NEW BEAVER — Small business owner and farmer Aaron Bernstine says he’s sick of a state government that’s out-of-touch with working Pennsylvanians and filled with “career politicians and political insiders.”

Bernstine, 32, is one of three Republicans competing for the party’s nomination in the April 26 primary for the 10th House District seat. The winner will face Democrat incumbent Rep. Jaret Gibbons in the general election in November.

Bernstine said what sets him apart from the other GOP challengers is his experience as a business owner — something he believes will go a long way in Harrisburg’s adversarial climate, where state officials just ended a historic budget impasse.

“When you’re a small business person like myself, you don’t have an option. Either things get done or your business fails,” he said.

“I work to solve problems in my small businesses or my family suffered a great deal. That’s the type of experience we need to solve the complex problems that exist in Harrisburg.”

One of the biggest sticking points is Pennsylvania’s budget. The Republican-controlled Legislature and first-term Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf spent months at loggerheads over the budget, and earlier this year Wolf appeared to signal his willingness to continue the fight in the coming budget cycle.

Bernstine said he doesn’t support Wolf’s call for higher taxes and more spending, but instead favors ways to refine government-run services and root out waste.

“We need to look at the services the state is providing and how we can do that in a much more efficient and effective manner,” he said. “A significant amount of the issues have to do with duplicate efforts in state government, and just the overall lack of efficiency.”

Two big actions in that effort would be pension reform and privatizing the state-controlled liquor system, Bernstine said. He wants to move all new school employees to a 401K-type pension system, and follow through with a long-held GOP plan to divest the state from the alcohol-selling business.

Bernstine said that instead of state government operating through a tax-and-spend system, he wants to focus on creating a climate where the state reaps more tax revenue under the current rates.

That means focusing on growing Pennsylvania’s economy and opposing proposals like Wolf’s push for a severance tax on the state’s natural gas industry. The proposal would tax gas at the wellhead, at a rate of 5 percent, a move Bernstine said would further cripple an industry that’s already hurting amid a market glut of the commodity and low prices.

“People need to understand, this isn’t an attack on an industry, it’s an attack on the people who work in an industry,” Bernstine said of how the tax would impact Pennsylvania. “These are people who are trying to put their kids through college and support their families, and this tax will make that more difficult.”

Indeed, Bernstine’s view of the state’s economy and budget revolves around jobs. He wants state government to do more to bring businesses into areas like the 10th District, and pledged to work with companies to do just that, if elected.

Job growth and stagnating wages are an issue in the 10th District, Bernstine said. However, he does not support raising the state’s minimum wage. Bernstine worries about how that might impact small business owners and employees.

“I know that if you increase the minimum wage today, it would hurt your mom and pop small businesses that are already struggling to make it work,” he said. “Minimum wage was intended to be a point of entry for people in the workforce, not necessarily a family-sustaining income.”

Bernstine sees many of these problems and disagreements as a function of a state government that’s out-of-touch and driven into gridlock by incumbents who overstay their welcome in elected office. He pledged to limit himself to eight years in office.

He said more lawmakers need to hold themselves to term limits as well.

Perhaps the best way to do that, he said, is reform how the state creates its legislative districts. Bernstine supports redistricting reform, and wants to see the process handed over to an independent commission. Right now, redistricting is handled by a commission of state lawmakers.

“This is one of those issues that should never be about Republican or Democrat or ‘other,’” Bernstine said. “The politicization of districting to save incumbents, which is done by both Republicans and Democrats, hurts the people the legislators are ultimately supposed to serve.”