Herron Stops in Brownsville During Jobs Listening Tour

By Calvin Carter
Brownsville States-Graphic
February 11, 2010

State Senator and Congressional candidate Roy Herron made a brief stop in Brownsville Monday morning at the Brownsville/ Haywood County Chamber of Commerce.

Part of a 19 county stop through Tennessee, the tour was Herron's attempt to meet with and listen to local business and community leaders about what Congress could do to help save and grow jobs.

Photo by the Brownsville States-Graphic.

For a candidate whose top priorities are "jobs, jobs, and jobs," stopping in Haywood County made a lot of sense.

Haywood County currently ranks fourth among Tennessee counties when it comes to unemployment. Haywood County's unemployment rate is 18.5 percent.

Still Herron remains hopeful that current proposed projects, such as the Megasite and I-69, will provide the boost needed to help Haywood County as well as others.

"I'm very hopeful that some of the things proposed so far are going to make a difference, including the megasite," Herron said. "The megasite and I-69, the port on the Mississippi, the changes in Tennessee, improvement on the education system, all of those things are going to help with the jobs."

Besides the megasite, Herron also discussed with the crowd other subjects, including national help for small local businesses, as well as what it would take for the U.S. to once again lead the global market.

Herron noted that India and China will graduate more students in college that the U.S.

They will also graduate more in the science field.

"We cannot continue to lead this world's economy without engineers and scientists," Herron said.

Herron also fielded a few questions about some of the proposed cuts that Bredesen revealed, including cuts to TennCare.

Although Herron is a part of the State Finance Committee, he noted that he and the committee had not had a chance to delve extensively into plans for this year's proposed budget.

But Herron did note that the state could expect a harder year as far as cuts

"This will be the hardest cuts for Tennessee this year, Herron said.