Governor Candidate Gregg Talks Jobs, Education in Warsaw
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Jordan Fouts-
Gubernatorial candidate John Gregg pledged to change the state’s attitude toward teachers during a brief question-and-answer forum in Warsaw Thursday.
“The day I’m elected, this war on public education, the scapegoating of teachers, quits. It has to quit,” he told a gathering in the St. Regis Club Thursday afternoon.
He later added, “You need to tell any teacher that if they think it’s bad under Mitch Daniels, under my opponent, they’ll refer to this as the good old days.”
Gregg, a Democrat, faces Republican candidate Mike Pence at the polls in less than three weeks, as well as Libertarian Rupert Boneham.
The former Speaker of the House said he foresees a teacher shortage as the result of $900 million in cuts to education funding in recent years and the dismantling of vocational education. Indiana has already seen a drop in education majors at universities, he noted.
A decline of 18 to 20 percent in the number of education majors was reported by Trine University, Manchester College and Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne a year ago. The director of teacher education at Manchester, Michael Slavkin, had attributed the drop to Daniels’ administration.
“We say we want the best and brightest but we’re scapegoating the institution,” Gregg said.
He advocated for vocational education, where he said graduates in highly technical fields can quickly find a $60,000 to $80,000 job, as well as matching unemployed military veterans who have specialized skills with employers seeking those skills.
“I want to actively promote those men and women. We all suffer when they can’t find jobs,” he said. He remarked also that he wants to open six more veterans affairs offices to address the backlog on claims.
Besides cuts to education, Gregg spoke against “cutting for cutting’s sake” in mental health and children’s services, which he said has also been detrimental to Indiana. He acknowledged he can’t immediately repeal previous policies and funding decisions, but vowed to make inclusive decisions in budget crafting.
“Once we see how much money we have, we’ll see what we can cut (and) what services we need to prioritize. It will be a big inclusive discussion. It wouldn’t be fair for me to make those decisions on my own,” he said. “(You can’t) tell people what to do instead of asking and getting input from the ones implementing the changes.”
Though he was asked several questions about education, he said jobs are the main focus of his campaign.
Blaming the lack of money in Indiana residents’ pockets on a wealth of poor-paying jobs, he spoke of “targeted tax cuts” to encourage the growth of manufacturing and research and development jobs that pay twice the average salary.
He said he supported the auto industry bailout, which he considers a loan, because of the jobs it saved in factories and dealerships. He added that from Bedford steel to Columbia City carseats to Fort Wayne engineers, he “can’t imagine the state without the auto industry.”
“I feel it’s my duty to do everything I can to keep an employer in Indiana,” Gregg said. “The money’s been paid back, the companies are on solid footing – imagine Kokomo without Chrysler.”
He also sees employment possibilities – as many as 97,000 people in four years – in the energy industry, from coal and natural gas to wind and biofuels.
“These are the opportunities we miss when we fight about license plates and Girl Scouts,” he remarked.
He also remarked on the political differences between northern and southern Indiana – he said Kosciusko County hasn’t voted for a democratic president since 1860, while southern counties voted even against Eisenhower – but said his campaign for governor is based on ideas rather than ideologies.
“If you see everything on the political spectrum as either left or right, I’m not your candidate. But if you see ideas as good or bad, then vote for me,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of interesting ideas in Indiana if you don’t worry about labels or who gets the credit, but worry about the next generation.”
