Lt. Governor Casey Cagle

DAHLONEGA, Ga. – As Casey Cagle’s north Georgia campaign tour swung through the historic mountain town of Dahlonega Tuesday, the Lt. Governor declared himself to be in the pole position in the race to become Georgia’s next governor.

Asked how his campaign is going, Cagle said, “Things are going really good but when you’re in the pole position and you’re the lead person, you’ve got to pedal a lot harder because they’re all trying to gain on you. So we’re working really hard.”

Introduced by State Senator Steve Gooch (R-Dahlonega) Cagle delivered a 15-minute speech at Dahlonega’s popular Wagon Wheel restaurant in which he said that as governor, he would focus on tax cuts, job creation, providing the right kind of education to prepare students for today’s workforce demands and expanding accessibility to broadband into underserved rural communities.

State Sen. Steve Gooch (R-Dahlonega)

“I pledge 500,000 new jobs during the first four years of my administration,” he said. “And I’m committed to $100 million in tax cuts in the first 100 days, so that a family of four making $12,000 a year won’t pay any taxes.”

Cagle said he understands how difficult it is for school children to complete assignments and businesses to compete in rural areas that do not have reliable broadband connectivity. “We want to fix that,” he said.

“Cable companies all want to give you excuses as to why they can’t do things. But when the governor comes in and says this is a priority and we are going to have rural broadband and we’re going to get broadband to every community in our state, then that is exactly what is going to happen.”

Cagle said he would create an incentive plan through dollars allocated by the state and let internet providers know they will have to meet very strict standards and that he expects them to meet the goal of providing broadband to all rural communities in the state.