The Baton Rouge Advocate reports on Cassidy's meeting with the West Baton Rouge Chamber of Commerce, where he discussed how federal deficits, taxes, and regulation are preventing economic growth and job creation.  At the meeting, Cassidy was presented with the Chamber's "Spirit of Enterprise Award," which is given to lawmakers who have a record of standing up for free enterprise and advancing pro-growth economic policies.

Cassidy: Big Government Getting in the Way of Strong Economy
Baton Rouge Advocate
By Koran Addo
August 26, 2010

PORT ALLEN — U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy praised business leaders Thursday for fostering economic development, but blasted President Barack Obama’s administration for failing to curb the nation’s high unemployment rate.

While speaking at a West Baton Rouge Chamber of Commerce luncheon, Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, said this region’s support of the oil and gas industry, and the jobs the industry creates, should serve as an example to the rest of the nation.

“If I could take the wisdom of this district and channel it to D.C., this country would be much better off,” he said.

The Obama administration’s plan to fight the national recession through deficit spending, he said, has failed.

That failure is apparent in West Baton Rouge Parish, Cassidy said, where, for the first time, the parish unemployment rate is higher than the state average. The parish’s unemployment rate is also, for the first time, higher than the year before, he said.

The Louisiana Workforce Commission reports that West Baton Rouge has an 8.8 percent unemployment rate as of July.

That figure is up from the parish’s 7.9 percent unemployment rate at this time last year, and more than 1 percentage point higher than the state’s 7.6 percent unemployment rate posted in July.

Cassidy said the jobless are primarily unskilled and semi-skilled men, many of whom could be working in the petrochemical industries.

But national legislators can’t believe oil and gas can be produced efficiently and safely domestically, he said.

“In D.C., the idea of developing the oil and gas industry is met with disbelief,” Cassidy said. “This district and this state has a heck of a lot to teach the rest of the country … the answers to our problems are to develop our own resources.”

During his 20-minute talk, Cassidy also addressed proposed cap-and-trade legislation so far stalled in the U.S. Senate.

The legislation seeks to reduce air pollution by using a market-driven approach that creates a commodity out of the right to emit carbon and allows that commodity to be traded on the free market.

Citing the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit research think tank, Cassidy said cap-and-trade legislation would lead to a 40 percent decline in employment in the petrochemical industry during the next 15 years.

“That is a huge threat,” Cassidy said.

A better proposal to create jobs and keep them from going overseas, he said, is to support safe drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf. The new challenge for a new Congress, he said, is to come up with better solutions than have been offered in the last two years.

“Spend money on the Gulf Coast,” he said.

At the end of his speech, Cassidy was presented with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Spirit of Enterprise Award. The award is given to people who support and defend the nation’s free enterprise system.