Issue Position: Economic Development

Issue Position

The best social program is a job. Not just any job, but a decent paying job that has the opportunity for long-term employment and earned wage increases.

As the Mayor of Seymour, a member of the Indiana General Assembly and most recently the President of a small town Chamber of Commerce, I've spent the last thirty-two years working to create jobs and economic development. Sometimes it was being a partner with the city, a community foundation and the Chamber to build a county learning center so citizens could take college classes, get workforce training, or get their GED. Sometimes it was leading the effort to build an industrial park, one that now hosts over 3,000 jobs with various companies.

But always it was working with others as part of a team dedicated to making today better, and the tomorrows of our children and grandchildren brighter.

Presently, a worker being paid the current minimum wage may actually be making less than the federal poverty level. I believe it is past time to raise the minimum wage.

We can build the Keystone pipeline and 2,000+ people will get jobs lasting perhaps three years that will primarily benefit the area of the pipeline location. Instead, I propose that we dedicate ourselves to a 20-30 year plan of rebuilding the infrastructure of the entire nation and let hundreds of thousands of men and women get jobs that benefit the entire nation. Multiply all those wages by five and let that money move through the communities, states and nation. That form of economic development would have a multiple generation benefit.

If one has never really done the actual work of economic development and it is only theoretical, then one doesn't understand how simple it could, and should, be.

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