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Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: So we have a very special guest today, the honorable
Speaker 3: Stacy Abrams. So if you are not familiar with her,
Speaker 3: I'm assuming that you don't own the television, or perhaps
Speaker 3: you don't have a cell phone, or you don't listen
Speaker 3: to radio.
Speaker 4: Yes, or you might not have taken part in last election.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, many people credit her with Joe Biden's victory
Speaker 3: because she was very intricate and delivering Georgia, which is
Speaker 3: that the first time ever that does happened, or the
Speaker 3: first time in a lot.
Speaker 5: Of years, first.
Speaker 3: Time in forty years that Georgia went Democrat. But now
Speaker 3: she has aspirations of her own. She ran last time
Speaker 3: and lost by a very thing margin. So it's a
Speaker 3: neck and neck battle right now to become the governor
Speaker 3: of Georgia, which is the most powerful position in the state,
Speaker 3: and that will be the first time in a very
Speaker 3: long time. Also, and I believe the first time ever
Speaker 3: that a black woman would be the governor of George.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure that's never happened before. So this is
Speaker 3: a historical moment that we're in right now. From a
Speaker 3: political side, this is a financial platform, So we have
Speaker 3: questions about the finance and about you know, the business
Speaker 3: side of things, because it's important and I think that
Speaker 3: we have a journalistic responsibility to talk to people that
Speaker 3: are in position of power or that could potentially be
Speaker 3: in very high positions of power, and especially a state
Speaker 3: like Georgia where Atlanta we just did invest fst over
Speaker 3: thirteen thousand people. You actually gave a message that we
Speaker 3: played on the big screen. Thank you for that. But
Speaker 3: you know, Atlanta and Georgia is our second home and
Speaker 3: one of our biggest markets, so it's vitally important that
Speaker 3: you know we have this conversation. So first and foremost,
Speaker 3: thank you for joining us. Appreciate it, thank you for
Speaker 3: having me.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, it's very rare that we have royalty here
Speaker 5: with us, and so yes, again, we appreciate you. And
Speaker 5: the My parents were talking to me about it after.
Speaker 5: They were like, oh my god, she's backstage. Can we
Speaker 5: see I'm like, mom, video, She's like, oh my god, please,
Speaker 5: I'm like it's a video.
Speaker 4: Thank you again, so my aunt.
Speaker 3: So we'll get into this conversation. I guess we can
Speaker 3: just do how we usually do. We all just ask questions.
Speaker 3: So the first question that I have is, you know,
Speaker 3: a lot of times from the business side of things, right,
Speaker 3: So a lot of times people say that politicians don't
Speaker 3: understand business because they were career politicians and they stifle
Speaker 3: business and they hurt business. But you're actually an entrepreneur
Speaker 3: and you have a variety of different businesses. So what
Speaker 3: are some things that you've learned from entrepreneurship that you
Speaker 3: think you know has helped you or can potentially help
Speaker 3: you in running a very important state like Georgia in politics.
Speaker 6: Well, the first business that I started wasn't technically considered
Speaker 6: a business. I wrote a novel when I was in
Speaker 6: law school and had to sell it during my first
Speaker 6: year as an attorney, and that taught me about marketing,
Speaker 6: but also taught me about market research. This was at
Speaker 6: the beginning of Amazon, and I had to figure out
Speaker 6: a way to break through with a black authored romance novel,
Speaker 6: which was really rare at the time to get black
Speaker 6: women basically for black women to be published as romance
Speaker 6: novelists by big platforms. And so I needed to be
Speaker 6: the number one selling book that day. So I got
Speaker 6: all the people i'd ever met to buy from Amazon
Speaker 6: on the exact same day, and that catapult to me
Speaker 6: and people started asking about my book.
Speaker 7: Now, it didn't last.
Speaker 6: Very long because some other book came out the next day,
Speaker 6: but that moment was thinking about how do you harness
Speaker 6: if you don't have the platforms people are used to,
Speaker 6: how do you use the networks that you do have
Speaker 6: to develop your marketing approach. The second business I started
Speaker 6: was a consulting firm, and that was really about how
Speaker 6: do you chase business?
Speaker 7: How do you get people.
Speaker 6: To hire you when what you're selling is your mind
Speaker 6: and different from a commodities company where you're able to
Speaker 6: sell while you sleep, You've got to be awake for
Speaker 6: consulting to work. And so that's really about how do
Speaker 6: you offer a differentiated product that people understand. And then
Speaker 6: my latest company was a company called is a company
Speaker 6: called now Account. I'm no longer day to day with it,
Speaker 6: but that's a financial services company because I know that.
Speaker 6: One of the impediments I faced. And another business was
Speaker 6: access to capital, and that's something that small businesses face
Speaker 6: all the time, and in particularly in Georgia because we
Speaker 6: lost more banks than any other state during the Great Recession,
Speaker 6: and black owned businesses have the least amount of access
Speaker 6: because we lost so many banks. Access to capital is
Speaker 6: the difference between success and failure, because it's not just
Speaker 6: about operating capital. It's being able to even know where
Speaker 6: to go and having someone trust that it's worth risking
Speaker 6: when you bring that to the governor's office. It's about
Speaker 6: making sure we're creating programs that actually address these challenges.
Speaker 6: How do we market our small businesses. We do a
Speaker 6: great job of championing big companies, but how do we
Speaker 6: market our small businesses?
Speaker 7: Two?
Speaker 6: How do we solve the challenges of those small businesses
Speaker 6: that are completely and totally driven by their owner, by
Speaker 6: their entrepreneur. How do you bolster them and make sure
Speaker 6: they can do what they need? And then three, how
Speaker 6: do we make certain that we're underwriting the financial risk
Speaker 6: so that those small businesses get the capital they need
Speaker 6: to succeed.
Speaker 5: I love that you keep talking about small businesses because
Speaker 5: that's one of the reasons we love Georgia and we
Speaker 5: love Atlanta. When we go there, we see businesses, and
Speaker 5: we see people that look like us owning businesses, and
Speaker 5: we see men, and we see tons of women in
Speaker 5: entrepreneurs creating their own businesses.
Speaker 4: And so you also brought up programs.
Speaker 5: Can you talk to us about the Georgia Commercial Investment
Speaker 5: Program because this is one of those things like how
Speaker 5: do we get capital, where are we getting it from,
Speaker 5: how do we deploy?
Speaker 4: Can you talk to us about that?
Speaker 7: Sure?
Speaker 6: So there are two pieces to what I want to do.
