The Georgia Budget and Policy Institute’s mission is to advance lasting solutions that expand economic opportunity and well-being for all Georgians. We envision a fair and inclusive Georgia where all people prosper. We track and advocate for an equitable tax system and budget across education, health, and economic security, helping ensure adequate funding for state and federal policies that bring us closer to achieving our mission. Together, these areas of focus comprise about 80 cents of every state and federal dollar allocated in Georgia. The 2026 legislative session is an opportunity to advance lasting solutions that expand economic opportunity and well-being for all Georgians.
Our Priorities
Fund state government transparently, equitably and responsibly by
- Preserving Georgia’s largest source of revenue, the income tax, and preventing increases to the cost of living due to rising sales taxes.
- Responsibly spending down the state’s $9+ billion in undesignated surplus.
- Supporting working Georgians by passing a state-level Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).
- Increasing Georgia’s Child Tax Credit (CTC) and making it fully refundable.
- Increasing the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit to 100% of the federal level and making it fully refundable.
- Lifting Georgia’s state cigarette user fee to the national average of $1.96 per pack, establishing parity in user fees for other tobacco products and adding commonsense safeguards for the sale and use of harmful tobacco products.
- Capping the total amount of film tax credits issued annually, creating guardrails and transparency to restrict secondary market sales and preventing credits from being claimed for hiring out-of-state workers.
Ensure all Georgians have equitable access to a quality education by
- Modernizing Georgia’s Quality Basic Education (QBE) funding formula.
- Making permanent and increasing Georgia’s newly created “opportunity weight” pilot program to support students living in poverty and K-12 schools.
- Curtailing efforts to divert state dollars away from K-12 public schools through voucher programs like the Georgia Promise Scholarship.
- Creating and funding a need-based financial aid program for higher education.
Build healthy Georgia communities by
- Fully expanding Medicaid for low-income adults.
- Aligning Georgia’s existing Medicaid work and other qualifying activities requirement with the less restrictive qualifying activities and reporting exemptions as written in the 2025 federal budget reconciliation law, H.R. 1.
- Modernizing Georgia’s public benefit eligibility and enrollment infrastructure by investing in updated, human-centered technology and ensuring equitable pay for frontline eligibility workers.
- Strengthening Georgia’s state and local public health system by making data-driven updates to the public health funding formulas; supporting the state and local public health workforce through salary adjustments, certification of community health workers, and other enhancements; and incentivizing and streamlining cross-agency and cross-sector collaboration at the county level.
Support the economic security of all Georgians by
- Fully funding Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) administration.
- Enacting meaningful paid family medical leave for public and private sector workers and providing funding to support it.
- Investing a portion of the state’s surplus dollars in a child care trust fund with increased state appropriations for the Childcare and Parent Services (CAPS) program to serve more families with low incomes and support child care providers.
- Reducing and eliminating excessive fines and fees practices by capping the use of local fine and fee revenue to no more than 10% of a local government’s budget.
- Enacting a state Baby Bonds program to invest in Georgia’s next generation and improve opportunities for economic mobility and wealth creation.
Welcome immigrant communities by
- Making the first offense of driving without a license punishable by a fee rather than incarceration.
- Blocking measures that limit immigrant access to education, such as attacks on dual enrollment eligibility.
- Defending existing laws that protect immigrant victims of crimes from unjust prosecution and advance public safety.
Together, we can help advance these priorities, so they become law. You can gain more information throughout the session by attending our Insights conference, watching our bill tracker at gbpi.org, or signing up for our newsletter.
