Hello!
Thank you for finding your way to my campaign exploration fundraising page. I'm Nat Hewett. I grew up in Raymond and Holden, Maine, the son of a father who dedicated his life to bettering the state of Maine by creating jobs and developing people and a mother who is dedicated to growing business activity in the small town for which she consults. My parents instilled in me the Maine values of working hard, making a difference, and maintaining integrity in everything that you do.
Consequently, I cannot sit idly by as Susan Collins neglects her commitment not just to Maine values, but to the Maine people who voted her into the U.S. Senate four separate times. It's time for a change. It's time to return to Maine values in the US Senate. The Senate needs loud, passionate voices for the dwindling moderate wings of both of our parties and it's time for a fresh perspective on the moderate ideals that Maine voters expect and deserve from their Senator.
Two years into the Trump Administration, it is clear that our senior senator is a moderate Mainer no more. She is a right-wing Republican catering to the same electoral base that cheers the President's mocking of a sexual abuse survivor. She was a crucial vote in passing the Tax Reform bill that permanently slashed the corporate tax rate and generated billions of dollars for corporations while creating an unprecedented budget deficit and trying to fool people like you and me with a temporary personal tax cut.
Susan Collins likes to pay lip service to her more moderate leanings - yes. But the time for lip service is over. It is time for Maine people to have a US Senator that can once again bring the proud tradition of The Maine Way back to the Senate.
What is The Maine Way?
The Maine Way is Honest – you stand by the truth and own up to what you’ve done, even when it's hard. Brett Kavanaugh demonstrably lied to the Senate judiciary committee. Susan Collins committed to her constituents in September that Brett Kavanaugh being dishonest to the committee would be disqualifying. Susan Collins went back on her word.
The Maine Way is Tough - Politics is gritty work. Susan Collins gave her vote to Tax Reform in exchange for "guarantees" that the GOP would help shore up the exchanges within the Affordable Care Act. Those guarantees were nothing more than empty promises that have never been honored. Collins should have known better. But, too many times she has given her vote to the Republican right wing and gotten absolutely nothing in return.
The Maine Way is Fair - I was dealt a good hand to start life. My family worked hard to become comfortable, and with my parent's support -- along with my own work-study and summer jobs -- I left college without debt. 1 in 7 Mainers live below the poverty line. Common sense reforms to provide access to education and training opportunities while removing the shackles of crippling student loan debt are key to giving every young adult in our state and our country the same leg-up that I received.
The Maine Way is Decent - Disagreements happen. I have many wonderful friends on both the left and right side of the aisle with whom I disagree. We remain friends by maintaining our kindness, our empathy, and our desire to learn and understand the other's perspectives. In the US. Senate, we have reached a point where the loudest voice in the room takes the mic and shouts down any attempt at discussion or compromise. That's not how we treat each other - not in Maine - and we should hold our elected officials to that same bar.
The Maine Way is Compassionate – for people today and for generations to come. The Republican ruling class is mortgaging our future as well as the future of our children and grandchildren in order to line the pockets of corporations and their wealthy donors. Our national debt needs to be addressed to ensure that we will be able to care for our parents as they age and our children as they grow up while leaving a stable, sound economy for our grandchildren and beyond.
The Maine Way is The Way Life Should Be - Nothing I've written should be controversial to the Mainers reading this page. This is how each and every one of us was raised. We all get one life here on earth; let's make the most of it with those we have the privilege of sharing it with.
My childhood in Maine instilled the values of The Maine Way in me from a young age. I grew up and became the person I am today in our state. Let's get this out of the way up front - I've been away from Maine for a time. After my four years at John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor (go Crusaders!), I attended college in Massachusetts and have spent the first seven years of my professional career in Boston and, most recently, Chicago. I have grown my career and gained exposure to the multitude of experiences our great country has to offer. But let's be clear, Maine is my home. Always has been - always will be.
It's time for me to serve the people of Maine and to shape sound public policy to create more opportunities for kids in Maine to build their lives in Maine. Our country needs more Maine families, and no parent should be forced to watch their children raise their grandchildren away from them because opportunity and prosperity are not available at home. Mainers are looking for a fair shake, not a handout. If I were your Senator, I would push for responsible fiscal policies that will stabilize our social safety net for those who are in times of need while addressing our ballooning national debt and the crisis it creates for future generations. I would work with my colleagues - at home and in Washington - to support innovation, entrepreneurship, and trade policies that will help grow the Maine economy and create new high paying jobs. It's time to create the same welcoming, inclusive spirit - the spirit embedded in the DNA of Mainers that allows us all to get along even when we disagree - in Washington, DC and the rest of our country. It's time to create change, and that change starts by electing a US Senator in 2020 who will stand up for the Maine Way.
