Congressman Larry Kissell continued a tour through the district Wednesday morning with a stop at the Richmond County Chamber of Commerce where he discussed the federal stimulus package and the economy with chamber leaders.

“There are no earmarks, so the decision-making will be in Raleigh in terms of the distribution,” Kissell told those at the meeting.

“I guess what I’m asking is, from the county up, how do we get our name in the hat?” chamber member Tim Hayden asked the congressman.

“Well, we’ve already got our name in the hat, including the city, and I assume the City of Hamlet,” Richmond County Economic Development Director Rick Sago said. “If you want water, it goes through public water supply, and if you want sewer, it’s another division of DNR (Department of Natural Resources), they’ve been advertising for us since the Congress started talking about this to get these ‘shovel-ready’ projects up. Ours have already been approved by the state.”

Sago explained Governor Bev Perdue has appointed an official to head up the economic recovery projects.

“That’s the biggest thing we need in Richmond County - infrastructure,” Hayden replied.

“I wish there had been more infrastructure there,” Kissell said. “I was looking at it, and we went from $6 trillion to over $10 trillion in debt when that bill was signed yesterday, and we really have nothing to show for it. The money that’s being spent now is not something that’s going to be going directly to deficit, this is going to produce (gross domestic product). This is designed to Main Street, not Wall Street. This is trickle-up economics.”

He stressed the “fast and equitable” distribution of the funds, later adding “the immediate parts of the bill are immediate.”

During the course of the nearly hour-long discussion, Kissell addressed his opposition to the original Troubled Assets Recovery Plan (TARP), his advocacy of rural development with the money provided in the new stimulus package and his disappointment with the lack of community college funding and the deletion of funds for school construction from the final version of it.

“I’ve heard that 37.2 percent of this money is not expenditures, but it’s tax cuts,” Kissell said. “We’ve put tax cuts in there for small businesses, families, upping the Pell grants, there’s money in there for extending unemployment ... and helping people with their health insurance when they’ve been laid-off.”

At a later point in the discussion, Kissell addressed what these tax cuts will mean for operating businesses.

“There’s money for individuals, money for families, money for additional college credits.”

He added money provided to states enables them to keep providing the same services without raising taxes, and there are specific expenditures in the bill addressing energy development and infrastructure.

“It’s pretty broad-based, which is somewhat reflected in the number of pages in the bill,” he said.

Richmond Community College President Dr. Sharon Morrissey asked Kissell about stance on community college funding.

“I find it ironic that public schools, who have access to lottery money, are now being given more funding in this package,” she said.

Kissell said he wished more money could have been made available to community colleges in the plan, and vocalized his support of the community college system, saying they contributed to economic development through training the workforce.

“I was at a plant yesterday, and I’ve been preaching this for some time,” Kissell said. “We have some incredibly bright people in this area. They may not have all the degrees that some people use to measure that intelligence ... That business and others in this district have employees that have an innate knowledge of what they’re doing to rival anybody in the world, and they can produce high-tech products that people with the same machinery in other countries can’t do.”

Ellerbe Telephone Vice President Herbert Long expressed to Kissell his desire for smaller service providers to get in on federal broadband stimulus money.

Kenneth Goodman, co-owner of Richmond Yarns and a member of the Richmond County School Board, inquired about Kissell’s stance on current legislation concerning unions and the general availability of federal money for school construction.

Kissell responded, saying he is co-sponsoring a bill currently being proposed to allow workers to organize for collective bargaining, and his general support of right to work laws.

He also responded to Goodman’s inquiry of school construction funds by replying there are loans available at 0 percent interest for that purpose.

Following lengthy discussions of the condition of the auto industry and it’s impact on North Carolina’s economy, Kissell District Director Tom Thacker responded to questions concerning what the chamber could do to further these interests.

“You can be a huge help. At the local level, people hear about the hundreds of millions and billions of dollars to corporations in other places, particularly the auto industry,” Thacker said. “ At the local level people need to hear that there are 250 to 300 jobs here, another 250 to 300 in Scotland County and in Albemarle. People need to know that this is not a blank check ... It’s going to keep the unemployment rate from going up another half a percent a month or two months from now.”

Kissell also addressed the impact of the Kissell Amendment to this county.

“Is this going to create jobs in Richmond County? It could,” he said.