ECONOMY

With inflation at a historic high not seen since 1981, families are feeling the financial squeeze of high prices at the pump, grocery store and in their utility bills with no end in sight. This is harming Georgians’ ability to budget, save, and provide for their families.   

As your representative, Jodi will implement solutions to help ease the financial burdens we are all facing:  

• Eliminate the state income tax and reduce other taxes to increase job opportunities, empowering families to control their own money, and ensure financial stability. 
• Reintroduce the FairTax bill, whereby eliminating special interest groups who receive all the tax exemptions. 
• Reduce state regulations that impose restrictive burdens on small businesses to spur the economy.  
• Audit state programs to identify fraud, overlapping or wasteful spending to save taxpayer money.

Children are our most valuable asset. We must focus on giving them every opportunity to succeed. Our current educational system requires children to attend the school based on their zip code. If a child lives in an area with a failing school, this requirement hurts middle and lower-income families. We need to give all parents, regardless of where they live, the ability to help their children get the best education.

Alternately, teachers often have to pay for classroom supplies out of their own pockets. Teachers are already among the lowest paid providers in our community. This is a disgrace. 

As your representative, Jodi will focus on Education to help teachers, parents and administrators develop a strategy to lift our low achieving schools by,

• Auditing funds from our current and past E-SPLOSTS, the CARES ACT, and all public and private grants so we can identify any overlapping or wasteful spending.  These potential funds can be redirected to teachers' pay and improve those failing schools.
• Expanding Work-Based Learning in our high schools to offer more vocational choices for students who don’t see college as a career path.
• Addressing overcrowding of our schools by greatly restricting the use of school waivers regarding classroom size. This will benefit teachers as well as the students.

Georgians should be able to seek medical advice, receive treatments, and afford medications with dignity, and privacy.  

As your representative, Jodi will support several solutions for addressing these issues: 

• Transparency in medical pricing which requires hospitals to provide in an online, searchable way the rates for common services, such as X-rays, outpatient visits, Cesarean deliveries and lab tests. In addition, hospitals must disclose the amount they are willing to accept in cash. 
• Require insurers to provide an online shopping tool that allows consumers to see negotiated rates with providers and gives them estimates of their out-of-pocket costs for common medical items and services. 
• Allow doctors to prescribe approved, off-label medications for the benefit of their patient without fear of retribution.  
• Let medical decisions be made privately between a health professional and a patient or parent. Follow HIPAA guidelines to ensure the privacy of all medical procedures. 
• Ensure medical freedom and a patient's 'Right to Try' without government overreach or interference.  
• Pass legislation to finally legalize medical marijuana. 

The security of our families, friends, and neighbors is profoundly important to each and every one of us. Crime demoralizes families and communities, but it is especially devastating to the very neighborhoods who most need protection. Safety is a fundamental requirement of our government and Jodi will support legislation to keep our community safe by

• Providing resources for greater police training to emphasize de-escalation and other nonlethal tactics when confronting suspects. 
• Ensuring that officers are held accountable in a more transparent way. Dash-cam and body camera video of police shootings will be made public after 30 days unless the department can prove it will compromise an investigation.  
• Implementing policies to retain good cops by offering flexibility in, as well as opportunities for, advancement in order to recruit and retain police officers.  
• Requiring police officers to participate in foot patrols so that they can engage with members of their communities directly.
• Negotiating with the Police Unions to identify and replace bad cops.