Mary Williams Benefield (R-Decatur) Interview - GA HD 81 - Georgia State House Nominee - DeKalb County #gapol
Full Interview with GOP State House Nominee Mary Williams Benefield in College Park, Atlanta, Georgia.
Addy Adds | The Georgia Politics Newsletter - Peach State Update
September 2nd, 2022 | The Empire State of the South
Full interview with GOP Nominee for State House District 81, Mary Williams Benefield.
Addy: Okay, what's up folks. Uh, we are in Atlanta and college park right now, uh, in a library at a hotel with Mary Williams Benefield. Who's a, a candidate here in Georgia, uh, at the local district level for the Georgia general assembly at the state level and bring, gonna get her take on issues important to her, where she's from.
And. Other, uh, other toxic topics as well. So, uh, thanks for, for coming on the show.
Thank you, Addie. Thank you for having me. I appreciate the opportunity. Of course, of course.
Addy: Yeah. And, uh, you're as far as I know, a first time candidate?
Mary: right, right. I'm running in house district 81. I am a first time candidate and that covers the Tucker area.
Part of if you're familiar with Atlanta spa. Junction along the DeKalb Gwinnett line mm-hmm so it's, um, the district itself has a 22 mile parameter. Okay. So it's, it's a, it's a big district. Mm-hmm that covers a lot of, kind of the north Atlanta area. So this is my first go. This is my first try. Um, my, um, the, the gentleman that I'm running against has been in the leg, the Georgia legislature.
this will be his sixth term. Okay. So I I'm a very firm believer in term limits and time out and rolling it over to the next person that I think government wise has very much become a career. And out of politicians and careers, we've lost that sense of statesmanship and, and public service.
Okay. So for me, that is very important and that's why I'm running because I, I, I don't feel as a voter that there is a very good connection between the. and they're representative mm-hmm we've lost that. okay. Um, because I know for myself, as long as I've been voting, I have never spoken to a representative when I've emailed, I've not ever gotten a return email.
There's a disconnect.
Addy: Yeah.
And so I feel like if you're gonna represent a community, then you need to be in touch. what's important to them. What are their priorities? What are their problems? What are they dealing with? What do they want? Mm mm-hmm so I think that's really important and I think we need to get back to those, those, those basics of governing.
Addy: Okay. Okay. Excellent. And, and what issues are you focusing on, uh, in your campaign or, you know, maybe even in the longer range too?
Mary: for me. kind of my, I have there, there, when you look at my website, which is www benefit for ga.com, I list three things that are very important to me. And then I have four issues that I'm kind of running on. the three things that are important to me are number one, we have to uphold and protect the Georgia constitution and only legal voters vote legal citizens vote that's important because otherwise you dilute the. from those people. And the important part about that is those that are legal citizens are also the taxpayers mm-hmm and they're the ones whose dollars and money and resources become involved in law and how countries run mm-hmm
So it would make sense that you have to be a citizen to be able to vote. And. Pick people that represent you and spend your tax dollars. Mm that's. One important issue for me, a second important issue for me is we have discovered in the last couple of years, that particular with what we went through in 2020, that there's a lot of outside influence, meaning third parties, um, corporations, all that got involved in election legisla.
Okay. And for me, election legislation is specifically between the voter and the legislature. period. corporations. Don't have a say in that third party organizations, don't have a say in that that's a voter and a legislator strict relationship. So that's important to me getting that redefined clearly.
And, and another thing that has, has always bothered me and that I think we need to refocus on. When legislation or a bill is pages and pages and pages and 30 and 40 and 50 and 60 and 70, 80 pages long. And most of the time is written in legalese and by attorneys. How do we expect citizen everyday? To obey.
Number one, understand, and number two, obey laws that is not written in an everyday language. Sure. Yeah. If you expect me to abide by it and respect it, then you need to put it in a, in a clear cut everyday language. So that I'm real clear on. If I broke it, I know why I know I broke it and I know why I broke it.
Right. And I know what the expectation of me as, as a citizen is uh, so those are three, just real, just kind of my key important things. And, uh, do what do you, what are your opponent, uh, what, what, you know, problems do you see with the way they've been, been doing things? Um, uh, my opponent. has seems to vote along the here's the democratic party of the line.
