Bush: Done with fraud and the Soviet Central Planning Committees in Augusta? Want to shrink government? Vote for me.

By Jonathan Bush

I’m running for governor because the state government is way too big and way too bossy.

We need to shrink it and I’m the guy to do it.

The Mills administration is managing every Maine industry centrally out of Augusta.

That creates the confusing bureaucracy and economic strangulation that provides cover to the fraudsters we are all seeing exposed in the Maine Wire.

There are so many examples of big government silliness.

Direct state contracts for buying groceries? Ripe for fraud – the private sector has already solved this problem. State contracts for giving rides? Same problem. Let the free market solve it.

The list goes on — Augusta has been rapidly expanding the economic sectors that they think can only be controlled by government in a dangerous way…and literally crushing the economy while they do it.

This is exactly how the Soviet Union economy was administered. For example: I know exactly how the healthcare system has been run in Moscow and I’m beyond amazed that Augusta Democrats — in 2026 no less — are endeavoring to build the same system!

We don’t just need to root out fraudsters – we need to drain the entire swamp they were feeding at. We must SHRINK Augusta and AWAKEN the free market that it has been suffocating.

We need to stop the completely legal but completely misguided vacuuming up of our tax dollars by an ever-multiplying horde of “providers” and “programs.”

Amazingly, my primary opponents disagree. All of them (many of them lobbyists and other insiders in DC and Augusta) have advocated for new government contracts, new programs, and new spending.

That’s not me.

I have a simple outsider perspective informed by my 30 years as a CEO that grew more than 900 good Maine jobs.

State government is too big. We need to shrink it.

So what will I do?

Everyone’s taxes are too high (we have the 5th highest tax burden in America). We need to cut them.

• Property taxes first – I have a plan to help knock them back significantly that I’ll be rolling out soon.

• Then income taxes. My plan there is simple: by shrinking the government, we will easily be able to afford a one billion dollar income tax cut. That works out to about $2,000 for the average working family per year.

As I said, we need to cut back the bureaucratic monstrosity our state government has created. Here are just a few examples:

• Remove most business regulations for newly started and very small businesses.

• Same with most building codes, particularly in rural settings.

• Get Augusta completely out of the health care management business. Let’s open up the free market so we can unleash thousands of companies that do this everywhere around the country except Maine. Mainers pay too much for health care because Augusta strangles competition.

More examples like this will flow out the audit I will conduct of Augusta starting day one of my administration.

My approach here is pretty simple: the government is our referee, keeping play fair among the players of the game. The government should never be the referee and a player in the game unless there is no way the free market can work.

Like a frog in a steadily heated frying pan, our leadership in Augusta has slowly but surely abandoned this basic premise of good governance. I stand ready to hit the reset button, fit Augusta back in its britches, and purge its sickening attraction to Soviet planning.

That’s why I’m running for governor.

Jonathan Bush is a father of 7, the husband of a dynamic healthcare CEO, a former ambulance driver in the most dangerous city in the U.S., a former U.S. Army medic, a CEO who brought 1,000 health care careers to Maine, and a candidate for Maine governor. His website is JonathanBush.org.