Tony Kozycki
October 6, 2026 · Newsletter
I Showed Up in Forsyth County. Rich McCormick Didn't... Again!
Monday night in Forsyth County, there were two podiums on the stage. One had me behind it. The other had a cardboard cutout of Rich McCormick.
This was the fifth debate in my six-county series across GA-07. McCormick was invited and his campaign got the format, but he didn’t come. The moderator, Maya T. Prabhu of Peach Pol, made it clear the invitation stayed open all night. For the fifth time, he chose not to use it.
I keep showing up because this is the job. You stand in front of your community and answer the questions they actually care about. Then they decide who has the better solutions. Rich doesn’t have to agree with me. He just has to show up.
Maya asked about my positions and then pushed back with opposing arguments and McCormick’s own public record. Many of the questions came directly from Forsyth County voters submitted directly to Maya. I answered all of them.
Below is what I said, with timestamps so you can watch each answer for yourself.
A representative who shows up
Watch: 3:44, 7:04, 9:44
The first question asked for one tangible thing the 7th District would have in two years if I win. My answer was simple: someone who shows up. I’m in this race because McCormick wouldn’t show up for Godfrey Wade, an Army veteran facing a wrongful deportation. I want to be the congressman you can call and get an answer from.
I was asked what one policy I could pass in a closely divided Congress. I named three reforms that work together. They are term limits, getting money out of politics, and ending partisan gerrymandering. That last one matters here. McCormick doesn’t think he has to show up because his district was drawn for him. I want to earn your vote every two years, not coast on incumbency.
Then Maya asked me to name a Republican in Congress whose approach I respect. I didn’t hesitate. It’s Rep. Thomas Massie. I don’t agree with him on everything, but he says what he believes and stands by it. He does that even when it puts his job at risk. That’s the bare minimum we should expect from anyone in office.
Growth, data centers, and housing
Watch: 11:02, 14:20, 16:29, 19:37
Forsyth’s growth has brought prosperity, but it has also strained our roads and raised housing costs. Washington shouldn’t pay for every local problem. Its’ job is to make sure our community has an equal voice when corporations come to profit off our growth.
Data centers are the clearest example. The corporations building them should pay for the infrastructure they need. That cost shouldn’t fall on you or me. McCormick has been endorsed by Big Tech super PACs, and he repeats their talking points. When I raised water use with him, he compared data centers to pistachio farming. We grow peanuts in Georgia, not pistachios. That’s a California talking point, not a Forsyth one.
On housing, I see two jobs for Washington. First, it should give state and local governments a clear roadmap to safely streamline building so we can create more homes faster. Second, it should stop large corporations from buying up single-family homes. A single mom or a new college grad shouldn’t be competing with a corporation to buy a house.
Density is a decision for each community. Forsyth, Dawson, and Lumpkin are all growing, and each one should decide what it wants. What I hear most is frustration that infrastructure isn’t keeping up with growth. Fixing that takes federal, state, and local leaders working together. It also takes a congressman who actually listens.
Voting and immigration
Watch: 22:10, 25:17, 28:26
A voter in Cumming asked how we make sure every vote counts. I’ve never met a Democrat who wants non-citizens to vote. The real fight over the SAVE Act is whether it blocks lawful citizens from voting. Think of a married woman who changed her name and doesn’t have the right paperwork. Let’s verify eligibility, but every citizen deserves a smooth path to the ballot.
As an immigration attorney, I was asked who should be deported. People who have committed serious crimes such as murder, rape, and drug or human trafficking should be removed. I’ll also say it plainly: Democrats didn’t do enough on border security under the Biden administration. We need real investment there, though I don’t think a wall is the answer.
What we’re doing now is deporting mothers and fathers with no criminal record and U.S. citizen children. Those children will be my kids’ classmates and coworkers. Ripping away their parents sets them back for life.
Asked where I’d break with my own party, I said I don’t think everyone who has built a life here automatically gets to stay. Some deportation orders are just. I sit with families every day and care about them, but my job in Congress is to find workable common ground. My job isn’t to impose my own view.
