Washington Republican John Stewart is making his second bid for the state legislature. The 42-year-old disabled veteran and his wife of 12 years, Cynthia Rosen co-own Homegrown, a home based fish farm and Community Supported Agriculture business in Washington.
District 52 includes Chelsea, Somerville, Washington, Whitefield, part of Jefferson, and Hibberts Gore.
When he is at home, Homegrown is about as green a business as green can be, Stewart said. The Stewarts raise much of their own food, use vegetable oil to heat their greenhouse, and generate more electricity than they need, selling the remainder to CMP.
Philosophically, Stewart describes himself as an old school Republican. He takes the traditional values of the Republican Party to heart.
“I guess I would lean toward the idea that the Republican Party has strayed from its original precepts; small government, low spending, low taxes, individual responsibility and freedoms, and it has strayed more into the government mentality,” Stewart said. “It has strayed to the left with the idea that government is the solution.” Depend on the people to be able to figure out what it is they need to make their business successful.”
Stewart said his motivation to run is based on his experience as a small businessman, trying to make a living in Vacationland. He cites the burden of taxes, licenses and endless fees levied by the state as factors discouraging growth.
“It really comes down to, we have been in business here for five or six years and it has just been a continuous struggle with the bureaucracy in this state,” Stewart said, adding in a separate comment, “So I figured the way to fix this was to go up there and do what I can to reverse those policies. (I want to) lower taxes, property taxes, create competitive insurance markets; bring those costs down. I would really like to look at energy costs and try to figure out why we pay so much more for energy than anyone else in New England. We produce more and we pay more and that’s backward.”
To gain an idea of where Maine is, Stewarts strongly suggests taking a look at the other 49 states in the Union and doing an honest appraisal of what Maine is doing well and where things could be improved. He could care less where the good ideas come from, he said, as long as good ideas are put forth.
“We ought to actively try to adjust our policies to make us more competitive,” he said. “I want to change the attitude to one that promotes prosperity.”
Stewart said he does see a role for government but sharply reduced from the modern model. Discussing Dirigo Health, Stewart said he sees no reason why the government should not have a limited role, but Dirigo, as proposed, has failed.
“In the case of Dirigo, I don’t see there is an argument to be made that government shouldn’t help those who truly can’t help themselves and those are the people we should be focusing our efforts on,” Stewart said. “We need to figure out how to efficiently spend taxpayer’s money. What we don’t want is waste and silliness. The Dirigo program as it was developed is a failure…. It is a broken program. I think Dirigo should be either heavily reformed or scrapped. I firmly believe that the most effective way to help with insurance costs is to allow more competition in the state. If we expand our health insurance and allow people to purchase health insurance like car insurance, we would have lower health insurance costs. Right now we have no competition, so prices will be just as high as they want.”
Stewart’s plan to reduce the size of government is to address the state’s income tax structure. He proposes no more than a 5 percent income tax across the board regardless of income. As it currently stands, Maine’s highest income tax rate begins with those incomes around $18,000, which Stewarts points out, is near poverty.
“Well, I think the most fundamental tax I would like to see lowered is the income tax,” he said. “I have a fundamental belief that the last thing we should tax is a man’s productivity. It’s an incentive plan for mediocrity.”
Despite his strong advocacy for eliminating taxes and fees, Stewart contends he is no wide-eyed tax slashing radical. Tax reductions have to go hand-in-hand with spending reductions and spending reductions, ultimately will come down to hard choices. For help with those choices, Stewart proposes turning to the citizens to find out what the constituents want their government to do.
“It all has to be with an understanding that it’s all related,” Stewart said. “When you cut taxes, you cut spending. You should cut spending first really… When you cut taxes and work to make the state more attractive, there will be more people moving into the state; more people paying taxes. There will be more businesses generating more revenue… The state motto is “I lead” and I think the question is, are we leading to the top or leading toward the bottom?”
Recalling a story a foster family told him on the campaign trail, Stewart said he was told state support for foster parents was cut to $37 a day. By contrast, legislators still get $60 per diem.
“I can take a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to the State House,” Stewart said. “I certainly don’t need to have the taxpayers pay $60 for me to eat lunch.”
