BATON ROUGE, La. – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) spent the morning with the Baton Rouge Sunrise Rotary Club, taking questions from Louisianians on issues related to the economy, federal regulation and appropriations that the senator and delegation have secured for Louisiana.

“I believe in what we accomplished—and I participated in that—when my party had control of the House and the Senate and the presidency . . . We cut taxes. We increased wages. People at the lower end of the wage scale saw their wages go up twice as fast as those at the upper end of the wage scale, but all wages went up,” said Kennedy.

“We delivered out of that four-year period 3.4 percent unemployment. We had the lowest unemployment out of the history of our country for African Americans and for Hispanic Americans. . . . We created 8 million new jobs pre-COVID—and those were real jobs, brand new jobs, not jobs that were lost because the government shut down our economy and then the jobs came back. Those were new jobs,” he continued.

Kennedy also addressed education, saying, “I believe that no parent—no parent—should be required to send their child to a failing school, where violence is common and learning is rare.”

The senator outlined the hope he sees for the state by recalling the successes of just a few years ago under Republican leadership.

“We deregulated the economy. We beat back ISIS. We completely revamped veterans’ health care to give them the health care they deserve. We secured the border. We secured our streets. We controlled inflation. During those four years, we strengthened the military. For the first time in my lifetime, we stood up to China . . . and we can do it again.”