Speaker 6: One is I want to expand the purchasing power of
Speaker 6: the state. There was a report just yesterday on the
Speaker 6: Locals and Station about the fact that in Georgia, just
Speaker 6: this past year, more than seven billion dollars in contracts
Speaker 6: were let less than seven percent went to minority owned
Speaker 6: and women owned firms. And you always have to be
Speaker 6: suspicious of that number because it's different. It's different to
Speaker 6: be a person of color than it is to be
Speaker 6: a woman, and having been both my entire life, I
Speaker 6: understand the different treatment that exists. But even if you
Speaker 6: combine both of those, it's less than it's only seven
Speaker 6: point seven percent of the contracting that we know of.
Speaker 6: People of color are forty eight percent of the state.
Speaker 6: To only have seven percent of the contracts is absurd,
Speaker 6: and so one thing the governor can do without legislation
Speaker 6: is use George's purchasing power to support small businesses by
Speaker 6: directing the Department of Administrative Services to establish and monitor
Speaker 6: targets to make certain that all the state agencies are
Speaker 6: actually purchasing intentionally from minority owned small businesses, and also
Speaker 6: providing the technical assistance of those small businesses cantually secure
Speaker 6: and fulfill those state contracts. But the other part of
Speaker 6: that is what I call my Commercial Investment small Business
Speaker 6: Capital Investment Fund, which is ten million dollars. That would
Speaker 6: then allow those same small businesses to do if they
Speaker 6: have to go and buy initial equipment to take the
Speaker 6: contract on, let's give you the money and underwrite your
Speaker 6: loan to get that contract. Because if you get that contract,
Speaker 6: fifty thousand dollars should not stop you from making five million.
Speaker 6: But for a lot of small businesses, that's it's the
Speaker 6: point of entry that's so expensive. In contrast, my current
Speaker 6: the current governor is going to establish a study to
Speaker 6: look at whether or not this is a problem. You
Speaker 6: don't have to study Georgia to understand that it is
Speaker 6: a problem when forty eight percent of your population only
Speaker 6: gets seven percent of your business. And that's the conversation
Speaker 6: that's happened every year for the last twenty years. Governor
Speaker 6: after governor says well, we'll we'll talk about it, we'll
Speaker 6: study it. They won't move legislation to solve it. Well,
Speaker 6: as governor, you solve the problem because I don't need legislation.
Speaker 6: I can do it directly. And there was something you
Speaker 6: said at the opening, I not only will be the
Speaker 6: first black governor of Georgia. I'll be the first black
Speaker 6: women governor in American history.
Speaker 7: Wow.
Speaker 6: And so I'm bringing to this conversation not only the skills,
Speaker 6: but a very strong sense of urgency around solving this
Speaker 6: problem because if we don't tackle it, it will be
Speaker 6: one hundred years, not ten, not twenty one hundred years
Speaker 6: before we close the gap between minority owned businesses and
Speaker 6: non minority firms in the State of Georgia.
Speaker 8: Tying and to that point, after your victory, let's speak
Speaker 8: that into existence. What initiatives will be put in place
Speaker 8: to help close that racial wealth gap? And because Atlanta
Speaker 8: is such a mecca for African American and African American
Speaker 8: entrepreneurs in the State of Georgia is amazing. What plans
Speaker 8: can entrepreneurs look for to that you'll put in place
Speaker 8: and will help us close that gap.
Speaker 7: Absolutely.
Speaker 6: So the commercial Investment program is a big one because
Speaker 6: the state spends billions of dollars on a range of things.
Speaker 6: So it's not just construction contracts for dot it's who's
Speaker 6: providing food at events that the state is doing. It's
Speaker 6: who's doing janitorial services, who is providing the paper.
Speaker 7: All of those.
Speaker 6: Purchases are purchases that the state can direct, and so
Speaker 6: the Georgia Commercial Investment Program is part of it. But
Speaker 6: the other part is the supplier Diversity Initiative, and that
Speaker 6: is I'm going to make certain that state agencies, all
Speaker 6: of them, when they procure goods and services, that they
Speaker 6: have to actively seek out and support new suppliers that
Speaker 6: are owned by groups that are underrepresented, and that includes
Speaker 6: people of color, veterans, the disabled, women, but all of
Speaker 6: those groups have to be given primacy. And because in
Speaker 6: Georgia those groups often overlap, by targeting these communities, we
Speaker 6: actually hit the broadest swath of possibilities. I also want
Speaker 6: to make certain that major state contractors have to implement
Speaker 6: their own programs for supplier diversity. Why should the state
Speaker 6: contract with someone who is not looking at the wh
Speaker 6: whole state as viable. And then the last big thing
Speaker 6: for me is what I call cluster contracts. So you
Speaker 6: have these big companies that bid on these major contracts,
Speaker 6: billion dollar contracts. If you're a small company, if you can,
Speaker 6: you can't bite off a billion dollars, but you could
Speaker 6: do about two hundred million right now, you're not permitted
Speaker 6: to participate. Instead, they give it to the big company,
Speaker 6: and they tell the big company, oh, give them ten percent.
Speaker 6: That ten percent rarely materialize it or it always goes
Speaker 6: to the same small company they've always given it to.
Speaker 6: I want to create what I call cluster contracts, letting
Speaker 6: two or three or four businesses come together to bid
Speaker 6: on that contract. So you have four companies that instead
Speaker 6: of all trying to compete for this one billion dollar contract,
Speaker 6: they instead get one hundred and fifty million, two fifty
Speaker 6: three fifty of that contract. But they can all grow
Speaker 6: at the same time, and they're hiring new people. And
Speaker 6: when you combine that with the small Business Investment Fund
Speaker 6: that can underwrite the capital risk, and you're directing technical
Speaker 6: assistance to make sure they can actually participate in the profit,
Speaker 6: says because if you've ever tried to bid on a
Speaker 6: state contract or even a city contract, procurement's hard. I
Speaker 6: was the lawyer for one of the lawyers for procurement
Speaker 6: at the City of Atlanta, and so for me, it's
Speaker 6: not just about what I know as an entrepreneur, it's
Speaker 6: also what I know as someone who's been on the
Speaker 6: delivery side of government, not just running for office, but
Speaker 6: actually having to do the work of making it happen.
Speaker 6: And so those are three big opportunities. I'm talking billions
Speaker 6: of dollars that can suddenly be in the hands and
Speaker 6: in the pockets of people of color, of black people
Speaker 6: in particular, because we're thirty three percent of the population,
Speaker 6: we're two point one percent of the business revenue in Georgia.
Speaker 2: So let me ask you this for education.
