Smoky Mountain Times: U.S. Senate candidate Hagan comes to Swain

Smoky Mountain Times
Pete Lawson
July 31, 2008

Applying tax credits in the right places, overhauling trade policies and ending U.S. involvement in Iraq “safely and responsibly” should be America’s goals, U.S. Senate candidate Kay Hagan said Sunday in Bryson City.

The crowd hung back under the shade of trees to beat the late afternoon heat as the Democratic State Senator from Greensboro spoke from the pavilion at Riverfront Park.

She will face Republican incumbent Elizabeth Dole on the November general election ballot.

“We’ve lost too many jobs in North Carolina,” Hagan said, and blamed Dole for supporting Bush administration economic policies.

She said the North American Free Trade and Central American Free Trade agreements should be renegotiated, and called for a stop to tax breaks for companies that send jobs overseas.

Tax advantages should go to businesses that keep jobs in America, she said.

In a position paper on trade, Hagan calls for:

A trade policy that “needs to be not just fair, but accountable to the American people, and must be designed to raise Americans’ living standards, not just American companies’ share prices,” and,

Making “trade work for America and North Carolina. Our businesses and institutions must create a competitive environment to ensure no one will be more innovative than America.”

Research and development tax credits should be made permanent, and should also support “the manufacturing of innovative new products in America.”

Her race with Dole is winnable, “we are getting a lot of national attention,” she said, and urged the gathering to “reach out and help me” with new voter registration and support in November.

Hagan said she is part of a “military family (husband Chip a Vietnam veteran and father-in-law a retired USMC general) but supports repositioning forces by “taking the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and elsewhere.”

On the latter point, she had he backing of State Sen. John Snow her to Bryson City from an earlier rally in Andrews.

“Iraq is an ox in the ditch, it’s destroying our country. We are deeply in debt,” Snow said. “We’ve got someone here who can get us out.”

L.D. Hyde provided the candidate introductions, and the Swain Democratic Women furnished lemonade.

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