WABE: “Commonly imported goods like notebooks and index cards are up over 20%, as well as lunch boxes – most likely filled with snacks that also cost more than the previous school year.”
Georgia students are returning to school this week, and parents across our state are feeling the pinch of higher prices as a result of reckless Republican tariff policies.
New reporting from WABE shows that the cost of back-to-school items like index cards, notebooks, and lunchboxes are all up over 20 percent compared to last year – due in no small small part to the economy-crushing tariffs that have been pushed by Donald Trump and fully backed by Republicans like Rick Jackson.
And as a reminder, these are the same tariff policies that Rick Jackson has bragged about profiting off of via the stock market on Trump’s “Liberation Day.” He even told a voter in Thomasville in March: “I went and bought options on the day that happened because I knew that was crazy and made an 80 percent return in four weeks.”
Jackson’s strong support for these policies should come as no surprise given his vocal backing of Trump’s policies, going as far to tell the Atlanta Journal-Constitution earlier this year that he couldn’t think of a single Trump policy he disagrees with.
But even as roughly half of parents are expected to take on debt this year to buy their kids school supplies, prices are expected to only increase after Trump’s new round of tariffs on Canada – Georgia’s largest trading partner – a development that Jackson has been radio silent on.
What’s more, it’s also a lot more expensive for parents to get their kids to school with gas prices up nearly a dollar more than they were this time last year. But rather than fight for relief at the pump, Jackson has defended bringing back the gas tax as the “right, prudent thing to do.”
“Rick Jackson couldn’t be more out of touch with Georgians,” said Democratic Party of Georgia spokesperson Jake Strickland. “While parents across our state are forced to go into debt to buy their kids back-to-school supplies, Jackson has been personally profiting off the very same policies that are behind these ridiculous price spikes. What’s more, he has supported Trump’s tariff tax increases every step of the way, and has made it crystal clear that he won’t stand up for Georgians struggling with rising costs across the board.”
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