Speaker 3: I saw you was talking to a little baby the
Speaker 3: other day and you was kind of educating him on
Speaker 3: why a governor is so important. Can you just explain? So,
Speaker 3: there's no black governors currently, right, correct? All right, So
Speaker 3: there's no black governors currently in America, And from my understanding,
Speaker 3: correct me if I'm wrong. The reason why that's such
Speaker 3: a big issue and the reason why the governor is
Speaker 3: so important is that the governor really the most powerful
Speaker 3: person in the state because they control budgets, they control
Speaker 3: a lot of the state issues, even more so than
Speaker 3: state representatives or senators, and the president doesn't really have
Speaker 3: power on a state level. This is why, like COVID
Speaker 3: is so many different rules depending on which states you're in.
Speaker 3: So can you give us an education on why the
Speaker 3: governor is so important and why people need to pay
Speaker 3: more attention to who their governor is.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, So let's think about it this way. When we
Speaker 6: think about the structure of government, we have been trained
Speaker 6: to focus on the president because that's the most powerful
Speaker 6: job in the nation, and for black and brown people,
Speaker 6: it's also been incredibly important because states have often refused
Speaker 6: to acknowledge our citizenship, in our humanity. So let's I'll
Speaker 6: use three examples. Standard ground, the law that killed Trayvon Mark.
Speaker 6: That wasn't federal law, that was signed by the governor
Speaker 6: of Florida. That's how standard ground became. But once it
Speaker 6: happens in a state, it spreads like a contagion. So
Speaker 6: now you've got standard ground in Georgia and everywhere else.
Speaker 6: Number Two, mass incarceration did not start with the ninety
Speaker 6: four crime bill. Three Strikes Are Out was actually done
Speaker 6: by the governor of California in nineteen ninety four. The
Speaker 6: federal government decided to follow, but it started with the
Speaker 6: governor and Jim Crow. The stripping black people of humanity
Speaker 6: for one hundred and fifty years never had a single
Speaker 6: federal law. It was all state laws signed by governors.
Speaker 6: And so when we think about how our lives are lived,
Speaker 6: we think about the presidency because it's national, or the
Speaker 6: mayor because it's hyper local. But all the money that
Speaker 6: comes from the federal government comes through the state. The
Speaker 6: governor decides. All of the things your mayor wants to
Speaker 6: do in the South, especially in Georgia, has to be
Speaker 6: approved by If it's a big program, it has to
Speaker 6: be approved by the governor. One example is that in
Speaker 6: two thousand and three, I worked for Shirley Franklin. I
Speaker 6: wrote the first living wage law in the history of
Speaker 6: the state of Georgia. It would have guaranteed that any
Speaker 6: company doing business in Georgia had to pay a living wage.
Speaker 6: It could have transformed the economies of thousands of Georgians.
Speaker 6: We got that legislation through the city council, the mayor
Speaker 6: signed it, and the following January, the governor signed a
Speaker 6: law making it illegal for any city to pass a
Speaker 6: law guaranteeing a wage. That's what the state does. If
Speaker 6: you're worried about housing, the governor has to sign legislation
Speaker 6: that says that it's that local government has the authority
Speaker 6: to actually enforce housing rules and make sure that you
Speaker 6: can afford to live in the home that you live in.
Speaker 6: But for business owners. Where the governor is so incredibly
Speaker 6: important is that most of the decisions we think have
Speaker 6: to be made by committee and Georgia gets made by
Speaker 6: the governor. Right now, the governer of Georgia is spending
Speaker 6: billions of dollars. Every time you hear him announce money
Speaker 6: that's being that COVID money that's being spent. He doesn't
Speaker 6: have to ask a single person for permission. He decides
Speaker 6: by himself, with whoever he decides to bring in the room,
Speaker 6: how he wants to spend that money. So the question
Speaker 6: is whose name do you want to have on the checkbook.
Speaker 6: Someone who does not believe in investing in communities of color,
Speaker 6: someone who has never demonstrated any interest until it was
Speaker 6: election year, or someone who has come up the hard
Speaker 6: way through our business community and through our city and state,
Speaker 6: who has the knowledge and experience, but also now the
Speaker 6: authority to get good done. The shorthand is imagine Maynard
Speaker 6: Jackson and what he did for Atlanta. Imagine if he
Speaker 6: had been governor of Georgia. That's the kind of governor
Speaker 6: I could be.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
Speaker 5: So in order to have the right governor, you have
Speaker 5: to mobilize people to vote and one of the things
Speaker 5: that you did in general election, and rightfully so, we
Speaker 5: were credited with helping win Georgia and ultimately win in general.
Speaker 4: Lesson for Biden was getting people out.
Speaker 5: But when you get people out in numbers, certain things
Speaker 5: start to change, and you start to see more voter
Speaker 5: suppression and you see more voter discrimination.
Speaker 4: So my question to you is like, what do we
Speaker 4: do now?
Speaker 5: Right it feels like we have to press the reset
Speaker 5: to make sure that people understand the influence and impact
Speaker 5: that this is going to have.
Speaker 4: And so is there education around it?
Speaker 5: How are we telling the people the population of Georgia, like, hey,
Speaker 5: there are some changes, here's what you need to know
Speaker 5: before you go out.
Speaker 6: Well, most of my entrepreneurship has focused on business oriented
Speaker 6: things because I grew up poor. I didn't like it
Speaker 6: and don't ever want to do it again. I like
Speaker 6: being able to take care of myself and take care
Speaker 6: of my family. But I've also been very aggressive about
Speaker 6: nonprofit work and civic work. So I created the New
Speaker 6: Georgia Project. I'm no longer affiliated with it, but I
Speaker 6: launched the New Georgia Project in twenty thirteen. That's the
Speaker 6: organization that did a lot of the work on getting
Speaker 6: people registered. I created Fair Fight, which is the work
Speaker 6: that we've been doing to make sure that we have
Speaker 6: fair voting laws, or if their laws are not fair,
Speaker 6: that we know why they're not fair and we fight back.
Speaker 6: I created the organization's Fair Count Your account made certain
Speaker 6: that we had an accurate census for the first time
Speaker 6: in thirty years, actually counting black and brown folks, and
Speaker 6: it was the first year in almost thirty years we
Speaker 6: did not have a statistical undercount. And that matters to
Speaker 6: businesses because the money that comes to the state through
Speaker 6: the SBA and through all of these different grants and loans,
Speaker 6: it's all based on the accurate count of the people
Speaker 6: in your state. So when black people get under counted,
Speaker 6: we also get under resourced. So those are the groups
Speaker 6: I've started and part of what all of those groups
Speaker 6: are doing independent of me, independent of my campaign, but
Speaker 6: they are embedded in community making sure people understand what
Speaker 6: the voting laws are, what changed, what stayed the same,
Speaker 6: and why it matters. Separately, our campaign is doing that
Speaker 6: same work through our voter protection efforts. That's why we're
Speaker 6: urging people to vote early. We get three weeks of
Speaker 6: voting in joy to starting October seventeenth, because of how
Speaker 6: difficult these new laws are, because of the hurdles that
Speaker 6: Brian Kemp and Brad Rasenberger have put in place. Do
Speaker 6: not get distracted by the fact that they didn't commit treason.
