Third Congressional District candidate David Landrum stoppedinto the chamber of commerce Friday to discuss his ideas foreconomic development in the area during his last district tourbefore the primaries on Tuesday.

“This meeting served as another open forum for us to learn moreof the candidates’ economic development ideas,” saidBrookhaven-Lincoln County Chamber of Commerce Executive DirectorCliff Brumfield. “I was pleased to hear that Landrum had verypositive and knowledgeable comments with regards to the economicsituation we have.”

Landrum, a Republican from Madison, was the third congressionalcandidate in as many weeks to visit Brookhaven and sit down withmembers of the chamber and the Industrial DevelopmentFoundation.

Landrum, drawing from his extensive background as a businessmanager, advocated growing small businesses with incentives as thefirst step in furthering the local economy.

“To grow small businesses, you have to incent them to become bigbusinesses – we have to unleash the entrepreneur,” Landrum said.”You can do that a number of ways, from abolishing the death tax tooffering better health insurance and faster depreciation scheduleson buildings and equipment. For extra small businesses with one ortwo employees, you might want to give them a tax credit for hiringtheir third.”

Landrum cited the death tax as pulling $20 billion per year awayfrom small businesses across the nation. He is in favor ofabolishing the measure to let businesses reinvest the money intheir own operations.

He also promoted the easing of health care restrictions to allowsmall businesses more choices in coverage.

“We must have accessible health care,” Landrum said. “There are47 million Americans who are uninsured, and a lot of those walkinginto the emergency room work for small businesses. Many smallbusinesses have no group plan. They should be able to buy insurancethrough associations, and be allowed to cross state lines to getit.”

For recruiting industry and larger businesses to locate in thearea, Landrum said he believed in “playing the numbers” to attracta diverse group of employers from out of state.

“The more companies we go after, the more we will get,” he said.”I love diversification. Let’s go get the 10-employee jobs, the30-employee jobs – let’s get the car plant, too. To me, you don’tjust go after five companies, you go after 50.”

Landrum also talked about the need for infrastructure to be inplace before industries relocated, a requirement that Brookhavenand Lincoln County have already fulfilled.

“Really, y’all have everything in place down here,” Landrum saidof the Linbrook Business Park. “Your industrial park could easilybecome a supersite – we just need to fill it up.”

Landrum said that playing an active part in recruiting companiesto the area’s industrial sites would be one of his priorities as aa U.S. Representative.

He also spoke of amending NAFTA, the North American Free TradeAgreement.

“Free trade is one thing, but I believe in fair trade,” Landrumsaid. “Whatever comes into this country should be held to the samestandards that our own manufacturers are held to.”