From election controversies to All-Star Games, it’s an understatement to say that my home state of Georgia has been at the center of some serious firestorms. In January, the deep fractures in the conservative movement led to the election of two liberal Democrats to the Senate, handing complete control of all three levers of government to the Left.
The early results have been downright scary for everyone who cares about the future of America, including this father of three and small-business owner.
Take the crime wave sweeping through our cities right now. In my backyard of Atlanta, homicides have surged 58% over the last year. Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, once seen as a rising star and a potential running mate to then-candidate Joe Biden, is not seeking reelection and would have risked facing a voter backlash for the surge of crime.
Just last week, three joggers in Buckhead were shot at in an apparently random act of violence. The parents of an 8-year-old girl who was shot and tragically killed last year filed a lawsuit against the city of Atlanta and other defendants.
Even against this backdrop, liberal politicians are still pushing ahead with their ill-advised schemes. The solution from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is building fewer jails. Last week, Councilman Antonio Brown, one of the candidates vying to replace Bottoms, had his car stolen at a campaign stop in the middle of the day. The incident got attention nationally because Brown is not only running on a “defund the police” platform, but he has the receipts to back it up: Last year, he voted to withhold $73 million from the $218 million budget of the Atlanta Police Department’s budget.
Meanwhile, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp deserves credit for taking the opposite approach. Last week, he announced he was making available up to an additional $5 million from the Governor’s Emergency Fund to law enforcement to fight crime in Atlanta.
Some on the Left have attempted to shift the blame away from their policies. Brown described a “situation of generational poverty” as one of the driving causes behind the crime surge that included his own car. The vicious cycle of generational poverty ought to be a problem that we work together to solve, but it should never be used as an alibi to commit a crime.
At the same time, many employers are having a hard time filling jobs as the country grapples with a worsening worker shortage crisis. As the economy awkwardly restarts after a long year of COVID-19-induced shutdowns, it is time for the Biden administration to stop inventing ways to stimulate the economy through generous government handouts and empower and unshackle our job creators to find their feet again. Our economic recovery plan needs a scalpel, not a chainsaw, a painful lesson the markets are poised to show us in the not-too-distant future.
The ramifications of the pandemic will outlast any lockdown or mask mandate. Last year, a slim margin of voters opted for a different leader to guide the country for the next four years, but I can assure you that most didn’t sign up for the wholesale remake of the very fabric of our society.
America is still a center-right country according to virtually every polling metric. Most of the 81 million voters who pulled the lever for President Joe Biden do not support defunding the police or a cradle-to-grave empowerment of our federal government or the type of runaway spending in Biden’s budget proposal.
On issues of crime and safety, it’s becoming clearer by the day that the philosophies pushed by the Left do not work. The results are as heartbreaking as they are catastrophic in neighborhoods across this country.
Instead of getting caught up in the politics and the noise, we should be taking our case directly to the people that conservative policies work better for their lives and livelihoods. Period. Unless we can do that, we will be ceding the privilege of governing to the Left — and if the first few months of the Biden administration are any indicator, that is not a long-term recipe for success for anyone.
Geoff Duncan is the lieutenant governor of Georgia.