Speaker 6: The same time they were not committing treason, they were
Speaker 6: also putting in more voter suppression laws. And because of
Speaker 6: those new voter suppression laws, we need folks to vote
Speaker 6: early to get it out of the way. In Georgia,
Speaker 6: we have the number one likelihood of having long lines
Speaker 6: in black communities up to eight hours, and so if
Speaker 6: we want people to be able to vote, we need
Speaker 6: to get our votes banked. We need to get it
Speaker 6: done and get on with our lives. And that means
Speaker 6: voting as much as possible, as early as possible. And
Speaker 6: when I say as much as possible, I mean getting
Speaker 6: as many people as possible.
Speaker 7: Nobody should vote more than once. I don't want to
Speaker 7: want to take me out of context.
Speaker 8: So what words of encouragement do you have for the
Speaker 8: citizens of Georgia who may feel as if no matter
Speaker 8: what they do, if they vote early or they bring
Speaker 8: friends with them, it won't have an impact on the outcome.
Speaker 6: I have proven that it matters. In twenty eighteen, I
Speaker 6: didn't become governor by fifty four thousand, seven hundred and
Speaker 6: twenty three votes.
Speaker 8: That's two concerts exactly.
Speaker 7: That's two concerts. And there were enough people.
Speaker 6: Now, there were a lot of people who tried to
Speaker 6: vote who weren't allowed to participate in our elections, but
Speaker 6: there were a lot more people who didn't think their
Speaker 6: voices mattered. And it's a truism, but if your voice
Speaker 6: didn't matter, they wouldn't be working so hard to stop
Speaker 6: you from being hurt. True, But the other part of
Speaker 6: it is, and it's a legitimate critique. For a lot
Speaker 6: of folks, they've never seen their lives change. It didn't
Speaker 6: really matter who got elected because their lives stayed the same.
Speaker 6: You've never had anyone like me running for office. What
Speaker 6: I like to describe is not what I did before
Speaker 6: I ran. But when I didn't win, I still made
Speaker 6: sure that I helped pay off the medical debt of
Speaker 6: sixty eight thousand Georgians, especially people who want to start
Speaker 6: their own businesses, because we know that medical debt often
Speaker 6: stops you from being able to do anything. I made
Speaker 6: sure that people got access to the COVID vaccine. I
Speaker 6: started at a company that was moving millions of dollars
Speaker 6: to small businesses. I made sure that if you were
Speaker 6: on EBT, when you weren't getting the stimulus checks, that
Speaker 6: we got a thousand dollars check written to a bunch
Speaker 6: of families across Georgia who weren't getting the money they needed.
Speaker 6: That's what I do when I don't have the job.
Speaker 6: Imagine what I would do if I had the job.
Speaker 6: So I'm not asking people to forget what they know.
Speaker 6: I'm asking them to believe what they see. Yes, the
Speaker 6: current governor reopened the state, but he also passed a
Speaker 6: law making it illegal for anyone who got harmed any
Speaker 6: essential worker to sue their boss for not having protection.
Speaker 6: We have one of the highest rates of death from
Speaker 6: COVID in the nation, and so yes, some people benefited,
Speaker 6: but most of our businesses didn't get a dime of PPP.
Speaker 6: He got money. He gave a six hundred and ninety
Speaker 6: four million dollar contract to his friends for giving him
Speaker 6: money in his campaign. My mission has been and always
Speaker 6: will be, how do you invest in people to make
Speaker 6: sure they thrive? Because I've been at the bottom and
Speaker 6: I don't want to be there, and I don't think
Speaker 6: anyone else needs to be there. If you're willing to
Speaker 6: work for it, my mission is to work with you.
Speaker 6: But I've got to get the job first, and that's
Speaker 6: why I need folks to show up.
Speaker 3: Let let me ask you this something that's very hot
Speaker 3: in the news, Joe Biden's President Biden's plan to get
Speaker 3: rid of student loans for ten thousand dollars if you
Speaker 3: make under one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars a year,
Speaker 3: and twenty thousand dollars for pelgrant recipients for the same
Speaker 3: income threshold.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of controversial.
Speaker 3: Of course, some people are saying that, you know, they
Speaker 3: don't want to pay for somebody else's college education, is
Speaker 3: government handouts, different things of that nature. Some people are
Speaker 3: saying that it's not enough money, is not fully really
Speaker 3: going to impact Black America in a way that it
Speaker 3: should because it's not enough. What is your thoughts on
Speaker 3: a student loan crisis? And what is your thoughts on
Speaker 3: what he proposed, and what is some ideas that you have.
Speaker 6: So I begin with my faith values. I don't begrudge
Speaker 6: another person's blessing that ten thousand dollars, that twenty thousand
Speaker 6: dollars can be the difference between someone else's child being
Speaker 6: able to get an education and rise out of poverty.
Speaker 6: That can be the difference between someone being able to
Speaker 6: take care of their family member who has cancer. I
Speaker 6: want people to be able to have those blessings. And
Speaker 6: I paid off my student loans. I paid them off
Speaker 6: in January of twenty nineteen. I know the relief I felt,
Speaker 6: but I also know the burden I carried for years
Speaker 6: when I indeed had to make choices between paying my
Speaker 6: student loans and taking care of my family. And so
Speaker 6: I don't begrudge a person getting access to those resources. It,
Speaker 6: of course, is not enough, because we have a broken
Speaker 6: system in this country. When my parents were going through
Speaker 6: college even though they weren't able to fully leverage it
Speaker 6: because they were they grew up during Jim Crow, those.
Speaker 4: Earners. What's up?
Speaker 5: You ever walk into a small business and everything just
Speaker 5: works like the checkout is fast, the receipts are digital,
Speaker 5: tipping is a breeze, and you're out the door before
Speaker 5: the line even builds. Odds are they're using Square? We
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Speaker 9: Coach, the energy out there felt different. What changed for
Speaker 9: the team today?
Speaker 5: It was the new game day scratches from the California
Speaker 5: Lottery players.
Speaker 2: Everything. Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.
Speaker 9: Are you saying it was the off field play that
Speaker 9: made the difference on the field.
Speaker 5: Hey, little play makes your day, and today it made
Speaker 5: the game that's off of now, Coach.
Speaker 9: One more question played the new Los Angeles Chargers, San
Speaker 9: Francisco forty nine ers and Los Angeles Rams scratchers from
Speaker 9: the California Lottery. A little play can make your day.
