Can you believe the minimum wage in Tennessee is still the federal $7.25? If you’re not embarrassed - why not? TN GOP thinks we’d regret raising it. You wouldn’t like it, we promise! I say, let’s give it a shot. $15, maybe $20 an hour? Let’s see if it makes everyone as unhappy as they say. I bet people will like it.

Like it or not, TennCare is being ripped from hundreds of thousands, our ACA/Obamacare premiums are skyrocketing, and rural hospitals are going to close because of the cruel policies of Marsha Blackburn and the TN GOP. We need affordable if not free healthcare for everyone in Tennessee. It’s time. Other countries have free healthcare. It’s a basic human right and we can do it here at home.

It’s great to have free public education from age 5 to 18. But what about the years before that? One could argue, and I’d agree with them, those earlier years are even more vital. New Mexico has just introduced free child care for everyone, let’s do that here in Tennessee, too. Talk about making life more affordable!

Instead of taking money away from public education let’s put money into it. Doesn’t that sound wild? If someone is hungry, you don’t snatch what little food they have away to give to someone already sated on steaks and oysters, you give the hungry person some food. We need to focus on supporting and feeding the Tennessee public school system. Let’s raise teacher pay and support teachers unions while we’re at it. Let’s have free Pre-K educatio too, why arbitrarily start at age 5?

The Tennessee GOP wants to meddle in your private health? That’s absolutely wild and unacceptable to me. In my Tennessee, everyone will have control over their own healthcare. Women will not be told what they can and cannot do with their bodies. C’mon people it’s almost 2026 what are we even doing here.

Whether it be cruel illegal attacks by ICE on our immigrant community, or cruel policies toward the LGBTQ community, or cruelty toward women and their right to have a say in their own health, Tennessee is fighting to race backward. That stops on my watch. No more cruelty. Civility and compassion from now on.

It’s 2025. Why does the TN GOP insist on clutching their precious little pearls about this? Legalize it, tax it, use this new revenue source to fund our schools or pave our roads. Are they seriously trying to ban hemp? What are we even doing here?

We have such a backwards and outdated system. We need to come up with alternatives for cash bail options for non-violent crimes. Restore fairness in sentencing. Make incarceration truly about rehabilitation, not just warehousing humans.

Maybe the most unfair, regressive tax they could have come up with. Let’s just get rid of it once and for all. Or is this like the minimum wage issue - we’d miss the grocery tax? Do the billionaires assure us we’d miss it?

We have to help the people. Elder care, child care, public transportation, food assistance, free school breakfast and lunch. I mean isn’t that what government is for? Supposedly? To be on our side?