Republican candidate for governor Matt Bevin spoke Thursday afternoon to a gathering of Lexington business leaders about a range of economic issues facing the Commonwealth, from the pension crisis and coal to local-option sales taxes and social security.
The talk was a sharp pivot for the Louisville businessman who had been making national headlines in recent days with his high-profile engagement in the culture war skirmish over same-sex marriage and religious rights.
“I intend to be your next governor and I think increasingly it looks like I will be,” he declared.
Bevin, who narrowly beat GOP Agriculture Secretary James Comer in a hard-fought primary in May, spoke at Commerce Lexington’s Public Policy Luncheon series. Describing himself as the owner “of all or part of 10 different companies,” Bevin took on dozens of financial topics, offering a mix of policy prescriptions and campaign attacks against his Democratic challenger for the governor’s mansion, Attorney General Jack Conway.
Voters go to the polls in less than two months to choose a successor for term-limited Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear. Bevin will face off against Conway, as well as Internet entrepreneur Drew Curtis. (Conway is scheduled to speak Oct. 23 at a Commerce Lexington lunch. There are no plans for Curtis to speak. Reached Thursday morning, Curtis said: “I hadn't heard they were doing a luncheon series like this until just today -- and I'd love to participate in one in the future. If we haven't contacted them already we will soon.”)
For his part, Bevin said Kentucky’s pension problem, among the worst in all the states, was of particular concern.
“If we don’t pass pension reform, nothing else matters,” Bevin insisted.
He said he would move quickly to end defined-benefits in favor of a 401(k) style plan.
“How does the math work? It does not work. ... We have to move to a defined-contribution plan, period,” he said.
Bevin said that as governor he would limit spending across a range of programs, including for pensions and health care, and institute tax reform.
“We need to move to a consumption-based tax economy instead of a production-based tax economy,” Bevin said.
He zeroed in on tax loopholes, which he said cost the state “over $10 billion in opportunity costs,” but provided no specifics on which ones he would target for elimination.
More than once, Bevin described a welfare system where young, able-bodied, childless people were making a “life-style choice” to not work, take advantage of the system and abuse drugs.
“We cannot afford to have working-age, able-bodied men and women who do not have any children sitting at home on your dime and not participating. ... In fact, when people have the luxury of being able to do so, they sit at home and inherently have the ability and the time and the inclination to participate in certain extracurricular activities that then preclude them from passing drug tests among other things, to then assimilate back into the workforce,” he said.
Bevin said the business climate in the state was driving jobs to other states, including Tennessee and Florida, and that Kentucky needed to focus on becoming a go-to manufacturing hub. He praised skilled trade programs such as the Kentucky Federation for Advanced Manufacturing Education, or KY FAME, a partnership of manufacturers teaming up to address the growing shortage of skilled workers in their industry.
“We need more vocational training,” he said. “It is a false canard to tell people in this state or anywhere in the country that they need a four-year degree to attain whatever they want to attain in life.”
He also said right-to-work legislation, which generally bars unions from taking mandatory dues from all workers in shops where it provides collective bargaining, “has to happen.”
Bevin also insisted the Kentucky’s engagement with the Affordable Health Care Act, known as ObamaCare, would end or be severely curtailed if he is elected. He said the state simply cannot afford it and that its successful portal, Kynect, would be closed in favor of using the federal government’s website.
While economic issues were the focus, Bevin was asked about his participation in the contentious fight over same-sex marriages and the religious rights of county clerks and how he squares it with separation of church and state.
Indeed, Bevin made national headlines -- including an argumentative interview on CNN -- for his quick and unflagging embrace of Rowan County clerk Kim Davis’ defiant stand against issuing same-sex marriage licenses. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that such marriages are legal. Davis, a Democrat, refused to issue any licenses after the ruling and was sued by several couples. Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge David Bunning found Davis in contempt of his ruling that she allow same-sex couples to receive marriage license and ordered her incarcerated. Bunning released Davis on Tuesday with a warning that she not interfere with marriage licenses being issued by her deputies.
Bevin insisted his support of Davis had nothing to do with his personal religious beliefs, even paraphrasing, somewhat incongruously, the famous “First They Came ...” poem by World War II-era German pastor Martin Niemoller.
“My personal opinion on this is not germane,” Bevin said. “It’s about what is the rule of law, what is equal protection under the law, what is the right thing for each of us. ... If we don’t think that our First Amendment rights matter, I don’t care what your opinion on the marriage issue is. If you think the rights of anyone in this state on any front had the ability to suppress the rights of anyone else at anytime ever, that is a slippery slope.”
At the end, Bevin said the choice for governor comes down to who you trust.
“If you had to trust your business, the fact that it would still be in business a year or two or five from now, to myself or Jack Conway, who would you choose?” he said. “This is what you need to think about in the next 53 days.”