We vote along the democratic party line mm-hmm and I have not. Um, I, and I believe getting private credit where credit is due mm-hmm he back in the early two thou or early 2012, 13. So gone on those lines was very, Bennett was very. he sort of spearheaded, there were a lot of rape kits in Georgia that were sitting in backlogs.
Okay. And he spearheaded a lot of the legislation to get those rape kits through and tested. And I give, I give him credit for that. That's that's important. Mm-hmm um, beyond that, um, he and the democratic party of Georgia being and Stacey Abrams being the leader of. Mm believes in a lot of her policies believes in expanding Medicaid believes in a lot of, um, social, social giveaways.
Yep. Yeah. Okay. And so that is. and, and the fact that this will be, if he's elected, be his 12th term in the legislature, it's too long, it's time for something different.
Addy: Yeah. And going back to what you said before you believe in, in term limits for correct. Okay. And at the state level on a federal level?
Mary: Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Mm-hmm , you know, if we limit our governors and we limit our president, then it would only make common sense, says then we limit our legislators. Yeah. Yeah. Just makes sense. Okay. And, uh, I wanna talk about where you're from, which is, uh, and who you're representing, which is, uh, Decatur in DeKalb county, right?
I'm in the Tucker area,
Addy: Tucker area, DeKalb county, the third largest county in state, Georgia, uh, behind Gwinnett. And of course the infamous Fulton county. Yes. As well. Right. Uh, what can you tell people about DeKalb county that, um, they may not know.
Mary: I have lived in DeKalb county, my entire. Um, my family has long, long roots in the state of Georgia.
So we've been here a long time. Mm-hmm um, I do know this. I went to the DeKalb county public school system and at, there was a time in DeKalb county's history when people moved to DeKalb for their schools. Oh, that drew a lot of people. Our public school system today is not what it. When I went through it, mm-hmm I graduated there.
So I know the education that I got and I know the teachers and I know the administration because I, I went, I went through it. Mm-hmm um, for myself. Because I do have three children. They're all adults now, but I had three kids with three very different learning styles and situations. Mine went through a small church, private school till they got to, um, kind of tapped out at sixth grade.
Okay. My oldest one did a year in public school, in the middle school and he was like, I gotta get outta here. So he then, um, followed the course through a. A charter school, which was the DeKalb school of the arts, which is a small school, which kind was the best of both work, both worlds, private school and public.
It had a private school feel, but it was public education and their focus was the arts dance, singing theater production. He did his four years there and did very well and really. It. Okay. Um, my middle one had a different course and it was necessary for him. He would did three years in middle school. And when he got to high school, it was, it was not a good fit because it instantly upon him arriving at high school, the phone call was, well, you need to have him tested.
And we think he needs to go. Oh, okay. Which was not something that I'm supportive of in really any way, shape or form is to put a 13 year old kid on medicine. Mm-hmm um, I think there's a lot of better ways to deal with that. So what we did for our household is he did a, I found a curriculum, an online curriculum, and he did his high school years at home.
Okay. Wow. All four years of high school at. So you homeschooled it, right? Mm-hmm we found a program that was a very good pro, a very good curriculum. Basics, math, English, literature, grammar, science mm-hmm core subjects. And he did it on homeschool. Okay. Okay. My daughter. um, had a learning disability. And so she did a small private school.
And then we, I moved her to a school in downtown Atlanta called the Howard school, which deals with children with, um, learning and whole language learning disabilities. So she did her, um, all of her higher education at the Howard. Okay. So having three kids, three different people have three different educational needs.
and trying to pigeonhole everybody in one spot and all hit the same mark. We're not educating our children anymore. We're checking the box, checking the box, checking the box. So you think it's, it's, it's not individualized enough, correct? Correct. Public problem because you've got, and I believe at least in DeKalb county, a big part of the problem is administrative.
Not the teachers, because the teachers that I interacted with with both of those boys that were in both of my sons, in private, in public school, the teachers were not the issue. Okay. They were overwhelmed. They had large classes. Um, they, they had too many to teach and if they spent more time in their day, dealing with behavior, instead of teaching the course.
