1) What are the top three issues for the state that you’d personally like to focus on and why?
Lower taxes, lowering spending, and placing more of government at a local level. The calls for more government are due to having too much government. When we increase government, we increase spending and, thus, taxes. When that happens there is a cascade effect that displaces the normal economy and the process starts again. Example: Obamacare is a multi-trillion dollar Bandaid to Medicare, which is a multi-billion dollar Band-aid to Social Security, which is a multi-million dollar Bandaid to government interventions under FDR, and now we are discussing Medicare for all. Currently, unfunded Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security and the national debt ($90 Trillion) is more than the world’s GDP ($80 Trillion). We simply have too much government.
This process needs to start at the state level so that when we do downsize at the federal level, there is no catastrophic collapse or loss of services.
2) The Legislature fully funded the public education formula this year but also increased the 100-percent tax credits available for donors to certain private school foundations. Is this sustainable policy?
People should be able to write off 100-percent tax credit to any school they wish to donate to.
Schools get paid based on days attended. If your child goes to a private school, the public school loses the amount of the child. This just simply allows the money to follow the child to a private school at the parent’s expense.
I would like to see publicprivate partnerships and incentivize tax credits to businesses that will re-invest in things like band, shop and other important programs that develop important learning pathways. Conscious capitalism is putting the heart back into business. When businesses put people, the environment and the community before the bottom line, we build a relationship that is more than just about numbers. We build sustainable connections that provide investments, jobs, retirement, education, and healthcare. When people care about something, they take care of it.
3) What are some concrete ways the Georgia General Assembly can address rising healthcare costs and declining accessibility?
We need hospitals to post costs. You can go online and know what it cost for Lasik or a tummy tuck, but you can’t for a appendicitis. This is due to how billing is done in hospitals, thanks to Medicare. Health insurance companies have also skewed prices, thanks to how they pay for procedures; there is simply no consistent and logical way we bill for our healthcare.
Additionally 60 percent of healthcare costs are in medications. What patients are prescribed are not always the doctor’s choice: Limitations created by Medicare and insurance providers not only have schedules or steps at which a patient can receive medication, but there are also financial incentives within the system to go to some choices over others.
Quite simply, government meddling has interfered with doctors helping patients by providing additional administrative costs, but also put legal limits on the help they are allowed to offer.
4) Although many legislative initiatives benefit everyone, different parts of the state have different needs and priorities. How will you work to advance the interests of Floyd and Bartow counties?
By listening.
My biggest plan is to make myself available to voters regularly. Open-door-after-four will be a way for people to meet me in five-minute intervals, to speak to me directly, one-on-one. I want to know what is going on. I want to know the issues of the constituents. If I cannot address their concerns, I will help find out who can.
Too many people feel there is too much distance between them and elected officials. Also, our elected officials have been met with harsh public displays of criticism, making them afraid to do more open events. I do not expect to be immune to this, but I will sit down and talk with them. That is what leadership is about: Not politics but people.
Elected officials serve the people, and we should always be on their side; it should never be about one side “getting into power.”
“My biggest plan is to make myself available to voters regularly. Opendoor-after-four will be a way for people to meet me in five-minute intervals, to speak to me directly, one-on-one. I want to know what is going on. I want to know the issues of the constituents.