Conway, Circuit Clerk Lynn Lane and Larry Kelley share a light moment.

Kentucky’s Attorney General Jack Conway visited Ballard County on Monday on his campaign trail through Western Kentucky gearing up for the Annual Fancy Farm picnic on Saturday.   Conway set aside Monday out of his schedule to visit the river counties to share his views on the issues facing Kentuckians and the nation. 

While speaking to supporters at the Ballard County courthouse in Wickliffe, Conway talked about the recent polls announced placing Rand Paul and himself at 44-44 in a close, tight race.

 “Polls change daily.  We feel like it is more toward our favor and we hope to increase the spread in our favor before the election in November.  We need to focus on Kentucky.  We have a huge number of veterans returning to Kentucky from Iraq and Afghanistan.  Rand Paul said that those veterans’ and other disabled Americans need to be given an office on the first floor!  We need to focus on helping those people manage in their day to day living.  Rand Paul wants to do away with the Department of Education and farm subsidies.  What is his goal there?  We need our farmers and we need to help them in any way we can to continue their farming operations.  Without our farmers we have to rely on food and grain from other countries and outsource our food source like we do our energy sources now.  And why would we want to do away with the Department of Education?  We need good, solid educators to teach our children.   We have to focus on Kentucky.”

Conway says his opponent speaks of creating a filibuster in the Senate if elected the first term until the budget is balanced but yet he has no suggestions on balancing that budget and offers no solution to cutting the current deficit.  Conway has set out a plan to save $430 Billion over the next ten years without raising taxes as part of his campaign strategy. (www.jackconway.org) 

Conway stated that one of his solutions includes giving Medicare the ability to negotiate for bulk rate discounts on prescription drugs.  Additionally, $100 Billion could be cut by reducing waste, fraud and abuse in the Medicare program.  Conway has been able to do that in Kentucky with the Medicaid program in his office as Attorney General.

Another of Conway’s proposals to reduce the deficit would be closing corporate loopholes on overseas interest and income and shutting down offshore tax shelters. The tax code has a loophole that allows companies to deduct foreign interest and income from their U. S. taxes.  “We need to focus on the small business in Kentucky.  We need to make it a priority to make federal funding, small business loans available to the small business without bogging them down in red tape.”

Senior citizens are a priority for Conway.  As Attorney General, he has spoken on seniors’ behalf in cases of elder abuse, drug and pharmaceutical companies overcharging them and Medicaid fraud.  He says as U. S. Senator, he will oppose the privatization of Social Security.  Social Security funds were protected from the stock market fall in 2008 because they were government protected and not in public funds.  As Kentucky Attorney General, he refused to sign the lawsuit against health care reform.

While standing beside Conway’s at the courthouse, I received several emails from Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office regarding “Cap and Tax” on the energy tax, when I mentioned it to Jack Conway said “It is dead.  The Senate killed it.”

Conway is very optimistic about the campaign but acknowledges it will not be an easy road.  “We have to get people to the polls this November.”