Hello, my name is James Harrison Nixon. I would like to personally represent the people of District 30 in the Georgia Senate. I was born in Troup County in 1987 and have lived here my whole life. I value the pride of our state, community and fellow Georgians. Our state motto is, Wisdom, Justice and Moderation; I would like to bring us back to this motto, because I feel that we have strayed from it. Wisdom seems to be a lacking matter here in the state. We can see the lack of wisdom in the way things have been ran, especially with the GOP at the helms. I would like to restore our wisdom by restoring our educational system. For the past decade, the state has been taking money away from our schools. This year’s shortfall alone is expected to be 1 billion dollars in total (Suggs, 2014). This is robbing the majority of our children of the education they need to lay the ground work for a higher education. Our high school seniors deserve more than a technical college degree, like Nathan Deal has mentioned. The Hope Scholarship was establish to provide hope to Georgia’s High School Seniors, who may not have the means necessary to attend a 4 year college degree. Wisdom is an incredible value that should be shown again here in this great state of Georgia through a strong educational system. Justice something that many citizens of this state feel has left this state; our state since 2007, has truly taking away from father’s rights. Who were we to pass laws taking a birth right away from the men of this state who had children outside of wedlock? We force these fathers to be financially responsible for their children, yet we find ourselves not giving these fathers the same rights that are benefited to the mother of their child. What type of justice is that? Furthermore, who were we to pass laws saying a certain type of love is illegal? Where is the justice in denying love, a raw, pure human emotion to these people in our great state? It is the basic emotion that starts all of our marriages. Also, who are we to say a mom and father both have to be a man or a woman. We should enact laws to ensure anyone who wants a marriage can obtain one. We need to give justice to those who seek it in all aspects of life. The Capital has grown distant from the citizens of this great state and frankly I am tired of it, the human factor needs to be returned. Moderation in this state frankly is a joke. Overspending and underfunding seems to be the sad face of our state government. We need to show moderation in the spending on trivial matters and buckle down and spend on where it is needed. Mainly in our education, transportation and job creation areas. Our roads in this state are full of potholes and aging. Inside the perimeter is a cluster of stress, especially during rush hour. Georgians are hurting with longer commutes, which in turn leads to more money for fuel and this takes away from money our families need during these hard financial times. We have a higher unemployment rate in Georgia, than the national average. Why? Because many of our industries have moved overseas such as the textile industries. Even though, the stock market is doing better now, then it was at the beginning of the recession, and CEO pay has increased greatly. The sad fact is the “job creating companies” are not hiring and small business that can hire are being forced out by tax rates. Finally, kids are dropping out of schools and settling with GEDs because the Education system has failed them. All of this combined has led to our current unemployment rate being higher than the national average. It has also left our families struggling to make ends meet; while help like food stamps and Medicaid are becoming more and more elusive. We are setting it up for families to be over worked, stressed and live paycheck to paycheck. I would propose job centers to be set up throughout the state to help those who need jobs and training. The old saying you can give a man a fish and feed him for a day or teach him how to fish and you can feed him a lifetime really has meaning now more than ever. I would really like to see Wisdom, Justice and Moderation returned to our state as well as the pride we all should have in our state. I believe by funding our Educational, Transportation, and Employment systems better we can decrease our unemployment rate and create a better opportunity for our High School Seniors, young children, family members and1' elders to reach the American Dream. Let’s keep Georgia on our mind in 2014
