It’s Friday!  Memory Lane Through the years, the Georgia Public Policy Foundation has presented the Freedom Award to  Georgians who have exemplified the principles of private enterprise and personal integrity. The photograph shows the 1995 recipient, Griffin Bell. The first recipient was U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in 1993, two years after the Foundation was established. The most recent was Georgia businessman, philanthropist and motivational speaker Sunny K. Park, in 2020. This year the Foundation celebrates 30 years of Changing Georgia Policy, Changing Georgians’ Lives. Quotes of note “Too … Continue Reading →

By Kyle Wingfield The calendar flipped to May and, in my world at least, folks began to party like it’s 2019. In the past week, I’ve been to a restaurant where the waiters didn’t wear masks, a 40th birthday party with people who (gasp!) I didn’t even know, and a dinner event with a few dozen people. All credit to the warp-speed vaccines and the companies that developed them. Now, if you live in many parts of Georgia not called Atlanta, you may wonder what took so long. I have … Continue Reading →

It’s Friday!  Memory Lane The Friday Facts traces its beginnings to the days of the facsimile machine, or fax. As shown in this 2004 edition, it was initially called the Friday Fax and sent only to Foundation members. Thanks to the internet, today the Friday Facts is accessible to anyone with a computer or smartphone, and is archived on the Foundation website. Sign up here today to get the Friday Facts in your mailbox. Founded in 1991, the Foundation celebrates its 30th anniversary this year! Quotes of note “Note, besides, … Continue Reading →

By Kyle Wingfield Being focused primarily on what happens in Georgia, it can be easy to miss important developments elsewhere. But when it comes to expanding educational options, other states keep rubbing it in my face. Our General Assembly did pass some modest improvements to school-choice programs this year, expanding the Special Needs Scholarship to additional students and moving public charter schools closer to funding parity with other public schools. But the largest proposed expansion, a bill to create education scholarship accounts, advanced out of the House Education Committee but … Continue Reading →

By Kyle Wingfield The spring real-estate season is upon us, and prices are blooming – er, booming. The Georgia Association of Realtors reported the state’s median home selling price in March was $260,000, almost 12% higher than a year earlier. For single-family homes, the figures were slightly higher. Within metro Atlanta, the real-estate firm Re/Max reported March figures of just over $309,000 for the median home selling price, up a whopping one-sixth from a year ago. The explanation across the board is fairly simple: too little supply. Listings of existing … Continue Reading →

It’s Friday! Get the facts: Friday’s Freshest: In the latest Georgia Policy commentary, Senior Fellow Ron Bachman proposes that a potential roadmap for health reform can be found right in your garage: “Auto insurance has paved the way for health reform to follow. Nobody has suggested auto insurance is liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat. Auto insurance is bipartisan and non-partisan, universally available and mandatory in all but two states (Virginia and New Hampshire). … “The basic principles everybody accepts and welcomes in auto insurance, then, are choice, rewards and … Continue Reading →

By Kyle Wingfield College students in Georgia got good news this past week, as the Board of Regents froze tuition and fees at the state’s public colleges and universities for the second year in a row. The news also helps explain why a popular national narrative about college costs and student debt is so wrong-headed. The regents’ decision means in-state tuition and fees for a semester at the state’s most expensive public college, Georgia Tech, will remain $6,426. That’s just under $13,000 for a traditional, two-semester academic year, or about … Continue Reading →

Hayley McCloud has joined the staff of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation as External Affairs Manager. McCloud comes to the Foundation from the Office of the Georgia Secretary of State, where she had worked since July 2019, most recently as Legislative Director. Her previous positions include Special Projects Coordinator at the Independent Insurance Agents of Georgia; Senior Manager of State Affairs for the American College of Rheumatology, Political Field Representative for the Georgia Association of REALTORS®; and Legislative Correspondent/Field Representative for (then) U.S. Rep. Tom Price of Georgia. “We’re excited … Continue Reading →