Burlington Times-News: Hagan brings senate campaign to Alamance County

Burlington Times-News
Keren Rivas
October 23, 2008

New jobs for North Carolina, reinvestment in agriculture and better federal spending were part of the message U.S. Senate candidate Kay Hagan shared during a visit to a cattle farm in northern Alamance County Thursday afternoon.

“We’ve got to be sure that we have farmers who continue to farm,” Hagan said to the handful of farmers from Alamance and Caswell counties who gathered at Bell’s Farm to hear her speak.

Hagan, a state senator from Guilford County, is trying to unseat incumbent Sen. Elizabeth Dole.

She said that because the area has seen a huge loss of jobs during the past couple of years, particularly in the manufacturing sector, there is a need for “retooling” workers particularly when it comes to education.

And while community colleges are doing a good job with workforce training and development, she said that more is needed at the federal level.

Bell’s Farm owner Frank Bell, who has been raising cattle since 1973, said that legislation is needed to protect family farms to ensure that agriculture remains a viable activity, particularly among younger farmers.

“Right now is very difficult for young men to purchase land, go out and buy the equipment and try to make a living farming,” he said. “We have got to make some major changes to attract young people to protect what we’ve worked all our lives to protect.”

Hagan said that she’s put together a rural plan that increases the agricultural productivity in the state, which currently accounts for $70 billion of the state’s economic growth. She said that to ensure that new people can come into farming, there needs to be loan or credit help, including loan forgiveness programs, for new farmers.

Hagan also said that the federal government should be doing more in terms of research and development. In order to do that there needs to be a merge between state research universities, the agricultural sector and the state’s manufacturing base, she said.

Hagan said she’s aware that affordable energy is another issue for farmers. She said the state and the country need an energy policy that invests in new technology and renewable energy sources.

“North Carolina needs to be the epicenter of new jobs with a green technology behind it and I think we need to have more federal investment along those areas,” she said.

Hagan, who worked for 10 years in the banking industry after obtaining a law degree from Wake Forest University’s School of Law, said that one of the reasons she is running for office is to fix a Washington that is broken.

“We are $450 billion deficit in one year with a $9.2 trillion debt going up to $10 trillion and this was before the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and all the stuff that is going on the economic crisis right now,” Hagan said.

She added, “None of you could operate your businesses that way… We can’t operate the state budget that way. We need to make significant changes, I think, at the federal level.”

She said the current bailout bill was “too tied to the CEOs and once again Wall Street.” She said she is proposing tax cuts for the middle class.

“We need to roll back the tax cuts for the wealthy,” she said. “We need to be focused on tax credits for people from childcare from the standpoint of college tuition, those areas right there that can really help small business and individuals.”

Having chaired the state budget during five of the ten years she has served in the state Senate, Hagan said that North Carolina is one a few states that has a triple-A credit rating. She said that unlike the federal government, the state has an over funded pension and $800 million in reserves, which she called “our rainy-day fund” to be used in case of natural disasters.

She said that unlike her opponent, she plans to go to Washington to represent the people of the state and not the special interests.

She said Dole went to Washington and stayed in Washington. “She really hasn’t come back to North Carolina,” she said, adding that Dole’s only come back to the state for 20 days in 2005 and 13 days in 2006.

“I don’t think she’d qualify for in-state tuition with that kind of record,” she said.

As far as the 287 (g) program, the federal-local immigration enforcement initiative that Dole has backed as a tool to curb illegal immigration, Hagan said it is “a patchwork solution for a federal problem.”

She said that to solve the problem there needs to be a comprehensive solution that includes closing the borders. She also said the government needs to make sure that actions are taken against employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

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