Speaker 9: Peasly responsibly, it must be eighteen years or older to
Speaker 9: purchase plate or claim.
Speaker 6: The ability to go to college was not the difference
Speaker 6: between your future and not having the future. But it
Speaker 6: also wasn't mortgaging your future. And so we have to
Speaker 6: tackle the broken nature of student debt in the United States.
Speaker 6: But this is an important start and it is more
Speaker 6: than we had the day before, and that's critical to me.
Speaker 6: But what we have to layer on top of it
Speaker 6: is the fact that for many black and a lot
Speaker 6: of black folks, that money's going to matter because we
Speaker 6: are more likely to finish, to be in debt but
Speaker 6: not have the degree to go with it. And so
Speaker 6: while it is not enough, it is more than we have,
Speaker 6: and it is substantial because we're also more likely to
Speaker 6: qualify for the twenty thousand than the ten thousand, because
Speaker 6: more of our people are in that bracket where we
Speaker 6: were also relying on pelgrams. And I say week as
Speaker 6: I was. But what I want to do for Georgia
Speaker 6: is layer on top of that by making sure we're
Speaker 6: not creating a deeper hole. And that's why I want
Speaker 6: to restore free technical college in the state of Georgia
Speaker 6: once the Hope Scholarship was created. Between the creation of
Speaker 6: the Hope Scholarship and twenty eleven, technical college was free.
Speaker 7: Because we had to save the Hope.
Speaker 6: Scholarship from economic ruin, we had to decrease the award
Speaker 6: for what was called the Hope grant, But we now
Speaker 6: have a billion dollars sitting in an unrestricted, unreserved fund
Speaker 6: that could be used right now to do exactly what
Speaker 6: we used to do, and that helps a lot of
Speaker 6: black and brown folks, especially a lot of black folks
Speaker 6: throughout the state of Georgia. So I want to restore that.
Speaker 6: Number Two, I want to create need based aid in Georgia.
Speaker 6: Georgia is one of only two states in the country
Speaker 6: that does not provide need based aid, the only one
Speaker 6: in the South, which means if you want to see
Speaker 6: your way to college, you better not have a C average.
Speaker 6: That should not be the choice. And for black students
Speaker 6: in Georgia, black students are the least likely to get
Speaker 6: hope and the most likely to lose hope. But if
Speaker 6: we had need based aid, we could fill in the
Speaker 6: gap that when you tie that to what's happening on
Speaker 6: the federal level, creates new opportunity. But the way to
Speaker 6: pay for it is critical, and that is that I
Speaker 6: want to use that unrestricted money that we already have.
Speaker 6: But I also want to expand gaming in Georgia, sports
Speaker 6: betting and casinos. That would generate three hundred and fifty
Speaker 6: million dollars a year upwards in order to invest in
Speaker 6: that education. And since it is our people who are
Speaker 6: spending money in the lottery, but we are the least
Speaker 6: likely to see the benefit, let's make certain that if
Speaker 6: we're going to have gaming, that our people benefit from
Speaker 6: that process. And that's my plan is the next cup.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm glad that we brought up education, and obviously
Speaker 5: freeing technical schools and teaching people's skills are very important.
Speaker 5: One of the things that are there and dear to
Speaker 5: me and I'm glad you brought it up, was increasing
Speaker 5: the pay for teachers. Yes, increasing the pay for teachers
Speaker 5: the most important job in the world. Everybody was taught,
Speaker 5: and everybody learned at some point throughout their life.
Speaker 4: They definitely went to school.
Speaker 5: So can you talk about that, because I know that
Speaker 5: was one of the things that you've been talking about
Speaker 5: throughout your campaign, increasing the pay for teachers but also
Speaker 5: lowering the cost for healthcare for over five hundred thousand Georgians.
Speaker 4: Can you talk about how we get to that point?
Speaker 6: Absolutely so, in Georgia we pay teachers who are starting
Speaker 6: out less than they make in Mississippi. Now, I grew
Speaker 6: up in Mississippi, that doesn't make any sense that Mississippi
Speaker 6: can afford to pay more, but Georgia can't. My opponent,
Speaker 6: the current governor, has said that he gave them five
Speaker 6: thousand dollars over four years, and that's enough. I will
Speaker 6: tell you it's not enough, because in real dollar terms,
Speaker 6: teachers today make less money than they made twenty years ago,
Speaker 6: so the purchasing power of that do dollars less. I
Speaker 6: want to write size their salaries by making sure that
Speaker 6: the starting salary in Georgia by the end of my
Speaker 6: term is fifty thousand dollars. And at the same time,
Speaker 6: I want to increase pay for all educators by an
Speaker 6: average of eleven thousand dollars. That means that we really
Speaker 6: truly create a meaningful change in their wages that is sustainable.
Speaker 6: I also want to make certain we're giving that same
Speaker 6: We're giving similar pay raises, although it's got to be
Speaker 6: done a little differently because they're paid by the school
Speaker 6: district and not by the state. But we need to
Speaker 6: increase pay for para professionals, for school bus drivers, for
Speaker 6: cafeteria workers. You shouldn't work to educate our children and
Speaker 6: still be in poverty. That doesn't make any sense, and
Speaker 6: it is a solvable problem. At the same time, we
Speaker 6: know the other biggest driver of economic need in economic
Speaker 6: paucity in Georgia, and the best way to financial freedom
Speaker 6: is having insurance. Right now, health insurance is being denied
Speaker 6: to people who are making nine dollars an hour or less,
Speaker 6: and when you are starting your own small business, you
Speaker 6: probably can't afford health insurance for yourself, let alone for
Speaker 6: your employees. Well, in Georgia, we are forfeiting three point
Speaker 6: five billion dollars every year that we've already paid for,
Speaker 6: but that the governor refuses to bring to the state
Speaker 6: if we expand Medicaid, working people who make too much
Speaker 6: money to qualify for regular Medicaid because for regular Medicaid
Speaker 6: you got to be not only completely broke, but you
Speaker 6: also have to have a dependent or be disabled, or
Speaker 6: be a senior, or you have to be able to
Speaker 6: buy into the affordable care I buy into obamacareing and
Speaker 6: you have to make a not a lot, but a
Speaker 6: lot more money than those making nine dollars an hour.
