The controversy stems from a 2005 legal deposition about Pillowtex, a North Carolina textile company, where he was CEO in 2003. "Yeah, I spent most of my career doing that," the he said when asked to describe his "experience with outsourcing." Perdue discussed his goal at Pillowtex of moving production overseas to try to save the company.
His initial response [in 2014] to the revelations didn't help put out the fire. "Defend it? I'm proud of it," he said when asked about his "career outsourcing."
"This is a part of American business. Outsourcing is the procurement of products and services to help your business run. People do that all day," he continued.
Perdue has said his experience with outsourcing wasn't about moving job overseas but obtaining products and services for companies.
At one point, Nunn asked whether Perdue supports an increase in the federal minimum wage and Perdue responded that he did not. "As I have said, if you increase the minimum wage, you will kill jobs in this country," Perdue said. "This president wants bigger government, higher taxes, more regulation. This is the plan my opponent supports."
Immigration and agriculture were also hot topics for the crowd. Perdue said he wanted to make it easier for farmers to obtain work visas and accused Nunn of not listing agriculture as a top priority in a campaign memo--something she dismissed as untrue.
Perdue: Strongly Agree
Question topic: Briefly describe your spiritual beliefs and values.
Perdue: Based on my faith, I have deeply held personal convictions that I share with a majority of Georgians. These principles shape my belief in the limited and clearly defined role of government. Additionally, there are certain issues on which I will not waver. I believe that we should promote a culture that values life and protects the innocent, especially the unborn. I also believe that we must protect traditional marriage, keeping it between one man and one woman.
Perdue: Strongly Agree
Question topic: Briefly list political or legislative issues of most concern to you.
Perdue: Reforming our broken tax code & reducing our regulatory burdens: We need to get our economy back on track and the only way to do it is less government regulations (repeal Dodd-Frank, stop Carbon tax, repeal ObamaCare) and lower taxes
Perdue: Strongly Agree
Perdue: Strongly Disagree
Perdue: The Founders saw firsthand that danger of entrusting too much authority in any one individual. They recognized that absolute power corrupts. Therefore, they drafted a Constitution that delineated specific duties and powers between the three branches of government so that there was a check and balance system preventing one person or branch from amassing absolute power.
Perdue: Strongly Disagree
Perdue: Strongly Disagree
Perdue: Strongly Disagree
Question topic: The Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) should be repealed by Congress.
Perdue: Strongly Agree
Perdue: Strongly Agree
Perdue: Strongly Agree
Perdue: Strongly Disagree
Question topic: Judeo-Christian values established a framework of morality which permitted our system of limited government.
Perdue: Strongly Agree.
Question topic: Briefly describe your spiritual beliefs and values.
Perdue: Based on my faith, I have deeply held personal convictions that I share with a majority of Georgians. These principles shape my belief in the limited and clearly defined role of government. Additionally, there are certain issues on which I will not waver. I believe that we should promote a culture that values life and protects the innocent, especially the unborn. I also believe that we must protect traditional marriage, keeping it between one man and one woman.
A: We have a debt that's larger than our economy. It's the No. 1 threat to our national security. That's bad enough, $17 trillion. But we have another $86 to $100 trillion dollars coming at us in future federal unfunded liabilities related to Social Security, Medicare and pension and benefits for federal employees. Perdue's solution is honoring obligations to anyone already receiving Social Security benefits, but changing the benefits for anyone coming into the workforce: "Their deal is going to have to be different". Perdue would make the same changes to Medicare.
Perdue served as CEO of Dollar General from 2003 to 2007. In 2007, more than 2,000 female store managers filed a lawsuit against Dollar General, claiming the company consistently paid male managers more than female ones. Dollar General ultimately paid millions to settle the case in 2011, after Perdue had left the company.
"David Perdue owes the people an explanation for why he's killed and outsourced jobs and why his company was at the center of a pay discrimination suit--and most importantly, whether he still believes that women and men should not be paid the same amount for the same job," said the president of Emily's List.
PolitiFact [questioned whether] with 100 members in the Senate, could only one in 10 senators have a background in business? In the 113th Congress, 27 senators identified "business" as their occupation. But some senators list more than one occupation, and senators may not have been practicing their listed profession immediately before they entered Congress.
As for Perdue, he is using a number that campaign researchers gleaned by going through the biographies of all 100 senators, said Perdue's spokesman, [counting] senators who worked in the corporate world or had responsibility for a company's profit and loss margins. "Some of the members' primary occupations are debatable, which is why we use the language 'about 10.' " We rate his statement Mostly True
"As men and women clock in across the state, thousands of hands are building a stronger Oregon. But there are still special interests that want to give tax breaks to corporations that ship our jobs overseas," Merkley says.
"So I wrote a bill to make China play fair on trade, and I fought to end deals that outsource our jobs," he said.
The ad begins running in the Eugene market on Tuesday. The buy is "substantial," according to the campaign, which declined to further characterize the amount of money behind the ad.
Perdue's response: "I'm insulted personally about Perdue Partners. I'm one of three partners there. We export American-made products into Asia. I know full well the difficulties of dealing with this federal government. And that's why I want to go to Washington and try to bring some common sense and create a level playing field so we can get our manufacturers to competing again around the world."
In response to the now-familiar attack on Perdue by Rep. Jack Kingston for being on a board of a company that took stimulus money, Perdue pulled out a new jab: Kingston requested stimulus money for Georgia after voting against the stimulus law.
"Both," Perdue replied emphatically.
"And that's a euphemism for some kind of tax increase?" the interviewer noted.
Perdue laughed and explained, "Well here's the reality: If you go into a business--I was never able to turn around a company just by cutting spending. You had to figure out a way to get revenue growing. There are five people in the US Senate who understand what I just said. You know revenue is not something they think about."
Perdue's spokesman claimed Perdue was only broadly talking about growing the economy. "David was stating a simple economic principle: If the economy is growing and more people were working, it generates more revenue."
Perdue argued that "politicians are like diapers" and need to be changed frequently. "We look like Democrat lite," he complained.
The former governor is now backing his cousin's campaign.
Rep. Jack Kingston drew criticism from conservatives after he said Republicans should improve, rather than repeal, the Affordable Care Act: "A lot of conservatives say, 'Nah, let's just step back and let this thing fall to pieces on its own.' But I don't think that's always the responsible thing to do," Kingston said. "I think we need to be looking for things that improve health care overall for all of us. And if there is something in ObamaCare, we need to know about it." Kingston later said his comments had been misinterpreted
"As a senator, I've got to uphold that, so I support that, whatever the law of the land is in Georgia," he said. "As a U.S. senator, I'm not going to get involved in state decisions like this. It's a constitutional amendment. If that changes, then I will support that with the population.
"I'm not a doctor, but the only use of marijuana that I would support today would be the medical use of it," he said. "The two doctors in this race have both said that that would be acceptable to them. I've talked to other physicians that think it's a valuable tool to use. I'm basing this on medical thought that that is a tool to use against some treatments for cancer and so forth, and if that can be used medicinally, I would be OK with that."
Loosening restrictions on the use of medical marijuana in Georgia is a decision for the state Legislature, he said. "But as a senator, I'm telling you that I'm going to support the law of the land in the state of Georgia, that's first of all, second of all, that the medicinal use of it is something that I would be receptive to," he said.
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The above quotations are from 2014 Georgia Senate debates.
Click here for other excerpts from 2014 Georgia Senate debates. Click here for other excerpts by David Perdue. Click here for a profile of David Perdue.
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