SECOND ECONOMIC CHANCE

More than half a century ago, alert states ensured their universities got a piece of the rapidly growing research-and-development economy the federal government had created to foster advances in agriculture and aeronautics, medicine and military hardware, and a dozen other fields. University towns became the centers of hot economic regions, grew associated industries, provided new understanding in science while providing jobs to a region.

Maine decided then not to make the small investments in buildings and equipment needed to attract this new economy and has paid heavily for that decision ever since. For the last five or six years, it has spent $20 million or more annually to try to lift itself out of 50th place for federal R&D; what eastern and northern Maine would have looked like if an equivalent effort had been made within the University of Maine System 50 years earlier can only be imagined.

The idea of a creative economy – in which an emphasis is based on invention, craftsmanship, artistic ingenuity – has caught on nationwide, and Maine, though not at the forefront, has embraced its immediate benefits and huge possibilities. It is an encouraging change from the original reaction to R&D, but it too will require small and regular state investments in the institutions that will make the creative economy go. These, again, may be universities, but they are also libraries, humanities councils and arts organizations. These are the groups that in turn support the people that make up this new economy. A $4 million bond request for these organizations currently sits at the Legislature, backed by many but not the number required.

Many Republicans, understandably, are worried about the total cost of the bonds package and want to limit what goes into it, especially considering that Maine passed a $60 million bond last month. State Sen. Karl Turner, a Republican from Cumberland and a member of the Appropriations Committee, suggested that the two parties weren’t far apart on the proposed total spending but differed on what would go into the bond. He added that if party leadership would back off, the committee could reach agreement quickly.

This bond, called the New Century Community Bond, is a sound investment that should be part of the package. It would renovate libraries and historic structures all over Maine, create exhibits for rural cultural institutions, help preserve museum collections and expand digital links for educators.

The Pew Charitable Trusts recently funded an analysis of various state attempts to invest in their cultures and summed up Maine this way: “Maine is divided between the economically healthy southern part of the state and the chronically poor and weak economy of the northern and western regions. State leaders seeking to strengthen the entire state began to see that careful investment at the local level could pay big dividends.”

It mentions that the New Century program, having been given $2.3 million in state funds in its first year, used it to leverage another $9.8 million in cash and in-kind contributions for local projects. But the authors of the analysis quietly make the point – cultural investments are a boon to the “chronically poor and weak” parts of the state, and rejecting the investment hits those parts of Maine hardest.

Lawmakers will decide this summer on a bond package to present to voters in the fall. The New Century bond should be part of it. For the lack of a small investment 50 years ago, Maine missed out on hundreds of millions of dollars in investment in research and development. Another similar opportunity has arrived with the creative economy. Maine must not miss its opportunity this time.