Blog: #WalkwithME Day 9: A Fair Chance to Succeed

Statement

As I continue the Walk Across Maine for Jobs and the Economy and talk to more voters, the same few issues keep coming up. Without a Social Security benefit increase, too many Mainers -- and too many Americans everywhere -- will face very difficult decisions about getting by each month. Without universal Internet access and high quality cell phone service, rural Mainers can't start or expand their businesses. They wonder what the holdup is in Washington on getting our economy moving again, and they tell me they could be living better lives if only Congress made a few common sense decisions. Contrary to what you may have heard, a government that helps people who need help isn't a radical notion. The people I've met want to get things back on track, and they believe Congress can be part of the solution if we get some new thinking in there.

Plenty of politicians tell us, over and over, that working people are on their own, that our problems are too big for government to help solve, and that modern finance is too complicated for the average person to understand. If they just started talking to people, they'd realize that voters already know a lot about what we need to do. The problem isn't that we don't have solutions. It's that Washington isn't listening. A lot of the people I've met, like the farmers at the Waterville Farmer's Market on Thursday, just want a fair chance to succeed. That means having a good Internet connection so a farmer can fill her orders online quickly instead of waiting 20 minutes. That means increasing cell phone coverage in rural areas to help them connect with the world and contribute to their local communities. Rural Electrification worked so well after the Great Depression that today it's not even a controversial program. We need a modern-day phone service and Internet Rural Electrification project that brings towns, townships and farmsteads new connections and new opportunities. The social and economic benefits will be undeniable.

Voters don't stop there. They tell me we need to reinvest in job-creating infrastructure projects, like the bridge being constructed in Benton where I stopped a few days ago to speak with the local crew. We need to stop bad trade deals that send jobs overseas, like the one that cost Maine hundreds of jobs when National Starch & Chemical went to Central America. We need to help people who aren't making ends meet and end the corporate lobbyist stranglehold on our electoral system. If those don't sound like ambitious priorities, maybe you haven't read enough about Congress lately. But they're exactly the right priorities for the future of our families and our state.

Our middle class used to be the envy of the world.

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