Allison Ericson, Valdosta Today News Director:
VALDOSTA — David Perdue, Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, spoke to Valdosta citizens on Tuesday, October 14th at the Valdosta Country Club. In an exclusive interview with Valdosta Today, Perdue addressed his plans to increase job opportunities in South Georgia.
Georgia’s unemployment rate as of August is at 8.1 percent and the Valdosta Area is at 8.4 percent, according to the Georgia Department of Labor website.
Perdue said, “There are three things you have got to reform, the tax code at a national level, we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. We have a repatriation tax and a lot of money trapped outside the U.S. and that is the first thing.”
The U.S. has the highest corporate tax rate at 39.1 percent according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
“The second thing is we keep getting over regulated so if we could back the regulators off I think small businesses could really start generating jobs again,” Perdue said.
Valdosta strives on its local businesses and agriculture, but fails to provide a wide variety of jobs. The Georgia Farm Bureau website states that Georgia Agriculture provides more than $71.1 billion each year to our economy. Valdosta has the potential to expand job opportunities based on its agriculture alone.
“The third is at a federal level, we need to unlock our energy resources. Right now the cost of energy is too high, we need to have an energy strategy that gives us energy security as soon as possible,” Perdue said. “Another thing is I really think that we have got to do something about Obamacare. I hate to say that, but we need to repeal Obamacare because right now over two thirds of the small businesses have stopped hiring or have cut back employment because of Obamacare. “
“If we want to create jobs we have got to go look at why that’s causing job loss. Those are the things I would like to bring to the senate, hopefully get jobs going again and get America working again,” Perdue said.
Perdue is known for his ability to turnaround businesses and to create jobs. His campaign is focused on South Georgia’s resources and using them to increase the number of jobs for small businesses and large corporations.
“Healthy agriculture business is a big import, it is the number one business in our state. You’ve got to have a healthy agriculture community, we need to feed the country but more than that we can also feed the world,” Perdue said. “We have a great export opportunity in the agriculture business and we have leaders like Gary Black who understand that, the commissioner is working to do that.”
“We’re all focused right now on trying to make the agriculture industry grow and thrive in Georgia and that will create good quality jobs here,” Perdue said.