Help me bring The Maine Way to Washington. Return Honesty, Toughness, Fairness, Decency and Compassion to a place in desperate need of it. Our Senior Senator has fallen well short of The Maine Way and it’s time for her to learn that Maine people won't stand for that. It's time for change; it’s time for a young, Maine Senator to bring The Maine Way to Washington, DC, the same way Margaret Chase Smith, Edmund Muskie, George Mitchell, and Bill Cohen did in their days. I will not let you down!
[Please note that pledges will be used for exploring the feasibility of candidacy. Once feasibility is ascertained, any funds would transfer to the established campaign.]
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November 6, 2018
Why the Federal Deficit Keeps Me Up At Night
Need another reason to vote blue today? Never forget that there are real policy issues at stake! Read more on the federal deficit below:
We like to think of the polarization of America's political parties as a new phenomenon. And to a certain extent, that's true (however, don't get me started on how you can trace this same lineage of diametrically opposed parties back to the time of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson). However, even in recent memory, some aspects of our political discourse have lived in entrenched camps. The federal deficit is one of these ares.
Before we dive into why the bags under my eyes have grown darker recently, let's all get on the same page. And bear with me - we're getting just the tiniest bit technical. The federal deficit is the government's annual financial shortfall. If in a given year the federal government wants to spend four trillion dollars but only collects three trillion dollars in tax and other revenue, then that year's deficit is one trillion dollars. That trillion dollars gets added to our national debt. That is the money that our country has collectively borrowed over time from either other countries or private lenders. That number now sits right around twenty trillion dollars. And that is the amount that we have to pay to "service" each year by making nominal payments on the balance, but full payments on all of the interest that we're charged.
Now that we're speaking a common language - let's talk about the problems of forcing politicians into the camp of "deficit hawks" - who argue that all deficits are bad - and "deficit doves" - who argue that running a deficit is good governance. This polarization ignores the fact that there are many different kinds of debt. Let's look at three of them.
1) Deficit financing to drive future growth and productivity - the good use of debt. When there are periods where investment can help resources within an economy become more productively utilized, spending beyond your current means is imperative. The future productivity gains more than offset the short-term deficit and its interest expense. A great example of this is stimulus spending to bring an economy out of a recession.
2) Deficit financing to enable spending for something you need that you can't afford now - the necessary use of debt. There are times, both in government and in personal lives, that you're left in need of something to enable your wellbeing. Incurring debt to enable that one-time purchase allows you to access what you need while smoothing the cost over a longer period of time. War is the example here. In a time of international conflict, government must spend what it takes to win
3) Deficit financing to fund previous commitments - the bad use of debt. Every year when you hear about Congress passing a budget - they're not actually determining everything that our tax dollars will be spent on. There is a pool of money called "non-discretionary spending." It is money that goes to predetermined programs every year. Think Medicare, Social Security, and Veteran's Benefits. This borrowing doesn't stimulate growth, but rather maintains current productivity (by providing access to spending power that its recipients already had earned). This type of borrowing is what ultimately caused Greece's sovereign debt crisis.
Government deficits are good when they are used to put resources to work in the domestic economy that will be more productive than they would have been absent that government spending. Enough more productive that the growth caused by them offsets the "cost" (e.g. interest) of that borrowing. And here's why I'm having difficulty sleeping. The decision to deficit finance tax cuts at a time where we already have historically low unemployment is inherently inefficient. There's not a way to allocate the windfall that can put people to work enough more productively for us to drive incremental growth to pay for the deficit incurred.
During times of economic growth - government deficits should naturally trim, as tax revenues increase from a larger base of the economy, and government spending becomes less "productive" relative to the private sector. This allows the government to step in at times when the economy is doing less well and borrow to invest in putting people back to work. If we are running a one trillion dollar deficit in a time that the economy is already doing well - the government won't be in a position to put resources back to work if and when a downturn comes around. We must run tighter deficits in times of economic growth to enable the government to be ready to borrow and invest in the American people in times that the economy is not doing as well.
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