Maine needs a compelling and comprehensive vision for the future if it is to realize its full potential. An inspiring vision can serve both as a call to action and as a foundation for the strategies needed to realize a better, more prosperous future.

Unfortunately, in today's politics, vision and the sound planning that builds on it are all too often missing. Long-term planning, strategic investments and a sense of direction must overcome the hurdles created by a national culture of over-simplified politics and those -- inside politics and out -- who put partisanship ahead of progress.

The Legislature's Prosperity Committee recently released its recommendations to the Maine Legislature. Chief among them are suggestions to change the way government thinks, works and plans for the future.

Those are fitting recommendations for a report named "Time for Change."

This special committee -- which met five times last fall -- was created to help get state government on a new path.

With two-year budget cycles, term-limited lawmakers who serve shortened careers and the perennial partisanship of elections every two years, it is difficult to have a strategic vision for the future of our state that lasts longer than -- you guessed it -- two years.

Several of the committee's recommendations are aimed at changing the way the Legislature conducts its own business, such as recommending that two-year budgets be accompanied with a long-term budget plan that considers cuts and investments into the future, and recommending that the state adopt dynamic fiscal notes that would detail the economic implications of legislative decisions.

The Legislature's work is divided by committee, a structure that ensures a bill's details are worked out by a group with appropriate focus and expertise. That structure, however, sometimes hinders comprehensive solutions that cut across subject areas.

The Prosperity Committee was envisioned as a way to bring together legislators who could think broadly about Maine's future, and then offer insights and novel approaches to the committees.

The committee relied upon the expertise of lawmakers in the key areas that affect our future prosperity to create a unified, bipartisan plan to move Maine forward. Composed of seven Democrats, seven Republicans, one Independent and a representative of the Penobscot Indian Nation, we reached consensus on issues that are usually contentious. The committee was truly about policy, not politics.

As any investor knows, you have to diversify to succeed in the long term and the Prosperity Committee's recommendations reflect that. The committee has recommended certain investments in Maine people pursued through education and workforce development, investments in a safe and modern transportation infrastructure, investments to preserve Maine's high quality of place and investments in our innovative economy.

But the committee also recognized that Maine must strive for a government its citizens can afford. We must be smart in how we invest and prudent in what we spend. The committee acknowledged the clear need to lower Maine's tax burden. And by recommending the creation of a Blue Ribbon Efficiency Commission to advise the Legislature, the Committee offered a new tool to help realize this critical goal.

The Prosperity Committee's work built upon several recent studies, most notably the work done by the Brookings Institution. While that study was both forward-looking and insightful, the Prosperity Committee report goes "beyond Brookings" in several ways.

First, the Prosperity Committee dealt with some subject areas that Brookings didn't, such as energy policy and transportation infrastructure. And unlike Brookings, the Prosperity Committee offers specific policy recommendations to legislative committees.

But what makes the Prosperity Committee Report most notable is that the recommendations for change come from 16 sitting legislators -- not an independent body. This is a crucial distinction, because if the Maine Legislature is to make changes to business as usual, the impetus for change must come from within.

We aren't surprised to hear the criticisms that some naysayers are leveling at this report, because -- after all -- we are talking politics here.

Still, it's frustrating to be told -- as one example -- that our work is somehow inadequate because we direct legislative committees to consider changes, rather than effecting the change ourselves. Would these opponents prefer it if 16 legislators set policy without any opportunity for public hearings or the expertise of the relevant committees?

One can say that the Prosperity Committee's work is nothing more than words in a report, because the detailed legislation to make it all happen has not yet been developed or passed. But that kind of criticism is hollow and tells the Legislature to give up before we've begun. That is not what Maine people expect nor what a prosperous future demands.

Members of the Prosperity Committee will be the first to admit that our report is not an end, but a beginning. Much work remains to be done. But the fact that we are being criticized for going too far in some circles, and for not going far enough in others, is but one indication that we are on the right track, leaving politics as usual behind.

Sen. Dennis Damon, D-Trenton, and Rep. John Piotti, D-Unity, co-chaired the Special Select Committee on Maine's Future Prosperity. Damon serves as Senate chairman of the Transportation Committee and the Marine Resources Committee. Piotti serves as House chairman of the Taxation Committee and as a member of the Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry.