President Biden and Rep. Sanford Bishop have caused real financial pain for citizens of the 2nd District over the last several years. High prices for food and gas have caused families to struggle with providing the basics of life.

One of the most painful consequences of the Biden-Bishop administration is the increase in rent, which has gone up 30% under Biden-Bishop. The average rent payment in Columbus is $1,300 a month while the average monthly rent payment in Macon and Bibb County is $1,100 and it is $1,050 in Albany and Dougherty County.

“If you were paying $1,000 for your rent in 2021, you are now paying $1,300,” said Congressional Candidate Wayne Johnson. “That $300 increase means a family just getting by month to month has no way of absorbing the increase from their landlords.”

Johnson is working hard to unseat 32-year incumbent, career politician Congressman Sanford Bishop in the November General Election. Johnson believes the voters in Macon, Columbus, Albany and the 30 counties that make up the 2nd Congressional District have come to realize that Bishop is out of touch with the people who elected him 16 times, and that now change will be good by retiring Bishop.

“Sanford Bishop spends 85% of his time in Washington,” said Johnson, an Army veteran and former appointee as a senior official with the U.S. Department of Education. “Sanford is now a member of the Washington elites and pays little attention to the needs of the citizens in Middle and Southwest Georgia. The increase in rent is just one of a long list of Kitchen Table Issues that Bishop chooses to ignore.”

Johnson has a plan to ease the pain of rent increases for people in the 2nd District. He wants to tap local, state and Federal grant funds to provide rental support to renters in return for community service. Johnson said that for each $100 in rent support, a renter provides three hours of community service.

“It would be a straightforward way to ease the pain of families while making the transition to home ownership,” said Johnson, who spent 40 years as a successful businessman in Middle and Southwest Georgia. “This is a plan we can get done in the first year I am in Washington, and something Sanford Bishop would never consider implementing.”

Johnson said the plan will serve as a bridge to home ownership.