“Studies show that the best places to raise young children are where government, nonprofits and private companies work together to provide good wages, affordable health care and housing, efficient and fair services, and affordable and accessible childcare. In practice, and grounded in a strategic plan, I would offer bills providing stable and appropriate funding for early childhood education, building/maintaining incentives for a sustainable childcare provider system, raising the minimum wage to a livable one, expanding Medicaid on the path to universal healthcare, and maintaining an infrastructure of professional family support specialists. Because no elected official can be a subject area expert across the vast responsibilities of a major state, I would rely on the scholarship of nonprofits like GEERS to capture the trends, analyze the data, identify under-performance within our integrated system, and lean heavily on their policy recommendations. Finally, within the legislature, I would work to elevate and expand the coalition of political advocates to assure that Georgia becomes the leader in providing the most solid childhood foundation for our state’s future stability, safety, and prosperity.
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