Our legislature has been derelict in their duty to Tennesseans. Instead of being fiscally responsible over the past 15 years, they have cut revenue and spent our money to help their special interest friends like it was going out of style. That irresponsible behavior has left us in dire straits with infrastructure that is failing and a lack of income to pay for the necessary improvements. The result is, that after fifteen years of irresponsible behavior by our legislators, we have underfunded and failing infrastructure across Tennessee.. According to the state, there is a backlog of infrastructure projects estimated to cost $82.7 billion of which only 35.5% are funded. That means there is a funding gap of $53.5 billion just to fix and update the current infrastructure across the state.

This means every day thousands of Tennesseans have to take a risk, most unknowingly, to get to work by driving across bridges and under overpasses that are in desperate need of repair. We are driving through congestion and all they are offering is rich people lanes labeled as choice lanes. Every day gridlock due to dated infrastructure is costing Tennesseans time that could be spent with their families or doing something they love. You can’t buy more time, but we can make life a bit better when we choose to.

Under the stewardship of the Tennessee GOP, our state has amassed a $7.3 billion dollar water and wastewater project backlog that is putting our communities drinking water supplies at risk, and also results in wastewater overflow that contaminates our waterways due to sewer systems that can no longer handle the load of our growing populations.

The GOP continues to attack education and underfund our school systems. They want to expand vouchers which will further undercut funding for our public schools at a time when many of our students are learning in dilapidated and outdated schools. As of now, we need to build 64 new schools to support the current population and 157 of our existing schools are rated in fair or poor condition.

It is time for a change of course. When elected I will work to fully fund our schools, repair our bridges, and update our water and wastewater systems to meet the needs of our communities and account for future growth and expansion.