ATLANTA — Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams argued in a speech Tuesday that it’s time for Georgia to use its budget surplus to invest in its residents, accusing Gov. Brian Kemp and other Republicans of harming the state by doing so they prioritized low taxes and low spending.
She also announced that she supports a state amendment to the constitution to legalize casino and sports gambling, saying she would use it to fund need-based financial aid, guarantee free technical colleges, and restore Georgia’s HOPE merit-based scholarships to students earning a C-average or better at the university.
Abrams also included attacks on restrictive abortion laws and lax gun laws, arguing that they too are a threat to Georgia’s prosperity.
“We can do what’s right for Georgia by investing in our economy, saving healthcare, building infrastructure, and looking after our small businesses, our workers, and our bottom line,” Abrams said during the Atlanta speech. “We can turn our state inside out and give back what was taken from too many Georgians.”
Abrams, lagging behind in the polls, is focused on the economy as she seeks to push reset on an issue that has emerged as the biggest pain point for US Democrats this year amid inflation and high gas prices. Kemp hopes the economy will be a particularly important topic for him this year in Georgia.
“This team has put our state on a path toward greater economic opportunity for all who call the Peach State home,” Kemp said in a campaign speech last month in McDonough, an Atlanta suburb. “We’ve brought good-paying jobs to every corner of Georgia, landed the largest economic development deals in our state’s history, passed the largest income tax cut ever, and kept the government out of our way and out of your pocket.”
Kemp plans to unveil his own plans for some of Georgia’s surplus on Thursday. It will include an additional $1 billion in state income tax refunds as well as a property tax break for homeowners, said a Kemp campaign official with knowledge of the governor’s plans, who spoke on condition of anonymity to preview the announcement.
Nodding to Abrams’ work as a voting rights attorney, Kemp said she was partly to blame for rising inflation and stubbornly high gas prices by helping get Joe Biden to the election. He calls it the “Biden-Abrams agenda.”
Abrams and other Democrats hope to move away from inflation and toward ways the government can help voters. Many of her plans are the same as when she faced Kemp in 2018, including expanding the Medicaid health insurance program to all low-income adults and expanding state aid to small businesses.
But in 2022, Georgia is cashless. The state ended its fiscal year in June with a surplus of about $5 billion, up from $2.3 billion from the previous year, and a $4.3 billion rainy-day statutory fund.
Abrams acknowledges that austerity measures may have been necessary during the Great Recession. Now, however, she says Kemp’s “imaginative poverty” rules out the possibilities for too many.
“I liken it to a company realizing a windfall,” Abrams said Monday in an interview with The Associated Press, anticipating the speech. “You can either pay dividends to your richest shareholders or invest in your company’s infrastructure to create more opportunity and generate more revenue. I want to do the latter.”
Kemp warns that rising spending will make inflation worse, arguing that Abrams will ultimately look to raise taxes after spending the excess.
“What she really believes is more government controlling more and more of your day-to-day life and taking more of your hard-earned paychecks,” Kemp said in McDonough.
Abrams has vowed flatly not to raise taxes and says her spending plan is sustainable.
Many Democrats have long supported gambling as a way to spend more without raising taxes. Abrams on Tuesday cited her 2011 deal with Republicans to cut lottery-funded HOPE scholarship benefits to prop up a program where spending exceeded lottery proceeds. But now she’s proposing to reverse those cuts, also use part of a huge lottery reserve fund, restore free technical college, and expand benefits to underperforming students who were cut under the deal.
Proposed gambling expansions have failed in lawmakers on an annual basis, requiring the support of two-thirds of lawmakers before the proposed constitutional amendment could be put to voters in a referendum for approval.
“We can accelerate higher education and economic opportunity for all Georgia students,” Abrams said.
Abrams is trying to eclipse Kemp on some policies and is arguing for another round of checks to taxpayers, like Kemp’s billion-dollar state income tax refund. Kemp has repeatedly suspended Georgia’s state gas tax for short periods, but Abrams is asking Kemp to commit now to suspending it by the end of the year. And Abrams has pledged not to reverse a state income tax cut that could ultimately cut taxes by $2 billion.
Kemp said Abrams’ support for his proposals shows voters he’s the one to trust.
“I’m running on my record. Do you know what Stacey Abrams’ record is? Tomorrow will be different than today, I can tell you that,” Kemp said Thursday during a campaign stop in northeast Georgia’s Toccoa.
Abrams notes that Georgia ranked 24th among states in per capita income in the early 2000s, but has slipped to 40th. Although close observers debate the cause of this, Abrams attributes it to channeling too many benefits to the wealthy.
She said she envisions focusing on small businesses, helping minority-owned businesses catch up and promoting economic mobility in a region of the country where poor people get the least opportunity.
“One might assume that’s as good as it gets. It’s not true,” Abrams said. “We’re entitled to more. Our taxes paid more and now it’s time to get our money’s worth.”
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