Rick Jackson: My vision for Ga. protects children, pocketbooks, public safety
Editor’s note: The AJC invited both Republican candidates for the June 16 gubernatorial runoff to write guest opinion columns about their vision for Georgia. Both essays are scheduled to publish before the election.
By now, many Georgians know that I lived in five different foster homes as a child. What you may not know is how one of those foster homes changed my life, and how it underscores my reason for running for governor.
Growing up, my mom worked split shifts as a waitress, meaning she would be gone during lunch hours and again in the evening. That also meant I ate most of my meals alone.
After I ran away from home, I was placed in foster care with a Christian family that included five children. I still vividly remember sitting down at dinner with the entire family for the first time. It was one of the loudest rooms I had ever heard in my life. I was completely shocked, but then things got quiet.
They held hands and prayed.
That moment hit me.
While I rode the bus to church for years by myself as a child, this was Christianity in practice. It created a picture that changed my life vision. I knew that was what I wanted when I grew up. And it’s why, as an adult, I started FaithBridge Foster Care, a nonprofit that partners with churches to create ministries so that more foster care children can experience what I did.
Make Georgia affordable again
Beyond directly impacting my work in foster care, that moment can also help explain why I’m running for governor.
It’s that vision of families coming together that inspired me to run.
I know many Georgia families are feeling squeezed. From gas to groceries, everything costs more. And property taxes are still out of control.
I know what it’s like to go hungry and do without. That’s why I’m pledging to make Georgia the most affordable state in the nation.
I’m the only candidate in the race who understands healthcare, and I will deliver for Georgia better access to healthcare while driving down costs.
I’ll immediately freeze property taxes and then work with local governments to lower them. And I’ll cut the income tax in half, or I won’t run again.
But it’s not enough to just make Georgia more affordable for families. We also need to protect and strengthen our family values.
In recent years, our country has watched common sense give way to woke extremism in our schools and universities.
Schools exist to educate children, not indoctrinate them. Parents send their children to school to learn reading, writing, math, history, science and civics — not to be used as subjects in social experiments.
If you can’t pray in schools, you absolutely can’t teach the religion of woke ideology in schools either.
Government is not the parent. Parents are. And Georgia will protect its children.
Law enforcement deserves our full support
The same clarity is needed when it comes to public safety. There will be no stronger defender of the Second Amendment, and no stronger supporter of law enforcement than me.
I grew up understanding that police officers are often the only line between safety and danger.
But former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, the Democratic nominee for governor, abandoned neighborhoods like the one I grew up in. I will do the opposite. Our men and women in uniform deserve respect, resources, training and the full support of state government. Under my leadership, Georgia will be the worst place in America to be a criminal, especially a criminal undocumented immigrant.
I can never forget where I came from. I was a child who knew what it was like to be alone, a young man who saw the power of faith and family, and now I am trying to make sure more children and families experience the sense of hope that blessed me years ago.
I’m running for governor to fight for the Georgia families who feel forgotten, to protect the values that made this state strong, and to make sure every child has the chance to sit around a table filled with faith and love.
Rick Jackson is founder, chairman and CEO of Jackson Healthcare, which is headquartered in Alpharetta. He won a slot during the May 19 primary to compete in the June 16 Republican gubernatorial primary runoff.
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