Of which they were teaching. You know, when you have 30 13-year-olds in a room. Yeah. You know, how any teacher can accomplish anything as far as I'm concerned. They're heroes. But I think in DeKalb, a big part of our problem is the administration, because like most bureaucracies it's that middle that becomes larger and larger and larger and absorbs more of the money and more of the more and more of the money.
And it becomes less accountable and less accountable. And the process and the system is what becomes more important than the result of what it is that they're supposed to be doing.
Okay. And, and, and speaking of the money I heard. Quite a bit that's unaccounted for.
Mary: Yeah. We just can't find 280 million, two 80 now. Okay. Wow. So yeah. Yeah, that's a real, that's a real problem. And as a detach county, taxpayer. I, I have a huge issue with that, particularly when we have schools that are falling into repair.
I mean, you have to kind of know for your audience. Who's not, maybe not be familiar. DeKalb county is an old county and a lot of our schools are 60 and 70 years old. They were built when the county really flourished and really blew, um, blew up with population. Yep. Okay. You know, a lot of people in the, in the forties, fifties, sixties, moved to cap heads, great schools.
A lot of subdivisions were built at those times. My personal house was built in 1963. A lot of the schools were built in that same time period because there was a big boom, well, those schools like anything require TLC and repair and constant maintenance, which just hasn't been. Yeah.
Yeah. I, I heard there was a, a video, a high schooler or a couple high schoolers took, took a video.
Yeah. And then went viral this year.
Mary: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And, and what they saw was when it rain, you got Ross pumping into the senior, to the senior area, outside picnic area, lunch area. Wow. Outside coming up mm-hmm there was mold, there was leaky pipes. There was electrical units that weren't, I mean, there was just some real, very serious maintenance problems.
Addy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That, that there's no, absolutely no reason for, because they obviously have money.
Addy: Yeah. I mean, and that problem combined with the fact that all that money is not, uh, accounted for.
Mary: exactly. Yeah. There's a problem. There's a big problem. Mm-hmm and I think part of it too, at least into cab.
We had big population growth. So we have kids in trailers. Mm-hmm classroom trailers, but those classroom trailers were not meant to be a longstanding solution to overpopulation in the school system in the school, pop in, in the school number. Mm-hmm mm-hmm but they sat there for 20 years. . Yeah. And they've been used for 20 years.
and you've got parking lots. This, the high school that I went to, which was Shamrock high school, there was a student parking lot on the left and a faculty parking lot on the right and the student parking lot. When my sons went there was full of trailers that this is not a formula for success.
Addy: Yeah. And for those that don't always DeKalb, a blue county, a red county, a swing county?
Mary: It's blue county DeKalb's a blue county blue. Okay. Okay. It, it, and, and the interesting thing about it, Georgia politics historically are interesting because yes, it is true that historically Georgia as a whole, for a long time was a democratic.
It, but we had, but a lot of the, the Democrat party governor Bume Joe Frank Harris, um, a lot of our prior governors that they were democratic governors, they were fiscally conservative. They believed in balanced budgets. They were today. They would be considered republican.
Addy: Mm, okay. Okay.
Mary: And then when the shift, when Sonny Perdue came in back in the early two thousands, we've had Republican governors and, but, but Georgia has always been run conservatively, very fiscally conservative.
Yep. Okay.
Mary: And what we're facing now and what it we're looking like now is the policies and the ideology. of the democratic party, particularly in Georgia, the Stacy Abrams. Mm-hmm democratic party.
Yeah. Yep.
Mary: It is not the 30 year ago. Democratic party. Yeah. They're different parties.
Addy: Definitely. Definitely.
Mary: Yeah. And so we're kind of in, um, for lack of a better term in identity crisis yeah.
Addy: Yeah. I mean, I think that's going on at the national level.
Mary: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So you have a lot of people that historically voted Democrat, but what we're seeing today, they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.
That that's not what I voted for. Those are not the ideas that I want. I want my kid to go to school. And as I've been getting out in canvassing and talking with voters, mm-hmm, what I have discovered. No matter what the narrative in the media is, what I have discovered is that most people. Basically on most of the issues mm-hmm we may not agree on how to get to it or the best, the best route to it, but most your average voter, your average American agrees that our kids need to be educated.
