MILWAUKEE — Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, took the Republican National Convention stage Monday night to hammer home the GOP’s message on the economy and the financial burden on middle-class Americans, a centerpiece of the convention’s first night.
The Tennessee senator serves as the Republican National Committee’s official platform chairman, which he delivered briefly onstage Monday afternoon before his evening speech. Blackburn is the only Tennessee lawmaker scheduled to speak at the nearly weeklong convention.
Blackburn pointed to Bordeau Metals, a business in White Bluff, Tennessee, to criticize “Bidenomics,” which he said hurts everyday business owners.
“Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, high inflation, high interest rates, high taxes, and the Green New Scam are destroying small businesses,” Blackburn said.
The Biden administration earlier this year touted new business growth, citing nearly 16 million new business applications filed between 2021 and 2023, the highest average increase since 2004.
On stage, Blackburn referred to his role in 2001 in rejecting a proposed state income tax while he was a state lawmaker in Tennessee.
“We crushed it,” Blackburn said. “We’re income tax-free in Tennessee.”
The Tennessean in 2001 reported that Gov. Don Sundquist, a Republican, and other senators blamed Blackburn and conservative radio talk show hosts for encouraging a massive protest at the Tennessee state Capitol, an event that resulted in vandalism. Blackburn in 2001 said it was “too bad it got out of hand.”
In his speech Monday, Blackburn said Trump’s re-election would return the U.S. to an “era of prosperity.” Blackburn also criticized President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for hiring 85,000 new IRS employees to “disrespect hardworking Americans,” a claim debunked by PolitiFact reporting that misrepresented a 2021 Treasury Department ruling that said the IRS needed to hire for positions across the department, not just in law enforcement, and to shore up its retiring workforce.
“Who’s going to look at those 85,000 IRS agents and say, ‘You guys are fired?'” Blackburn said. “Donald Trump.”
