.
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You don't see it in the press herald.
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You don't see it in the bank or Daily News.
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You don't see it on the three major four major TV stations.
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Why do you think there isn't public attention to the the
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Medicaid fraud? So for me, the mainstream media,
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I think they, they've been decimated, right?
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Like they're, they're shelves of their former selves.
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Their business model doesn't work.
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They don't produce relevant things and and they have leaned
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a certain political direction. And because of that, like their
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Staffs are light and their investigative properties are low
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and they rely on press releases really for the reporting.
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And I think what we're talking about here and what the main
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wire has done requires you to go levels deep and there's no one
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to go levels deep there. And there's a lot of risk for
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them if they don't go, if they if they go out on a limb because
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of how aligned they have been with the Democrat Party and in
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generally. And so I think that's why they
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haven't reported on it. They actually don't think it's
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as big of an issue as we're seeing over here.
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There's also this, I mean, there's no surprise that they
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don't like the main wire, right? So like they, they also don't
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want to give them credit for some of the work.
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I think some of that is there, but there's a, there's a close
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alignment between the press releases of the Mills
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administration and the mainstream media as as we see it
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out there. Well, I can promise you that if
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a Republican is elected governor, they will all of a
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sudden remember. How we will find the fraud,
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everybody. They're gonna all of a sudden
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rediscover it. It was just so ridiculous.
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When I worked in in Governor Lepage's office, I would get
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forward every single day. This one reporter from the
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Bangor Daily News asked for all of my emails going back two
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years. I picked up the phone.
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I called her. I'm like, what is it that you
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want? Like, what are you looking for?
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I'll give it to you. Like to ask me what it is we
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work for you Like what? And she wanted, she's like, I
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want to know what Governor LePage is trying to do on
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education. I was like, here you go.
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Here's what we're doing. Do you want to come in any of
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the meetings? Like, we are trying to #1
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redirect the education dollars to the classroom.
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We're trying to reduce overall spending because it's
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inefficient. We're trying to create
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collaboration. We're trying to improve
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outcomes. Speaking of education outcomes,
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I asked Angus King this question earlier this morning.
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He stole my plan. Some of it.
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Good, that's fine. It's not going to make him
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popular in a Democrat primary. Exactly what do you think?
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How do you think we got to where we are?
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How do we go from being top in the country to now and at the
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bottom? Of the it's distraction.
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We stopped caring about outcomes.
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We actually talked to the Commission, the current
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commissioner of education, about the outcomes.
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I said, what do you make of the fact that we were fourth or
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first in the country reading and now it's near last and she's
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like, well, the outcomes don't matter.
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Like that sounds like. Her.
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And there's more. More there's.
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More points to the equation, It's not that simple, etcetera,
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etcetera. The parents and the absenteeism
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and there's a lot of excuses that came out and I was like,
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OK, you don't think in Mississippi like they have bad
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parents and they have absentee issues and they have all these
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things like you think that they have a much better input
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conditions that we do. There is no chance that that's
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the case. What did they do?
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They said OK, those are the inputs we need.
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If we hyper focus on outcomes and do a few things that will
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drive the outcomes in 4th grade reading, which is where they
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focus first, we can make a big difference.
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And they went from 49th to 9th in the country and 1st if you
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adjust for socioeconomic status. So I think it's like we brought
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in all the stuff and we've asked schools to do a lot of things
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and we we have stopped caring about the basics.
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We need to get back to that and then go the solutions.
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I mean, they're pretty common sense, right?
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Like evidence based reading. Like we, we have got 50%.
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Aaron, I don't know if you knew this.
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Mapri has this report, 50% of the curriculum taught in Maine
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schools in 4th grade reading is proven not to work. 50%.
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And then we wonder why the kids can't read.
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You pass a law, evidence science based reading law that you have
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to teach. You can pick teachers can still
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pick curriculum, but pick the stuff that you like, which is
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phonics within phonics. Pick something in phonics you
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can make a big difference. Give them a little training
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because they haven't been trained that way in a long time,
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right? Like make sure there's a little
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dollars for curriculum. These are N small investments,
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small investments. You can make a difference there.
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And then we, if we can change, I mean, that's a three.
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If you do that in three years, four years, you're going to see
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their scores skyrocket. And then now we have some mojo
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like we have accomplished something.
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You got mojo. Let's go take another hill and
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make a big difference out there. And I think that would give us a
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lot of a lot of pride in our education system again.
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You're listening to INSIDE Main. I'm your host, Aaron Chadbourne.
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We're joined in studio by Owen McCarthy, candidate for
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governor, running as a Republican, seeking the
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nomination. The primary election is on June
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9th, coming right up 30 days away.
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Elizabeth from Ocean Park wants to know how do you plan to make
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property taxes more affordable for Maine seniors on a fixed
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budget? Yeah, it's a good.
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I, I will say seniors have been getting killed in this state on
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the expense side. And I was talking with a lady
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and Allen Falls, man, do you know what Allen Falls is?
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I'm sure. You do.
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I put up campaign sites. Yeah, yeah, beautiful place.
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And she said her I'll get the property tax in a second.
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But she, she raised her hand and she says, oh, and my electricity
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bill is $700.00 a month. I'm on fixed income.
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Like I have high property tax. How am I going to afford to stay
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in my my home? And so in my plan main 2040
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which go to the website and read I think it's page 13.
