What we believe
Common sense.Civility. Moderation.
They're old Maine values, and older American ones. The people who founded this country, and this state, wrote them down. Here they are in their own words, and what they mean in Maine today.
Where rights come from
Our rights aren't the government's to hand out.
“All people are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent and unalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and of pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness.”
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
In Maine todayMaine's constitution puts it first, before any law or program. Government's job is to protect those rights, not to ration them.
What you earn
Keep what you earn.
“a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”
In Maine todayMaine's top income tax rate, 7.15 percent, starts at $64,850 of taxable income for a single filer. Since 2025 every paycheck has also carried a paid-leave premium. A frugal government asks what each new dollar will do before it takes it.
Sources: Maine Revenue Services, 2026 income tax rates; Maine Department of Labor
A home of your own
Let Mainers build.
“Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.”
In Maine todayMaine is tens of thousands of homes short. The surest way to bring rents and prices down is to let owners build: more homes per lot, faster permits, and rules that don't price a starter home out of reach.
Source: State of Maine Housing Production Needs Study, October 2023
Help that lifts
A hand up, not a holding pattern.
“I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.”
In Maine todayFor someone living on the street, that means treatment for addiction and mental illness, then a path to work and a home. Every program should be judged by how many people it gets there, not by how many it serves.
Every dollar
Spend it like it's ours. It is.
“if we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.”
In Maine todayAugusta's General Fund is $12.0 billion for 2026 and 2027, up from $7.2 billion for 2018 and 2019. Some of that is inflation and some is what voters asked for. The question to put to every line is what it accomplished.
Sources: Office of Fiscal and Program Review, General Fund status with the 2026 supplemental budget, August 2026; Office of Fiscal and Program Review, ten-year history of General Fund appropriations
Balance
Don't trust it all to one.
“the way to have good and safe government, is not to trust it all to one; but to divide it among the many, distributing to every one exactly the functions he is competent to.”
“Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”
In Maine todayMaine has elected two independent governors, and about a third of its voters belong to neither major party. Checks and balances aren't a slogan here. They're a habit.
Source: Maine Secretary of State, registered and enrolled voters, March 7, 2026
Civility
Same principles. Different names.
“But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.”
“It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.”
In Maine todayWe argue about policies, never about people. Democrats, Republicans, and independents who want Maine affordable again belong on the same side of the room.
Conscience
Free to believe. Free to say so.
“The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate.”
In Maine todayFaith and speech belong to the people, not to the state, and a disagreement is not a threat.
What free people built
It lifted the world.
The share of the world's people in extreme poverty, 1990 to 2024, by the World Bank's measure of $3.00 a day. That's about 1.5 billion fewer people.
What Americans produced per person in 2025, adjusted for prices: about 19 percent more than Germans, 41 percent more than the French, and 62 percent more than the Japanese.
The year China's Communist Party adopted reforms that let farmers sell part of their crops on the free market and encouraged people to start their own businesses. Growth averaged 9.5 percent a year through 2018 and helped lift an estimated 800 million people out of poverty, the Congressional Research Service reports. China kept one-party rule.
Free enterprise built the greatest nation on earth, and then it lifted the world. Even China's Communist Party turned to markets to end its people's poverty.
Sources: World Bank, global poverty update, September 22, 2026; World Bank, GDP per capita, PPP, 2025; Congressional Research Service, China's Economic Rise, RL33534, 2019
Dirigo.
“I lead.” It's the motto on Maine's flag. Common sense, civility, and moderation are how Maine leads.
Source: Maine's flag, 1 M.R.S. §206
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