Our government needs to be accountable. our government needs to work for us, the citizen, not the other way around. that the bureaucracy local state federal has grown too large. And, and is, has become this machine monster. Yeah. Yeah.
Addy: And what do you think of the, the, uh, the RA IRS, uh, addition of, uh, some 87,000 agents, at least ?
Mary: that's I'm terrifying.
Yeah. I mean, it's particularly an armed IRS agent and I work in accounting. Us. Okay. And I have worked historically for the last decade for an accountant.
Addy: Yeah. Let's talk about that where, you know, what's your, what's your career and yeah. What's your education?
Mary: Well, I've had a lot of careers. Okay. But, um, for the last decade or so currently I work for small business.
Small accounting service business. It's a family business. I work with my brother-in-law.
Addy: Oh, nice. Okay.
Mary: And we work for small businesses. He has all of the, um, the, all the education. He's a master's degree. He's an auditor. He worked for the state of Georgia for many years. So his primary focus is on doing audits, financial reviews, all of that type of work financing.
He is in his state career. He spent 35 years auditing state systems, school systems, the department of labor, all, um, things, state George state of Georgia that fall under the state of Georgia. Um, we do, I do payroll services, sales tax services, bookkeeping, and all of my clients are small businesses.
In the prior years, we, I worked with an accountant for a decade. So I watched people come bring their taxes, do their tax work. I have watched people walk in and go, I don't even know what the rules are anymore. Last year they allowed this, but do they allow that anymore? Or I did it this way because you used to.
write this or you used to, could take this expense. Noww that's not, that's not allowed anymore. You can't do it. So that would mean for a taxpayer. Oh, I now have a $10,000 tax bill I didn't anticipate. I've been trying to do the right thing. I've been trying to file the way I'm supposed to file.
I've been trying to be in compliance, but the rules change. Congress makes one decision. One vote and it flips for, and everybody now, now everything's off and nobody, again, nobody understands what they're supposed to do or how they're supposed to do it and they get caught like a deer in the headlights every once in a while with the huge tax bill, they didn't anticipate not because they were trying to cheat or they were trying, because things change and there's when you have a tax code that's 77,000 pages you now are gonna arm IRS agents?
And I expect people that are not accountants that don't have that degree. They're a business owner. Their job is to sell is to run a gas station or their job is to have a tow service or their job is to sell pizzas their busy doing what they, they don't have a grain accountancy. And when it's that complicated, it's that complicated for a reason. And yeah, and it can't be a very good reason, especially if you're gonna hire a bunch of new guys and arm them. Definitely, that's a problem. That's a real problem.
Who are some candidates or, or politicians let's say, Georgia, that you endorse or you support or ideas you like, or if you wanna talk about, you know, I, you know, people that you're against too, you know, or if you wanna take it.
Mary: Well, I think I've noticed a trend in politics that it's been my whole lifetime and I'm sure it's always been that way.
you know, we get involved in these battles and, oh, they did this and they did this and this is terrible. And look at them and we get lost in the fight instead of the issue and most people check out because I don't know about you, but when election season comes and there's, every other ad is a political ad that you've seen 800 times, people check out.
So what I think is very important is it's not so much about the mud slinging. As I stated, my opponent did a very good job. And the thing about the rape kits, I a hundred percent support him on that. I appreciate that. Um, so I'm, I don't have, I can't have an argument with what he did in his, in the prior sessions.
Because it's where we are. What I'm talking about is what's going forward. What are we doing forward? How are we connecting the legislature, connecting with the voter? What are the things that are important?
For me specifically, a couple of my issues. Number one, election integrity is a huge issue for me. I think the Georgia legislature did a great job in their S.B. 202 and what they put in place in 2021. However, there are some things that I don't think we finished mm-hmm but I think this election integrity issue is not only a local issue, but obviously it's a national issue. This is problem. Yeah. All the way around. And I think what I'm hearing from the voters that I talk to is a complete frustration that is building and growing because.
half the country believe one thing mm-hmm, the other half the country believe another thing, which is diametrically opposed to what the other half believes. And there's no, the answer is, oh, y'all just, don't worry about it and go away. Everything's fine. That's not an answer, and most Americans are pretty smart people and pretty astute.
