Joining the nation’s other governors, Kentucky’s Steve Beshear spent the weekend in Washington D-C meeting with White House officials and the president. Transportation and education topped Steve Beshear’s laundry list. Kentucky bridges over the Ohio River are in bad shape, yet Congress could cut highway funding. With the Commonwealth facing its own budget and unemployment problems, the Governor says they need a major federal investment in infrastructure.
“One of the things that’s putting our people back to work is infrastructure projects and you’ve seen that all over the country and we’re doing the same thing in Kentucky. Great jobs for needed infrastructure,” said Beshear.
The state faces other problems, especially in education. Last year the state was awarded seventeen million dollars from the competitive federal grant program Race to the Top. Still, school districts say teacher layoffs are a real possibility and state’s high dropout rate is unacceptably high.
“Kentucky’s dropout age is 16 and it’s been that since the 1930s, you now times have changed and we need to send a strong message to our parents and to our children that a high school diploma is an absolute necessity to even think about getting a good job,” said Beshear.
Governor Beshear has been in D-C through the weekend for the National Governor’s Association winter meeting. During the visit he and other governors from Appalachia met with the White House drug czar. Gil Kerlikowske says prescription drug abuse in the region impedes economic development.
