Highland County Delegate Dickie Bell Discussed Money And Politics On A Recent Visit To Monterey

Monterey, VA – Recently, Virginia House of Delegates representative for the 20th District, Dickie Bell visited Monterey as featured speaker at the Highland County Memorial Day Observance. Mr. Bell has represented Highland County in the Virginia House since 2009. The stock market has just finished its sixth consecutive week of declines adding to concerns about the health of the economic recovery. Mr. Bell comments on one of the big issues for Virginia’s government this year.

“Well I think the Virginia economy is coming back; it’s coming back slowly” says Bell. “We knew it would be a slow recovery. We’ve had revenue gains, thirteen in the last fourteen months. That’s a trend, it’s more than a fluke now and I think those are good signs. This economy, I’m confident that it’s going to recover and that we’re going to enjoy prosperity again, but I do think it’s going to be a slow process.”

He goes on to discuss the matter of jobs.

“I think we’re doing a lot of the right things” he says. “Unfortunately it appears sometimes that we take two steps forward and a step back, particularly in the area of job creation. We’ll create a set of jobs in one place and lose a set in the other place. That’s a little confusing to folks who are studying the economy, and it’s a little hard for us to as we try to create an environment that business likes to be in.”

“Makes things like our tax structure and our right to work all very important to us I think in terms of attracting business.”

Job creation is one of his priorities.

“The economy will always be on the front burner” says Bell, “jobs are still the most important thing; and I mean good jobs, jobs that pay good, that put people back to work, give them the dignity of being able to earn a paycheck, provide for their families. Our unemployment rate’s just slightly over 6% and by comparison, that’s pretty good. But that’s still 100,000 people not working who want to work; we need to work on that”

“Unfortunately government can’t simply create those jobs, so the work to create the right environment for that sometimes gets sticky and sometimes very difficult.
But that needs to be our focus, and that needs to be the goal of every legislator is to try to attract business, encourage business, support business so we can put folks back to work who want to work.”

The new 20th District in Virginia includes Highland County, portions of Augusta and Rockingham Counties, the City of Staunton, parts of Nelson County and the City of Waynesboro.