Freshman U.S. Sen. David Perdue’s first speech on the floor Monday laid out priorities for the fiscal battles that he said inspired his turn from businessman to senator.
The Georgia Repubican also used 16-minute speech to attack on the Obama administration’s foreign policy and use of power domestically.
“I rise today because I believe our republic is in grave danger,” Perdue said. “We need to create a new beginning by dealing with the very real crisis of leadership we face today. It’s why I ran for the Senate in the first place; because we need a new perspective in Washington.”
In some ways the address was a meatier version of his campaign stump speech — he twice referred to himself as an “outsider” — with updates for the Iran nuclear deal debate set to roil the Senate this week.
His economic prescriptions included tax code changes. Perdue hopes eventually for a national sales tax (known as the FairTax) to replace the income and corporate taxes. But in the meantime, he will settle for reducing the corporate rate, ending the “repatriation tax” for companies to bring back overseas profits and getting rid of “corporate welfare.”
He said that those immediate steps would “allow us to fund our infrastructure needs,” among other benefits. A bipartisan group of senators has proposed to use a reduction — but not elimination — of the repatriation tax to pay for more road funding.
Other freshmen have carried bigger profiles than Perdue so far: Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., caused an international stir with his letter to the Ayatollah of Iran. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, gave the Republican response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address.
In fact, Perdue is one of the last members of the Senate’s freshman class to give a “maiden speech” on the floor. He said he waited until after the 100-day mark “out of respect.”
While opining about how he was honored to serve in a line of great Georgians, Perdue revealed that in some ways he has not been impressed with the Senate in his first 100 days:
“From what I’ve seen so far up here, there is not a great enough sense of urgency in tackling this skyrocketing debt,” he said. “There are no innocent parties up here. Both sides have pushed us to the brink, contributing to this unsustainable level of debt we face today.”
After he finished, Perdue basked in praise from fellow senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who called it an “insightful and accurate assessment.”
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