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Eggs & Issues - Learn More! · Newsradio WGAN

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  Time now to turn our attention to next week's Eggs and Issues.
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  And you're joining us now to talk a little bit about it is
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  Patrick Woodcock, President and CEO of The Maine State Chamber
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  of Commerce and one of the featured speakers at the
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  upcoming Eggs and Issues next week.
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  Patrick, good talking to you again.
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  It's been a while. How are things?
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  Doing well. Good morning.
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  No, I'm happy to partner with the Portland Regional Chamber on
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  this. Eggs and issues, you know,
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  you've certainly seen the headlines of what the
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  Legislature has been up to. We're going to really dive into
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  the details, economic competitiveness, the impacts of
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  some of the tax changes related to, we all know the surtax on
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  incomes above $1,000,000, a lot of other provisions in that.
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  But moreover, we're going to turn to next week we will be
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  releasing an economic vision for the state of Maine and it comes
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  at a time where I think we're increasingly concerned about
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  Maine's position in the national economy.
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  We've gone from an over performer, the 2025 numbers were
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  before slowest growing economy and I think these headwinds of
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  housing energy really starting to show up on the macroeconomic
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  data. So we're partnering with The
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  Maine Development Foundation on a economic plan for the state
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  that will be launching before the gubernatorial date debate
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  that we're hosting on Wednesday with NEWS CENTER.
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  So a lot to unpack. We're really going to be
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  focusing on the economic implications of the legislature
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  and an economic vision for the state.
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  So Patrick, you mentioned that you're going to be taking a look
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  a little bit back at the legislature in this this
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  conversation. The actual event name is from
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  Augusta to Action, Legislative Outcomes and Business Impact.
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  You know, in the last several years, obviously the Legislature
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  has taken what I consider to be a pretty distinct path, which
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  has not been terribly friendly to cultivating Maine's economy.
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  Maybe in some ways, yes, but in most ways, to me, no.
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  I know that I don't want to spoil your talk, obviously, But
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  when you look back at what they've done in the last couple
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  years, what do you see? Well, I think the real aspect
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  that I saw that the real short term interests are merging the
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  surtax completely unnecessary with where we are with our
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  revenues catapults our marginal income tax to the highest level
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  in New England going to affect individuals and businesses
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  alike. And I really thought that the
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  effort to utilize the budget stabilization fund for these
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  affordability checks, again, very short term focused and we
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  need sustained long term economic growth.
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  We need a breakthrough with our regulatory environment to start
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  unlock housing production, our energy costs.
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  You know, we used to be the most competitive in New England, now
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  we're one of the highest. I used to have businesses
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  complain about their energy bills.
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  Now they don't believe them. We're just getting into another
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  territory where all these headwinds, they start to
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  materialize when you start to see jobs, data, economic growth,
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  and we really need to start focusing on how we're going to
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  grow this economy. And with a Big 10, I think, I
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  think honestly a lot of legislators on both sides of the
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  aisle were really frustrated with the legislative session.
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  But we we really have to put a vision forward of how we're
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  going to come together to address this.
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  Sort of reminds me of errors, errors when we really did need
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  to just every single public policy needs to be viewed for.
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  Is this going to help the economy or is this going to
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  impede economic growth? You mentioned the, the economic
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  plan that you're talking about here.
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  I, you know, without having read it, obviously, I have to assume
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  that it tries to touch on basically all the aspects you've
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  kind of alluded to while you were talking here in the
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  introduction. You know, all the things that
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  are affecting Maine's economy, everything from housing to
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  energy to the tax environment. Obviously it's many things
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  converging together. How how bad is the problem in
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  like how, how comprehensive does a solution to it need to be?
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  I mean, it strikes me that we are in a pretty deep hole right
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  now. So getting out of it is going to
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  require a lot of work and a lot of work in many areas at once.
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  And it's probably going to have to require patience as some of
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  those fixes end up having to take some time to actually work.
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  So what's your? What's your view on?
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  This good you, you know, this, I mean, there's, there used to be
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  aspects of Maine's economy that were bright spots, you know, K
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  through 12 back in the 90s, it was a pride of the state where
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  we were. Now we're a laggard.
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  And we've got a people who've been around education policy
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  said that it was a similar situation in the 80s that really
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  people came together. We've got to have better
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  results. This is not going to build a
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  workforce. This is not preparing our next
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  generation for a global economy. And they all have different
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  threads. You know, if you if you don't
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  have a workforce, you're really not going to have employees.
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  So these all have threads to them, but I think they, they
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  really need to have a real new vision of if you're going to
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  spend money, let's, let's invest in innovation.
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  Entrepreneurship of the state budget has grown significantly,
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  yet our investments in innovation have been stagnant.
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  I think, you know, framing this that we, we really do need to
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  grow the economy out of these problems.
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  Our housing issue, you know, we, we did have a lot of states have
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  been able to solve this. A lot of states have Democratic
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  Republican governors have said no, we want to cut the red tape.
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  And I think whoever is that next governor, it has to happen.
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  You know, we have to start saying yes to housing
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  production, saying, you know, municipalities, if you're going
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  to put all these barriers up, maybe you don't get the same
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  amount of revenue sharing is every other municipality to
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  become a statewide issue. A lot of these decisions occur
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  at the local level, but the state gives these municipalities
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  a lot of revenue. So I I think we need to do some
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  tariffs and sticks with these municipalities, help those that
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  are saying yes to housing. For those that are blocking
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  housing, yeah, maybe you get a little less funding from the
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  state. Do you think that that's
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  politically likely, Patrick? I mean, I mean, this is
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  obviously going to be highly dependent on, you know, who ends
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  up in the legislature in the next, in the next two year
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  period. So this election upcoming in
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  November is going to be determining whether or not you
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  have people that are open to that message or not.
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  Do you have optimism about that? I do.
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  I actually think that housing is something that actually can
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  unite the two parties. Energy can unite the two
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  parties. You know, we're not going to get
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  people in electric vehicles and heat pumps if we have
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  unaffordable electric rates. We've gotten to the point where
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  we've made so many mistakes that it's more, you know, it's
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  incentivizing this to use internal combustion engines.
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  You know, So working with a broad tent like we, we have
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  really had some steps backward here that have major
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  implications for any sort of of advancement for whether that's
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  clean energy, whether that's our educational attainment, housing
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  affordability, These are things that should unite us.
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  They should indeed. So of course, the event is again
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  from Augusta to action, legislative outcomes and
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  business impact. And Patrick Woodcock has been
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  joining us from The Maine State Chamber of Commerce talking a
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  little bit about it. He will be one of the featured
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  speakers, Heather Johnson and the yellow light green being a
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  couple others. So make sure that you go, it's
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  going to be Thursday, May 14th from 7:00 to 9:00 in the morning
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  at US Ms. Hannaford Hall as usual, and I will be there.
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  So I will see you guys there if you go also.
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  Appreciate it, Patrick. Thanks so much for joining us,
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  and we'll see you again next week.
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  Nice week, see you then. All right, thanks a lot.
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  You can go to the Portland Chambers website to go ahead and
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  get the tickets, but you can do walk-ins too because they always
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  do that. So last one of the season
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  though, last one of the season. So if you are a eggs and issues
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  person, this is your last chance at least for a few months to get
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  in on the fun and have the eggs and the issues.