Gov. Brian Kemp said Friday the state’s economy is continuing to grow and should be able to handle a downturn, should one occur.
In an appearance on WDUN’s “Morning Talk with Martha Zoller,” touted several businesses that have recently announced plans to locate or expand in Georgia. He said more than 20,000 new jobs were created in the state last month.
“We, like everyone, are being cautious because of things we can’t control on the world stage and the fight that the president has taken on in global trade,” Kemp said. The trade wars are “tough for some Georgia companies and it’s good for others. It’s certainly something we need to be doing. We just have to make sure Georgia gets a good deal at the end of it all.”
But Kemp said the trade wars and other negative economic conditions might not hurt Georgia because the state has positioned itself as a great state in which to do business.
“We’re in a great environment right now,” he said. “We’ve got some tough battles ahead. It’s not going to stay good forever. We got to continue to budget conservatively and make government more efficient. We are working every day on economic development deals. Even if things were to slow down, we’ve just got such a great state with such a solid foundation with what we do with our workforce training.”
Kemp said he’s proud of what’s been accomplished in his first six months in office, and he said his first legislative session as governor was successful.
“I’ve been doing exactly what I promised people I would do dealing with kitchen tables issues that we believe in in Georgia like education, public safety, health care standing up for life,” he said. “We’re fulfilling campaign promises and I think that’s refreshing for people. … It’s very clear what I ran on and what I promised. If you look at the agenda that we had during the session, 90 percent of the issues, probably 95 percent, were voted on with broad bipartisan support, especially our budgets when you talk about giving teachers the largest pay raise we’ve ever had in the history of our state.”
Kemp said even the controversial “heartbeat” bill drew support from some Democrats.
“We had some bipartisan support on the heartbeat bill, even when those members of the Democratic party were browbeat by their colleagues,” he said. “I think there were more that actually believed in that policy, but for political reasons they didn’t vote that way. That’s something they’ll have to take up with the voters of their districts.”
“Morning Talk with Martha Zoller” airs at 9 a.m. weekdays on WDUN AM/FM.