Speaker 6: Do I want to get that population? Those are our
Speaker 6: students who are finishing college, but they aren't on their parents' insurance,
Speaker 6: and they need insurance. And if we ever thought that
Speaker 6: you didn't need insurance if you were young, Let's think
Speaker 6: about COVID, let's think about monkey pocks. But I also
Speaker 6: want those folks who are starting their business, who want
Speaker 6: to quit their job but can't afford to leave because
Speaker 6: they can't afford to lose their health insurance, and so
Speaker 6: their dreams die because they can't afford to go. If
Speaker 6: we expand medicaid, we can do all of that, and
Speaker 6: we can pay for both of these things. Medicaid is
Speaker 6: two ninety seven two hundred ninety seven million a year,
Speaker 6: and to overall do the salary increases is four hundred
Speaker 6: million dollars. We have a five billion dollars surplus in Georgia.
Speaker 6: Once we paid every bill, once we have put money
Speaker 6: into our savings account fifteen percent, once we've accounted for
Speaker 6: growth in population, we have five to six billion dollars
Speaker 6: just sitting there. My opponent says that he wants to
Speaker 6: do tax cuts. What he means is he wants to
Speaker 6: give tax breaks to the wealthiest Georgians. Because the average
Speaker 6: Georgian will see one hundred and ninety three dollars, the
Speaker 6: wealthiest Georgans will see ten thousand dollars or more. I
Speaker 6: want to instead pay our teachers, pay for health care,
Speaker 6: save the Atlanta Medical Center, keep doctors in our state,
Speaker 6: invest in small businesses, all of the things I'm talking about.
Speaker 6: He wants to give the money to the wealthy. I
Speaker 6: want to spend the money on the people. And we
Speaker 6: can do every single thing I'm talking about without raising
Speaker 6: a dime in taxes. And if you don't trust me,
Speaker 6: go to my website. I'm a big old nerd. We
Speaker 6: have a spreadsheet on my website that walks you through
Speaker 6: how the math works. We can absolutely do this.
Speaker 8: I remember in two thousand and seven, I was in
Speaker 8: Midtown when the last big recession hit, driving to Norcross
Speaker 8: and remembering how fearful I was about when the recession
Speaker 8: was going to end. Tying to your last point, can
Speaker 8: you talk to us about the dangers of the economy
Speaker 8: in Georgia and how it would be impacted negatively if
Speaker 8: you don't win as governor and some of the things
Speaker 8: your opponent plans to do and plans to cut if
Speaker 8: he wins.
Speaker 7: So let's look back to what he did before.
Speaker 6: Rafael Warnock, John Ossoff and our Democrats in Congress billions
Speaker 6: of dollars to the state of Georgia. He slashed one
Speaker 6: billion dollars from education. He cut the criminal justice reform programs,
Speaker 6: the recidivism programs, the diversion programs. He cut resources for education,
Speaker 6: for healthcare. His response to need is not to solve
Speaker 6: the problem. It's to blame the victim. He wants to
Speaker 6: pick your pockets instead of putting money in your pockets. Now,
Speaker 6: he likes to talk broadly about who he benefits, but
Speaker 6: if you look at the numbers, the people who were
Speaker 6: falling are still falling. The people who are holding on
Speaker 6: are holding on by their fingernails, and he refuses to
Speaker 6: invest in their success. Let's look at housing. Georgia has
Speaker 6: an affordable housing crisis. We're only the eighth largest state,
Speaker 6: but we are number three in eviction filings and number
Speaker 6: four in actual evictions. And this isn't just Atlanta, this
Speaker 6: is across the state. I was down in Thomasville and
Speaker 6: they wanted to talk about the eviction rate down there.
Speaker 7: So this is a statewide issue.
Speaker 6: Well, the governor's respond is to spend sixty two million
Speaker 6: dollars on homelessness programs. He will not invest in actually
Speaker 6: building the two hundred and seven thousand units of affordable
Speaker 6: housing that we need. He will not work with our
Speaker 6: local governments to let them right size rent and inclusionary zoning.
Speaker 6: And so the current governor does not believe it's his
Speaker 6: job to help Georgia. His job is to have the headlines,
Speaker 6: not to read the fine print. My mission is the
Speaker 6: fine print. And if we have a recession, if we
Speaker 6: have taken that five billion dollars and just given it
Speaker 6: to the wealthy, then everybody else is going to pay
Speaker 6: for it, because that's what.
Speaker 7: Happens every single time.
Speaker 6: But if we keep that money, it's like making a
Speaker 6: balloon payment on your mortgage. We can put in a
Speaker 6: balloon payment for the state that helps build all of
Speaker 6: these things I'm talking about. So if something does happen,
Speaker 6: we've already built it into the budget. We're no longer
Speaker 6: paying extraordinary interests. We're just paying principle. That's what this
Speaker 6: could be used for. I want to do a balloon
Speaker 6: payment for Georgia so that if we get hit by
Speaker 6: a recession our natural resources, the money we're going to make,
Speaker 6: no matter what, will be enough to cover everything I'm
Speaker 6: talking about without raising taxes. But Also, we won't dip
Speaker 6: so low because we're suddenly seeing catastrophic effects on the
Speaker 6: poorest people because all of us pay the bill. Poverty
Speaker 6: isn't free. All of us pay for it. And I'm
Speaker 6: the only person with a plan to make sure we
Speaker 6: do enough upfront that when it hits, we're ready for
Speaker 6: it and we can all get through it.
Speaker 2: Can you talk about the supplier diversity proposal.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So part of the supplier diversity initiative is that
Speaker 6: the state spends billions of dollars every single year buying services.
Speaker 6: Right now, you'll hear some folks who can get the
Speaker 6: janitorial service, or they'll get hired to provide paper. I
Speaker 6: want to make sure we're also hiring lawyers, that we're
Speaker 6: hiring financiers, that we're hiring from every strata. But I
Speaker 6: also want to make certain it's not just certain departments.
Speaker 6: The Department of Aging has to buy something, let's make
Speaker 6: sure they're buying from people who look like Georgia. When
Speaker 6: the Department of Behavioral Health has to hire, let's make
Speaker 6: certain when they are buying and purchasing, no matter which
Speaker 6: agency it is, they need to be looking at the
Speaker 6: diversity of their supply chain, especially dot dot is going
Speaker 6: to get billions of dollars every year now because of
Speaker 6: the bipartisan Infrastructure Plan that those billions of dollars right
Speaker 6: now are going ninety percent to majority owned firms, not
Speaker 6: to minority owned firms. These are billions of dollars that
Speaker 6: we help bring here because we participated in these elections
Speaker 6: and we are half of the state. The same thing
Speaker 6: is true with the Infrastructure Reduction Act, the Inflation Reduction Act.
Speaker 6: The Inflation Reduction Act is going to send billions to
Speaker 6: the State of Georgia. But right now there's nothing to
Speaker 6: say that businesses of color, that black businesses get any
Speaker 6: of those contracts. And the response from the governors, he'll
Speaker 6: look at it, well, they've been looking at this for
Speaker 6: forty years. They've never managed to do anything. I say,
Speaker 6: hire somebody who's actually proven shall do the work.
