U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty Discusses the Common Problems Everyday Tennesseans Face

Live from Music Row, Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) to the newsmaker line to discuss his economic tour and the similar problems Tennesseans are facing with differing circumstances throughout the state.

Leahy: And we are joined right now on our newsmaker line by our good friend, United States Senator from Tennessee, Bill Hagerty. Good morning, Senator Hagerty.

Hagerty: Good morning. Great to be on with you this morning. Thank you.

Leahy: So yesterday, your colleague from Tennessee, I say Senate Marcia Blackburn landed in Taiwan. Did you have any advance notice that Senator Blackburn would visit Taiwan?

Hagerty: Certainly, Marsha Blackburn and I talked about this before she parted the part of the United States. I think you know Senator Blackburn very well. She’s not one to be intimidated. She is a member of the Armed Services Committee. She’s going to go where she needs to go to do her job effectively.

Taiwan is one of the gravest national security concerns that we have. So I’m very pleased to see Senator Blackman there. I keep her in my prayers as she travels there, because, as you know, it’s a tense area right now. But as I say again, Marsha Blackburn knows exactly what she’s doing. She’s not intimidated, and she’s doing her job.

Leahy: And of course, you are the former United States Ambassador to Japan, so you know that area of the world quite well. You’re spending your August recess on another area that you know quite well, which is economic development in Tennessee.

You’re taking a tour of the state to visit workers, entrepreneurs, and businessmen and women. Tell us about that tour. Where have you visited and what are you learning?

Hagerty: So this is my annual economic tour that I do every August, and I’ve been to west Tennessee, to middle Tennessee, to east Tennessee, where I am today. I was in Chattanooga. Lenoir. I’m in Knoxville right now.

Last week I was up in northeast Tennessee, but basically moving around the state, talking with farmers, talking with small business owners, talking with workers, and trying to understand what we’re doing at the federal level that is either helping or getting in the way of their economic success and of their family success.

It’s been an eye opening visit. Many of the folks here have told me things that I have known, but they’ve emphasized the fact that employers are tired of competing with the federal government.

If you look at the value of the aid that one can get by not working, it’s significant. And many people are deciding not to enter the workforce, particularly at the entry-level. So we have a vast number of jobs that are open.

We need to change these policies. You got at the same time, a Biden administration is just trying to create more dependency. Look at what they’ve done with the student loan forgiveness madness that they’ve come up with.

There are many challenges. But I’ll say this Tennessee is doing far better than other states in the nation. And while we have our challenges, particularly getting people back to work, particularly with inflation that has been precipitated by this administration, things are far better in Tennessee than they are in most places. I could not be more honored than to represent this great state.

Leahy: So it sounds to me like there has been a bit of a change over the past two years and certainly over the past year in terms of the employers finding people willing to do the work.

Is that basically one of the key messages that you’re getting from the folks that are running businesses here in the state of Tennessee?

Hagerty: And it’s at two levels. At the most skilled level, what happened was a number of people just retired rather than come back to work after things opened up after the pandemic. So I think they call it the great retirement across America. But many skilled workers have decided to take retirement.

Many people who had children that weren’t able to go to school Michael, somebody had to stay home to look after their kids. That’s a multi-year dislocation, thanks to decisions made by school boards in places like Davidson County to keep schools shut down longer than they should.

The children suffer, but also their parents, who have to stay home and change their schedules and change their lifestyle to accommodate that. It’s created a big challenge for skilled workers at the bottom and at the entry-level.

Again, I’ll say this. You have incentives right now that is exacerbated dramatically by the stimulus spending that the Biden administration put in place when we did need it. That set off inflation, and it also created a set of economic incentives that kept people from wanting to go into the workforce.

We’ve got to get away from that. This inflation, frankly, has been driven more by the Biden administration’s war on energy here in America, driving gas prices to the roof. You know, we have to compete and we have to commute in Tennessee.

That inflationary pressure has resulted in what is, in effect, a net wage decrease after inflation. When you look at what’s happening across our state and across the nation, inflation is outstripping any wage increases that we’re seeing, and this is creating the most pernicious tax of all that’s touching all Tennesseans.

Leahy: As you know, obviously there are three grand divisions in Tennessee. The three stars on our state flag. West Tennessee, Middle Tennessee, East Tennessee. You’re up in East Tennessee today, but you visited all three of the grand divisions on your tour.

Are you noticing any differences between West Tennessee, Middle Tennessee, and East Tennessee in the current economic circumstances?

Hagerty: Certainly, but there’s a commonality to it here in East Tennessee. I’ve spoken with many manufacturers. I was visiting with Yamaha jet boat manufacturers yesterday in Lenoir. There is about $500 million worth of inventory sitting in their lot, waiting for components that aren’t there because of gaps in their supply chain.

They’re missing a part here, they’re missing a semiconductor there. They’re missing a chip. They can’t deliver the product. Demand has gone up. They can’t service that demand.

One, they’re having difficulty finding workers, as I mentioned, but two, they’re having real challenges in their supply chains because of that worker challenge and the problem with sourcing things from China has resulted in dislocations and supply chains.

That impacts the manufacturer, as I described in the fact that they can’t deliver the final product. The same is true in Middle Tennessee. It’s in Spring Hill. If you go to the Cadillac facility there, they’re rolling the new LYRIQ off the line. That’s the newest model of SUV.

It’s electronic. But there is a field full of last year’s models that they have not yet been able to deliver because they’re missing the chips that they need. You go to West Tennessee. The problem there is a huge compression in their profit margins because the cost of fertilizer, the cost of diesel fuel has gone through the roof again thanks to the Biden administration’s war on energy.

If you want to make fertilizer, you got to have energy. You can’t do it without raising the prices. Given what the Biden administration has done, and they’ve seen their margins collapse in the AG sector, prices have gone up, no question about that.

But their costs have gone through the roof. So the problems are similar, although it’s impacting folks in a little bit different way depending on where you are in Tennessee.

Leahy: As a United States senator, there’s only 100 of them out there. You’re one of them. What is the number one thing you can do to address these economic development problems that are impacting small businesses and businesses throughout the state of Tennessee?

Listen to the interview:

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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.