Earlier today, I watched Governor Kemp’s State of the State address and while there were some areas of agreement, in many cases he either does not go far enough or seems to have missed the real solutions to correctly identified problems. In other cases, his solutions threaten to become problems in themselves. It is for these reasons that I have written this response on behalf of the Libertarian Party of Georgia.
The devastation of hurricanes like Helene and the absolutely incredible response of voluntary organizations and individuals to help their fellow Georgians and even those impacted in other states has helped to demonstrate just what people are capable of achieving when they aren’t being held back. Mutual aid and charity are alive and well and have shown that they can thrive when they aren’t being stifled. The people of Georgia want to help one another and do not need the government to force them to do so. This emergency also demonstrated the importance of having the Georgia National Guard here at home to help deal with the disaster rather than being off overseas in undeclared wars. Georgia should pass Defend the Guard legislation to make sure our capable Guardsmen are where they should be.
Our physical safety isn’t the only thing that’s important, and Governor Kemp is correct when he says that the money taken from Georgians through taxation is their money, not the government’s. The people of Georgia know how to spend or save their own money better than the government ever could. While an additional 0.2% reduction is better than nothing, the General Assembly should adopt legislation that would eliminate state income tax altogether with more aggressive rate reductions instead of handing out rebates each year. At the very least, capital gains taxes on precious metals should be eliminated to give Georgians a way to protect themselves from the endless inflation caused by the federal government. Combine the tax cuts with cutting government spending and allow private citizens to decide where their own money should go.
Of course, just cutting taxes and spending is not enough for Georgia to truly be the best state for organic, sustainable economic growth. We must also cut through all the red tape of regulations that hinder new businesses from opening and citizens from entering the workforce. The Governor and General Assembly should be well aware of the problems with Georgia’s occupational licensing system after having studied it during the break between legislative sessions. Rather than merely trying to improve the efficiency of the bureaucracy managing these licenses, the licensing requirements should be reduced and eliminated so that Georgians can get to work.
The Governor did not give many details on what tort reforms he is looking for, but one idea that he should avoid is trying to impose some arbitrary cap on settlements. It is vital that those who actually have engaged in malpractice be held fully accountable for their actions. For the state to intervene and prevent this from happening would transfer the costs of malpractice onto innocent citizens and ultimately reduce the quality of medical care. A better solution for addressing healthcare challenges in Georgia is to continue moving forward from last year’s reforms to Certificate of Need. These Certificate of Need requirements should be completely eliminated along with all the other anti-competitive regulations in the healthcare and insurance fields to increase availability and reduce prices for the people of Georgia.
I am glad that Governor Kemp has resisted the call to violate the rights of Georgians with gun control measures in the wake of a tragedy. However, like with everything else it does, the government is inefficient at providing security. Instead of focusing only on trying to make schools safer, parents should have a greater opportunity to take their children out of public schools altogether. The people of Georgia deserve choice in education and the watered down school voucher law from last year is not nearly good enough. Parents should be free to send their children to private school or to homeschool them, whatever they believe is best for their own children, without facing regulatory hurdles or being forced to pay for public schools that they aren’t using which makes it more difficult for low-income families to afford alternatives.
As he has resisted the call for gun control, I ask the Governor to resist the call to violate the right to privacy of Georgians in the name of security. The efforts to protect children from killers and traffickers are laudable, but Georgia must not be transformed into a police state where citizens are constantly being monitored in the process. The right to privacy must be defended as vigorously as any other, with warrantless surveillance being inconsistent with both the Georgia Constitution and the principles of liberty we hold dear. The proliferation of cameras that law enforcement can access at will must be reversed and what monitoring does occur must be made transparent to citizens.
I welcome members of the legislature to work with me and the rest of the Libertarian Party of Georgia in our efforts to secure sound money, protect the privacy of Georgians, and remove unnecessary regulatory hurdles in health care. I look forward to working with Republicans and Democrats in both chambers of the General Assembly along with Governor Kemp to help the people of Georgia by protecting their rights and getting the government out of their lives so they can grow and prosper.
