Governor gives upbeat assessment of first term during Corbin visit

During his visit Tuesday, Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear presented the Governor’s Health and Safety Award to Lynn Taylor, plant manager at Firestone Industrial Products in Williamsburg. The plant has had nearly 1.5 million hours of operation without a lost time injury.

Praise for the past and high hopes for the future. That was the tone of Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear’s keynote speech Tuesday in Corbin during the Southern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce’s monthly membership luncheon.

The event, held at the Corbin Center for Technology and Community Activities, was highly anticipated – nearly every available seat was taken to hear the governor speak.

For his part, Beshear took the opportunity the laud the accomplishments of his first four years as governor, noting he was able to cut "billions" from the state budget to account for a nationwide economic downturn, while still essentially sparing important programs like education, Medicaid, road infrastructure and law enforcement.

"I’ve had to cut billions and billion of dollars out of our budget the last four years, but I didn’t do it with a meat ax," Beshear told the crowd.

He said he eschewed calls for across the board cuts in favor of targeting areas of government he thought would have less impact on citizens.

"Each time, I’ve said no," he said. "I know that’s the easy way to do it, but it’s not the smart way to do it in my opinion. Not everything we do [in state government] is as important as other things."

Beshear said his number one priority was to preserve the state’s SEEK formula (Support Education Excellence in Kentucky) – the principal way school districts are supported with state funding in Kentucky.

"If we don’t have an educated population, we don’t have anything," Beshear told the crowd, who responded with spirited applause.

Beshear said his other budgetary priorities have been to fully fund public safety programs and initiatives, and Medicaid.
He spent perhaps the largest part of his speech speaking, appropriately, about his economic development efforts in the state.
With the support of the General Assembly, Beshear pushed through sweeping changes to the state’s economic incentive package structure in 2009 that would allow it not only to aggressively pursue companies that may want to relocate to Kentucky, but also to reward businesses already operating in the state for expanding and providing more jobs. The result, he said, has been 450 companies taking advantage of the incentives that have invested $4.7 billion in the state and provided 35,000 new jobs.

Beshear also said the state’s Economic Development Cabinet has worked diligently to try to help small and medium sized businesses take advantage of the world market through exports.

"There are some other states that hunkered down and said let’s just wait this thing out. I did just the opposite," Beshear said. "I said we’ve got to be even more aggressive in terms of job creation to get our people back to work and get our people out of this recession."

Beshear noted that Forbes Magazine recently named Kentucky one of the nation’s best places to do business. The U.S. National Tax Federation recently ranked Kentucky 20th nationally in its list of most business friendly state’s in regard to taxes, up 12 places from two years ago.

Beshear also said that his efforts have had real effects on the job market in Kentucky. The state’s unemployment rate has dropped every month for the past 10 months and is at its lowest level since Nov. 2008, and is matching the nationwide unemployment rate for the first time since 2004.

On a more somber not, Beshear said for the all the state’s economic success stories, the sad scourge of prescription drug abuse has caused undue pain and hardship on its citizens. But it’s a problem he’s vowed to fight.

The General Assembly passed HB 1 during this passed session with strong bipartisan support. The measure expanded Kentucky’s prescription drug monitoring system and made it a requirement that any new pain medication clinics be owned by a licensed medical practitioner.

Beshear called it the toughest response to the prescription drug problem in the nation.

"We will run these pill mills out of this state. We don’t need to be putting up with that anymore," Beshear said. "We are going to run them out of the state or put them in jail because they need to be run out of the state or put in jail."

The law was just an example, Beshear said, of the ability of lawmakers in Frankfort to reach across party lines and work together, something he vowed to do even more during his second term in office.

"Quite honestly, almost everything we deal with at the state level is not a Republican or Democratic issue. They are all Kentucky issues. They affect every Kentuckian in this state," Beshear said. "Look at Washington, D.C. What a mess! It’s both sides creating that mess."

"They are putting their partisan political ambitions ahead of the welfare of the United States of America. I know that most people in this country are sick and tired of it, and we’ve got to get back to reality," Beshear added. "We have a little bit of that in Frankfort, but I’m happy to say we are not in nearly the position Washington, D.C. is in."

After his speech, Bruce Carpenter, Executive Director of the Southern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, lauded Beshear for his efforts in economic development and pushed the idea of more regionalization of economic development efforts in southern and eastern Kentucky.

Beshear awarded Firestone Industrial Products in Williamsburg with his 2012 safety award. The company, which employs about 375 workers, has nearly 1.5 million safe hours without a lost-time accident as a company. Plant Manager Lynn Taylor accepted the award and said the plant has a mission to make workplace safety a number one priority.

Prior to the meal, Bob Lockhart, a former member of the Knox County Board of Education, provided an unconventional prayer that consisted of a long and impassioned request that God intervene to solve the ongoing dispute between the Knox County School System and the Corbin Independent School System over a non-resident student agreement. He asked that Knox County School Board members, who voted two years ago to end the agreement, be stricken with hiccups until they change their minds.