Speaker 4: Ah Royalty Royalty, indeed, Stacy Abrams.
Speaker 5: When in January, when you want to see, I'm interested
Speaker 5: in knowing because I'm sure you haven't planned out what
Speaker 5: are the first thirty days look like.
Speaker 4: What initiatives are you putting in place right away?
Speaker 5: What are some things that you're going to overturn that
Speaker 5: you know are not going to work for the state anymore.
Speaker 6: Number One, my first initiative is Medicaid expansion. Medicaid expansion
Speaker 6: is the single largest economic development program in Georgia history.
Speaker 6: If you think about Rivian, he's going to spend about
Speaker 6: one point five billion dollars to build electric cars. And
Speaker 6: that's good, and that's going to create thousands of jobs,
Speaker 6: but it's going to be localized in Monroe County. It's
Speaker 6: going to be localized to those who can get jobs
Speaker 6: in that industry. If we expand Medicaid, we create sixty
Speaker 6: four thousand jobs across the state. And here's the way
Speaker 6: to think about it. The jobs are going where the
Speaker 6: people who don't have insurance are. So it's going to
Speaker 6: absolutely get to every part of the state, and it's
Speaker 6: going to get to the communities in the state that
Speaker 6: have not had access, because those are the folks who
Speaker 6: suddenly are going to have the health insurance. They need
Speaker 6: to get mental health care, to get physical health care.
Speaker 6: And when those new doctors come in, they're gonna need
Speaker 6: to go eat somewhere. So somebody who started their small restaurant,
Speaker 6: they're going to suddenly have customers. We're going to need pharmacists.
Speaker 6: We're gonna need construction. Medicaid expansion is number one. Number two,
Speaker 6: I am going to repeal criminal carry. We know that
Speaker 6: that law has made Georgia less safe, and particularly for
Speaker 6: black men. I want you to all think about what
Speaker 6: that law means. By removing that permit, that means if
Speaker 6: you get pulled over, you don't get the presumption that
Speaker 6: you have the right to carry that concealed weapon, and
Speaker 6: you can't pull out your permit to show them that
Speaker 6: it's yours. You are presumed guilty by and large if
Speaker 6: that happens. That's the worry I have. But it's also
Speaker 6: true that we've got stories right now of people wandering
Speaker 6: down the street by our schools open carrying weapons. We
Speaker 6: have removed the background checks that used to happen with
Speaker 6: private sales and gun sales. That's with that constitutional carry,
Speaker 6: which is a lie. What criminal carry did was strip
Speaker 6: away a background check that protected us from eleven thousand
Speaker 6: people who shouldn't have had those weapons. Number Three, I'm
Speaker 6: going to repeal the ban on abortion after six weeks.
Speaker 6: And this should mattered to every person, whether you whether
Speaker 6: you're a woman or not, because in the state of
Speaker 6: Georgia women are now told you have to decide about
Speaker 6: your pregnancy before you know you're pregnant. And this has
Speaker 6: economic effects across the board, and in particular, Black women
Speaker 6: are most likely to die from maternal mortality issues than
Speaker 6: any other race, and it is worse in Georgia than
Speaker 6: it is in any other state. And Brian Kemp is
Speaker 6: refusing to act. In fact, he said he's going he
Speaker 6: doesn't believe there's the exemptions for rape or incest. We
Speaker 6: have to understand that when a woman is forced to
Speaker 6: carry an unwanted pregnancy to term, the likelihood of her
Speaker 6: going into poverty increases, I think by by forty percent.
Speaker 6: The likelihood of her being on food stamps within four
Speaker 6: years or within five years goes up dramatically. This has
Speaker 6: real economic effect, but it also is costing us jobs.
Speaker 6: The gun law costs US fifty million dollars because music
Speaker 6: Midtown is not here in george We I know Antoine
Speaker 6: Fuqua pulled a movie out of Georgia with the when
Speaker 6: the voting rights law came through.
Speaker 7: Think about all.
Speaker 6: Of the different films that won't come to Georgia because
Speaker 6: women are like, I'm not coming here because I don't
Speaker 6: know what's going to happen to me on a year
Speaker 6: long shoot. We are risking a four billion dollar industry.
Speaker 6: And for people who say, well, no, we're all set.
Speaker 6: We've got Perry Studios and we've got you know, the
Speaker 6: studio in Fayetteville, Let's remember Georgia got the film industry
Speaker 6: by taking it from Michigan and from North Carolina when
Speaker 6: they got Republicans. Y'all may not be old enough to
Speaker 6: remember Dawson's Creek, but I remember when everything we saw
Speaker 6: on TV was filmed in North Carolina.
Speaker 7: So what happened?
Speaker 6: They got a Republican governor who started doing very hardcore
Speaker 6: right wing things, and the money and the business left.
Speaker 6: If we don't think it can leave Georgia, we're not
Speaker 6: paying attention.
Speaker 8: I truly think you can be a lynch pin for
Speaker 8: not only a change in Georgia but throughout the United
Speaker 8: States of America. What are the three things we can
Speaker 8: do in our audience can do to support you to
Speaker 8: make sure that you win.
Speaker 6: It's number one. Talk about this conversation. There's a notion
Speaker 6: that there is an enthusiasm. It's not that there's no enthusiasm,
Speaker 6: it's that people don't trust.
Speaker 7: We've had a long.
Speaker 6: Six years and people are just they're exhausted. But I
Speaker 6: need folks to understand the importance of what a governor
Speaker 6: can do and how it can change the future of
Speaker 6: our state. And so number one, and I need you
Speaker 6: to talk to your friends, your family about this race
Speaker 6: and about why this race matters. Number two, I need
Speaker 6: you to make a plan to vote. Don't think, oh yeah,
Speaker 6: I'm a vote, I'm going to vote, write it down.