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You just say the name of the website every time you tell.
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Me www.owenformaine.com Thanks. People don't use
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www.anymoreowenformaine.com you're letting your millennials.
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Show HTTPS dot dot slash slash www.owenformaine.com.
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Right when people go there, they read your plan, they'll.
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Find out. Yeah, that's the secure
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hyperlink to that plan. Maine in 2040, it's roughly page
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13 where we talk about we're bringing back the freeze on
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property tax for seniors and I think that's a really important
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thing to do. It was there for like a year
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like like these people need to be make sure they stay in their
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homes. We then need to go after
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electricity cost 250 million of a 2 1/2 billion dollar
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electricity market. It's solar subsidies right now
15:04
there's another $200 million of fees that for, you know, the
15:07
climate fees on on your bill that adds up to 200, four $150
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million. Those are hidden from you.
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We need to bring them into the budget and lower them as much as
15:16
possible. You can make a big difference
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there. And then you need to find base
15:19
layer energy and then additional for property taxes.
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We have we're going to go after all unfunded mandates and and
15:27
and Marie condo. Those things right make if they
15:30
don't bring you joy, let's get rid of them and and the towns
15:33
and and cities, you know, won't have to do so much stuff and
15:36
that will start to including the schools start to lower property
15:39
taxes overall. So in the last, you know,
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stretch of this campaign, you know, one of the things that's
15:45
hard is a lot of people have similar ideas or the same ideas.
15:48
What is going to be different in the state of Maine if we get
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Governor Owen McCarthy versus anyone else that's running for
15:55
government? Yeah.
15:55
So my, my focus is on opportunity, affordability and
16:00
discipline. Like we need to make sure we
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create the conditions where we can create 50,000 foundational
16:05
jobs. And when I, when I say that,
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that means these are things that sell things across borders.
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These are in communities all over the state.
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We're rebuilding the mill, mill towns, the rising them up like
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the Phoenix. And if we do that, you rise
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incomes. That helps out with the
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affordability problem 2 is we're going to go right at the heart
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of affordability. And that that is electricity
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cost, that's property taxes, that's that's tax burden in
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general. And we'll make make a change
16:28
there. And three is discipline and how
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we run the government, which is not a word that really lines up
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as you know, you've been there lines up that well, we do those
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things. You know, we can make up Maine a
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place for working class Mainers again, that they can they can
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have a family, they can live and prosper.
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It's not just vacation land for wealthy people.
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And that's really, I mean, that's my statement at the end
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of every one of my speeches is I want to make Maine more than
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vacation land for wealthy people.
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This is a place that we can live, work and prosper.
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And and that's the main we're going to build in my
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administration. And I think it's more people
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have seen you, you've gotten a lot of positive feedback.
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People are incentivized. They're like, oh, I like this
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Owen guy. What do you say to people,
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though, that are worried? They're like, oh, well, he, he's
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not a front runner at the moment.
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Maybe he doesn't have a chance. He's a newcomer to politics.
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He's he's he's being outspent by these other guys.
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What can you tell the people that give them the most
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confidence that you're the guy that's going to get to the
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finish line, not only in this primary but against whoever the
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Democrats put up? Well, I, so, OK, so I'll answer
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the primary first, right? The, the Mainers love an
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underdog. We're 30 days away.
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Like we love an underdog story, right?
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I, I came from nothing. I don't have a famous last name.
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Like I built it here. I have a plan and, and, and, and
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I, I want to do it a different way.
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And we're in the final stretch. I watched the Kentucky Derby
17:40
last weekend and I've been saying I'm the golden tempo of
17:43
this race, right? Like you, the golden tempo was
17:45
in the back. You slowly pass people and it's
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possible most Mainers don't decide 40%, which is like
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roughly 40,000 people in the last 7 to 10 days on who they're
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going to pick. There's votes out there and I'm
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going to continue to make the case.
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If you go to your friend governor of the page, he was at
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10% in the polls 10 to 14 days away and and had 35 plus percent
18:06
in the primary. Like there is a lot of time, a
18:09
lots going to happen. Give me a good hard look.
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Don't give up on me if you're behind me because we have the
18:14
energy and the momentum to go win this thing and the general
18:17
election. All the stuff I'm talking about
18:20
actually plays really well in the general election.
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These these issues of I want better paying jobs.
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I want to, I want to go after affordability.
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I want to be disciplined about how we write, read the
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government, we're solving problems.
18:30
We're and, and we're coming up with solutions.
18:33
We're looking forward that will carry the day with the
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independent voters and what I call the Ezra Klein Democrats
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that just don't want to be socialists and they want to
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grow. We can go.
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We can go win that too. So we're about out of time.
18:45
If people want to learn more, remind them where they go.
18:47
They find your 72 page plan or the executive summary that
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you're going to. Put out this weekend.
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Well, I'll drop the www.butowenfrombang.com.
18:55
You can go there. You can go to Facebook, you can
18:57
go to Instagram. I wouldn't go to Tiktok.
18:59
It's less active than it should be.
19:01
Well, the Chinese are running it.
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I wouldn't go on Tiktok. This is INSIDE Maine.
19:05
We've been talking with Owen McCarthy.
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He's Republican candidate for governor.
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We'll take your calls when we come back.
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This is INSIDE Maine. I'm Aaron Chadbourne.