We are committed to being a voice for reasonable, everyday South Carolinians who want to see their children, grandchildren, and communities set up for success. Three of the main policy priorities driving our Thriving Communities principle this year include:
1. Improving Public Education
We believe the future of our state depends on the quality education and consistent support of our youth. Unfortunately, data shows that South Carolina is falling short due to small decisions made by legislators every day that lead to a wide deficit in childhood learning and development.
We believe legislators need to focus on fixing the public education system (ranked #44 across the nation), increasing teacher pay, minimizing the performance gap, diversifying life and career preparation programs, and improving college degree affordability.
We believe the path to a successful future starts early and never ends, so it is important that South Carolina legislators work to ensure high quality, accessible, and affordable childcare to parents and families from infancy through pre-kindergarten.
2. Improving Access to High Quality, Affordable Healthcare
We believe good health is the most important indicator of a thriving community, that healthcare needs to be just as proactive as it is reactive, and that our healthcare system is overdue for an overhaul to improve the lives of all South Carolinians.
We believe our legislators must work together to ensure quality healthcare, medication, and insurance, are widely accessible and affordable to all South Carolinians, no matter the demographic makeup of their county, zip code, or household. To do this, we believe making South Carolina attractive to doctors, pediatricians, OB-GYNs and mental health professionals must be a priority.
We believe our legislators must look to and collaborate with medical experts to redesign our system to be more transformational and less transactional across the full spectrum of care - from health promotion, to diagnosis and treatment, to rehabilitation and long-term care.
3. Promoting Economic Growth
We believe the vast majority of the problems facing our nation and state are due the two-party emphasis on money and power above humanity and compassion. We have to get our priorities straight if we're going to set the next generation up for success.
We believe in a human-centered form of capitalism, one that encourages competition and growth, but puts less emphasis on corporate profits and more emphasis on maximizing the well-being and fulfillment of human beings. Our state is attractive to manufacturers, power plants and other businesses, and we believe it is the job of legislators to ensure we grow strong and without compromise to the health or safety of our people, land, air, or water.
We believe our legislators must take a responsible, proactive, people-first approach to taxation, state spending, and infrastructure development to truly improve our quality of life in South Carolina.
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