As inflation continues to hurt everyday Americans, Georgia has been expressing concerns about the rising costs. Gov. Brian Kemp has been a constant critic of how President Joe Biden has handled the economy. 

Kemp responded to Biden’s proposed budget for 2025 in a recent post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“In Georgia, we balance budgets and cut taxes,” he said. “In DC, Joe Biden is proposing a *$7.3 trillion* budget that will drive up the debt, raise taxes, and make life harder for hardworking families.”

Georgia is ranked #1 in the nation for business, according to the Area Development magazine, but while the Biden administration claimed that the president’s economic plan has been helping the state’s booming economy, Kemp had to disagree. 

Kemp said the booming economy in the state was due to market forces driving the state’s economy even before the Inflation Reduction Act passed, which conservatives claim worsens inflation instead of reduces it. 

“A lot of what the [Inflation Reduction Act] has done, besides throwing money at something that was coming anyway, [has] also heated the market up and driven costs to go up,” Kemp said. “It’s really tried to manipulate the market, versus the market moving in that direction.”

Just in September last year, Kemp declared a state of emergency over “40-year-high” inflation and “negative economic conditions” felt by the people of Georgia due to policies being passed in Washington, D.C. 

Due to the inflation, he also suspended the state’s gas tax to provide relief to families, unlike other states that have been raising taxes, such as California, which rejected a proposal to suspend their’s. 

“From runaway federal spending to policies that hamstring domestic energy production, all Bidenomics has done is take more money out of the pockets of the middle class,” Kemp said. 

He also signed several bills into law last year that reportedly would relieve burdens on Georgians, including a state income tax refund and property tax relief. Kemp is also trying to accelerate the decrease in state income taxes to put more money back in the pockets of Georgia families. 

And while Georgia’s economy has expanded by almost 8.5 percent since Kemp became governor in 2019, according to the Financial Times, a recent study by USA Today, as reported by Valdosta Today found that Georgia’s salary increases are behind when it comes to inflation. 

In 2022 Georgia wages increased by 6.7 percent while inflation rose by 8.8 percent compared to 2021 when wages increased by 5.9 percent and inflation rose by 5.6. The most recent numbers show that in 2023, wages rose by 2.6 percent while inflation increased by 4.5 percent. 

Georgia has both ups and downs when it comes to its economy, but it appears as if Kemp will remain a staunch critic against Biden and his economic policies.