Make More Pie: Why Maine Should Bet on Growth, Not Handouts

This week on Maine For Keeps, Jonathan goes solo from North Haven Island to share why he’s still a raging Maine optimist and why it’s time for our state to stop dividing a shrinking pie and start making more pie.

Part personal story, part blueprint for Maine’s future, this episode digs into what makes Maine unique, and what’s possible if we unleash our natural strengths.

Highlights from the episode:

• Why Maine’s workforce is perfectly suited for the AI-driven economy ahead.
• The idea of Maine as America’s national strategic housing reserve — building homes with our 6 million acres of forest and exporting cross-laminated timber.
• How Maine could become a green protein export powerhouse by growing bottom fish instead of just catching them.
• Why tourism and our parks are still an underdeveloped superpower for the state.
• What Jonathan learned about resilience, community, and optimism from his own story in Belfast and North Haven.
• The problem with dividing handouts vs. building ownership and why that system poisons belief in fairness.
• How reminders of Maine’s past dominance, from shipbuilding to farming, are signals of what we can become again.

This is a wide-ranging, candid reflection on what’s broken, what’s possible, and why Maine’s best days can still be ahead.

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