Former Senator George LeMieux – Insights on the Economy

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Former US Senator George LeMieux anchored our March lunch with his insights on the economy – nationally, in the state, and locally in Palm Beach County.

With charts that show our current economy in the worst recovery in 100 years, and the expectation of another six years to return to 2000 levels of family income, the state of our national economy is not strong. In Florida, results are mixed. We have the highest foreclosure rate (1 in 300) of any state, but there is an optimistic story on job growth. Traditional sectors like tourism and agriculture are being augmented by biotech research and manufacturing. In the county for example, we have Scripps and Max Planck, but also the production of military helocopters, and a port that can take advantage of our location on the trade routes to and from Central and South America. Our low tax environment and pleasant climate should give us an advantage over other states.

Nationally, he sees a big problem in the size of the debt. With historical low interest rates, the $200B interest on the federal debt is the fourth largest category of spending – after only the military, Medicare and Medicaid. When rates rise, and if we continue borrowing another trillion each year, it could soon reach $1T in interest and overwhelm everything else.

On a more optimistic note he gave some examples of future opportunities for Florida, including the possibility of “destination health care” where we could be the go-to place for high end health care (presumably competing with Costa Rica).

He mentioned that his new endeavor with Palm Beach Atlantic – the LeMieux Center for Public Policy is starting their lecture series this month on Thursday March 21 with former Presidential Advisor and Harvard School of Government Professor David Gergen.

Also at the meeting were Congressional candidates Alan Schlesinger for CD18 (Patrick Murphy) and Ilya Katz for CD23 (Debbie Wasserman Schultz).