Speaker 6: Make a plan because life happens, and when life happens,
Speaker 6: I lose if y'all haven't made a plan. So make
Speaker 6: a plan to vote. And then number three, go to
Speaker 6: our website and sign up be a volunteer if we
Speaker 6: can use all the help we can get, because part
Speaker 6: of it is reaching the people who don't know that
Speaker 6: they should be listening to this amazing podcast, who don't
Speaker 6: know that they have a chance to start their own business,
Speaker 6: who don't understand what their real opportunities could look like
Speaker 6: if there was a governor who saw them as opportunity
Speaker 6: and not as a burden. My mission is for every
Speaker 6: Georgian to thrive. And that's not a slogan, that's a
Speaker 6: mission statement. Everything I have done in my life is
Speaker 6: geared towards lifting our communities up. And so if you
Speaker 6: will sign up to work with our campaign, if you're
Speaker 6: an influencer, if you're a creative, if you are someone
Speaker 6: who has four minutes off and you want to make
Speaker 6: a few phone calls for us, or knock some doors
Speaker 6: in your neighborhood, whatever it is, if you go to
Speaker 6: Stacyabrams dot com slash volunteer, we can use you. We
Speaker 6: need your help because we can win this race. And
Speaker 6: this is the last thing I'll say about it. You're
Speaker 6: going to see a lot in the polls. The polls
Speaker 6: are based on the last election. They look at the
Speaker 6: model from what happened before. The way we win, the
Speaker 6: way I've won three different races, Biden's race, Warnocks race,
Speaker 6: Assos race is by thinking about what's possible. If business
Speaker 6: owners only ever did what was already done, we'd never
Speaker 6: have entrepreneurship. My mission is to think about what we
Speaker 6: can create, and we can create an electorate that is
Speaker 6: so electrified and so engaged that the numbers can't see
Speaker 6: them until we show up.
Speaker 7: And that's what I need you guys to help me do.
Speaker 2: Thank you. It's been on a pleasure. When is the
Speaker 2: election day?
Speaker 6: The election is on November eighth, but early voting starts
Speaker 6: on October sixth. Sorry, October seventeenth is the start of
Speaker 6: early voting. Election day is November eighth. Make a plan
Speaker 6: to vote, vote as early as you can, and let's
Speaker 6: get this done.
Speaker 4: Listen, little if little Baby is not available, you have
Speaker 4: our number. We're there for you.
Speaker 7: I'm gonna remind y all y'all said that for sure.
Speaker 2: For sure.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you, keep up the great work, and yes,
Speaker 3: feel free to come back whenever you will like.
Speaker 7: Thank you so much, and thank you for what you
Speaker 7: all do. It truly matters.
Speaker 2: Thank you, I appreciation, Thank you.
Speaker 7: Take care.
Speaker 8: Wow, everyone, right now, write down a date in the
Speaker 8: chat for when you're going to go vote.
Speaker 4: Please write a date down.
Speaker 8: That was an amazing conversation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, very rare.
Speaker 2: So yeah.
Speaker 3: I think it's important to have those conversations and people
Speaker 3: can make a decision for themselves. I personally want to
Speaker 3: kind of stay a political because I think we have
Speaker 3: we have a journalistic responsibility not to necessarily pick a candidate.
Speaker 3: But I definitely like her, for sure, But I just
Speaker 3: think it's our responsibility to deliver the information, and she's
Speaker 3: she's a very important person, and she's she could potentially
Speaker 3: be one of the most important people in the world,
Speaker 3: world leader, I said, the governor. Governors have a lot
Speaker 3: of power, but especially a state like Georgia, which is
Speaker 3: has the largest airport in America, thriving economy, Atlanta, a
Speaker 3: variety of different things. So if you're if you're the
Speaker 3: governor of the state of Georgia, you're one of the
Speaker 3: most powerful people in America. And if you're one of
Speaker 3: the most powerful people in America, you're one of the
Speaker 3: most powerful people in the world. So that's that's that's impressive.
Speaker 3: So yeah, you know, I just strongly encourage everybody to
Speaker 3: just be more politically active because it comes down to business.
Speaker 3: And this is a business show, investing show, but it
Speaker 3: all it's all related. So you know, you talk about politics,
Speaker 3: especially on the local levels. So your governor, your town supervisor,
Speaker 3: your mayor, your town work, all of that stuff is important.
Speaker 3: So you should, you know, you should, you should participate
Speaker 3: in the political process. I'm not going to tell you
Speaker 3: who to vote for. I'm not going to tell you
Speaker 3: which party to vote for, but I think that you
Speaker 3: should be engaged, and I think that you should participate
Speaker 3: because if you don't, there's still going to be elections.
Speaker 3: Somebody's still gonna win, and they're still going to have
Speaker 3: a say over you know, you and your family's life
Speaker 3: on a certain level as far as you know different
Speaker 3: policies and different things of that nature. So it's important
Speaker 3: to be aware and to participate.
Speaker 5: I think you said it right, politically active, but also
Speaker 5: politically aware.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: So we know Stacy Averans is running for the governor
Speaker 5: of Georgia, but there's plenty of people who don't live
Speaker 5: in Georgia who have no idea who' running for governor
Speaker 5: in their own state, or who's running for the local
Speaker 5: official in their own city or town superprise in their
Speaker 5: own town.
Speaker 4: And so just being aware of these things can alleviate
Speaker 4: a lot.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: Once you're aware, now you can educate yourself. Now you
Speaker 4: can make a decision.
Speaker 5: It's one of those things in teaching, it was like
Speaker 5: I'm never going to especially in health, I would always
Speaker 5: tell kids like, I'm never going to tell you what
Speaker 5: to do it, but not to do I'm gonna give
Speaker 5: you all the inter I know as much as possible,
Speaker 5: and I'll let you make your own decision because that's
Speaker 5: what's going to happen anyway, and you're going to make
Speaker 5: your own decision.
Speaker 4: So yeah, man, political awareness and activeness.
Speaker 8: I think a lot of times people in business don't
Speaker 8: think about the ramifications of the political landscape. But from
Speaker 8: entrepreneurs and business owners, I want you to look at
Speaker 8: this as if, like, honestly, dispersement of capital from governments
Speaker 8: was originally the first venture capital firms. So the same
Speaker 8: way you would know about Andres and Horowitz, the same
Speaker 8: way you would know about a lot of companies in
Speaker 8: Silicon Valley. You have to know what's going on in
Speaker 8: the political process. Even for me, when I moved to Texas,
Speaker 8: there was like no state income tax and I was
Speaker 8: living in Colorado. I'm like, I need to make an
Speaker 8: adjustment because I can project future earnings.
Speaker 4: So I think we need to.
Speaker 8: Put a little bit more focus on that political process,
Speaker 8: how money is disperson on what's happening in shout out
Speaker 8: to Spike Lee zooming in on me, I don't know,
Speaker 8: kind of way feature I don't know. I got to
Speaker 8: figure out like this magic wand thing. But for the
Speaker 8: close up, we have to figure out the process and
Speaker 8: make it a part of our business metrics because sometimes
Speaker 8: we may have to move to another state or be
Speaker 8: aware what's coming in the pipeline. So it's incredibly important
Speaker 8: for you to be aware of this political process. Even
Speaker 8: though you may not think it has an effect on
Speaker 8: your business, it definitely does.
Speaker 3: My graduates from my school being forced bad drop bag,
Speaker 3: drop drop.
Speaker 6: Drop.
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