So I believe that we need to change the system. Personally, for me, I'm a huge proponent of getting rid of the voting machines in Georgia. That is something I stand very strong on. I have a very good friend who is democratic. He is way on the other side of the other side of the aisle. But interestingly enough, there is one particular issue that we both agree wholeheartedly on, which is the voting machines. Mm-hmm okay. Because our conversation and he brought this up, this was kind of the result of the conversation was how is it? because he works in this industry. How is it that we can, we can process billions of dollars in gift cards, credit card transactions, ATM transactions every single day and that error ratio or margin of error in those is very small. And we do billions of dollars worth anybody that's got a credit. Has gotten an E or an ATM card has gotten an alert on their friend that said, Hey, this card, there was a purchase from such and such and such and such, did you do this?
If we are that tight on gift cards and that much money, please tell me why our voting machines are such a mess?
Addy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mary: There's a problem. There. There's a big problem there. And so in my view, We need to eliminate the voting machines, old school. There are some old school things that still work and that are a real good idea.
So we go back to paper ballots. Yeah. We stop this centralized counting on the county level and you count votes on the precinct level. if a precinct test 15,000 voters in, it seems to me that counting 15,000 votes in a precinct on that precinct level, your margin of error is gonna be significantly lower than if you're counting everything at a county level, with a million and a half people in it.
Just the sheer numbers make the margin of error go up. Yes. Yes. That's just statistical.
Addy: Where now I'm sure we'll be able to, to chat again, uh, at length, uh, where can people find you and, uh, where. as far as, you know, any topics we haven't touched tonight, you know? Uh, yeah. You'll, I will throw this in there on topics.
Mary: Sure. One of the big things that we're looking at, and I'm a big proponent of is the Georgia fair tax. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And real simply for people that are not familiar with a, you can find the link on my website to the Georgia fair tax site. Okay. Which explains it.
Addy: And what's your website?
Mary: My website is www.benefieldforga.com.
Addy: Okay.
And that's B E N E F I E L Dforga.com
Addy: Okay.
For ga.com. I'm also on Twitter Beil for GA uh, Facebook benefit for GA truth benefit for GA getter benefit for GA mm-hmm , um, the short and long of the, the fair tax to boil it down to a very simple. uh, formula is this in the state of Georgia, we pay for taxpayers pay about 15% and 5% of that makes up income tax.
4% of it makes up the state sales tax. Okay. And the rest of it is made above the county sales tax. Tax. Okay. Okay. If we eliminate the incomes tax piece and the state's sales tax piece, that's roughly about 10% off of that. 15% total sales, total tax mm-hmm . If we Institute a consumption tax of about 6%. We may now be at 10 because we've got 6% consumption plus county tax mm-hmm we'll put you at about 10% that shaves 5% off right there.
Then anyone that purchases anything in the state of Georgia pays in, right? If you buy something here, you, you contribute to the system. If you're a visitor, if you're working forever. You know, if you live here, whichever we, every transaction takes money in. And I think that's a much better way to do it because right now, like with most things, those people that work, their income is taxed. but you got a lot of people that don't work. So they're not paying that part of the percentage in mm-hmm . So awesome. That's that's another, another big one of mine, but my content, like I said, um, my website is www benefieldforga.com on Twitter, gutter, truth, social, all under that.
Addy: Okay, awesome.
Mary: Awesome. Thank you. So please check out my website and you can see what my, uh, what my positions are and read about me and, uh, send me an email. My number's on there. Call me. What's your, what's your email and your phone number if you wanna share? Um, my email is Mary Benefield for ga.com. And that's the number for no, it's F O F O R.
Okay. Right. Yep. And my phone number is (770) 605-0055. Awesome. Please call because I'd love to talk to you.
Addy: Awesome. Thanks Mary. I appreciate you're welcome. I'll be able to talk again. Yeah. Nice. Okay. And, uh, you can. Uh, a write up to on, on GA poll GA POL doac.com and add ads.com as well as by Twitter. One add ads in true social, uh, as Mary mentioned as well, uh, add ads, a D YDS.
So we'll see everybody next time.
Mary: Bye.