Health care, foster care, and Social Security
Watch: 31:14, 34:18, 36:22, 39:47, 41:41, 46:23
What does affordable health care mean? If you work full time, your health care bill shouldn’t compete with your mortgage. Right now, it does. My long-term hope is health care for all. But Republicans I talk to say the current system is too expensive, and they’re right. So for the next two years, let’s work together to bring costs down. We can start with the three giant insurers that have shut out competition. That’s not capitalism. That’s crony capitalism.
The spending I’d go after first is administrative bloat. Doctors and nurses keep telling me how hard it is to get procedures approved. Too often the system is built around billing and profit, not patient outcomes.
A Cumming mother adopted her daughter through DFACS. Her daughter’s sister is still in foster care and struggling to get the services she needs. Georgia’s DFACS needs major reform. Caring for the most vulnerable is a core job of government, and the DOGE cuts and attacks on the Department of Education have hurt them. I’d push for a national commission to produce reforms states can actually use. If a state falls short, we need accountability that doesn’t punish the children by cutting their care.
On Social Security, the trustees project the retirement trust fund can pay full benefits only until late 2032. McCormick recently said he doesn’t expect Congress to act before automatic cuts hit. I’m not willing to wait for that. We need to raise the cap on income subject to the payroll tax now. That’s a bandage, not a cure, but it buys us time. Then we design a system that works for my parents’ generation, my generation, and my kids’.
Debt, taxes, and honest spending
Watch: 48:54, 52:51, 55:08
The national debt is a real crisis, and every federal program deserves scrutiny. Democrats need to own it when fraud happens on our watch, as it did in Minnesota. But DOGE swung a blunt axe at programs people depend on.
USAID is a good example. There was waste there, and we should cut it. But my sister worked on a USAID-funded program in Malawi, one of the poorest countries on earth. In the capital, I saw a gleaming building in a city of low, crumbling ones. The Chinese had built it. When we pull back from soft diplomacy, China is happy to fill the gap.
Asked for a tax increase I’d support, I said capital gains. If you earn a W-2 paycheck, you’re taxed heavily. If your money makes money for you, you’re barely taxed at all. That isn’t fair. People who become billionaires and trillionaires in this country should pay a fair share toward the country that made them rich.
How do we know money is well spent? Through bipartisan oversight that calls out fraud, waste, and abuse on both sides. Each party has blind spots about itself. That only works if we elect lawmakers who will actually talk to each other instead of fighting culture wars.
War powers, Iran, and our veterans
Watch: 58:24, 1:01:41, 1:04:02, 1:06:23
The power Congress most needs to take back is the power to decide on war. Presidents of both parties have taken too much of it. For me this is personal. My old squadron, VFA-41, the Black Aces, just came home on the USS Abraham Lincoln. The people we send to war are my friends, and they’re your sons and daughters.
Would I cut off funding if a Democratic president waged war without authorization? Yes. I’d hold my own party to the same standard I expect McCormick to hold Donald Trump to. Iran is a menace. I’ve transited the Strait of Hormuz nearly a dozen times and flew in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. But a ground invasion would add about a trillion dollars to our debt and put many more lives at risk. That decision belongs to the American people through Congress. Serious leadership matters too, and Pete Hegseth isn’t it.
A disabled veteran asked if I’d support the Restore Veterans Compensation Act. Absolutely. We can’t fund some veterans’ programs by cutting others. As a VA patient myself, I can tell you the doctors and nurses are exceptional. The system around them makes care hard to reach, and it needs to be rebuilt. The VA should be a world leader in mental health care. No one who served this country should end up homeless on our streets.
Ending congressional stock trading
Watch: 1:10:28, 1:11:52, 1:14:49
Maya ran a yes-or-no lightning round on my stock trading ban. It would cover spouses, dependent children, stocks owned before taking office, options, crypto, and sector funds. My answer to all of them was yes.
Here’s why that’s easy for me. On the day you’re sworn in, your assets go into one government-regulated blind trust run by a vetted institution. It’s not a “blind trust” handed to your buddy. You can’t see or touch those holdings until you leave office. If you’re a brilliant stock picker, put that brilliance to work solving the country’s problems. You can make your trades again when your service is over.
Under this system, the only way to break the law is to hide assets outside it. That should mean criminal prosecution and expulsion from Congress. I won’t claim every member who trades stocks today is acting unethically. The point is that you shouldn’t have to wonder. This is one small step toward rebuilding trust in government.
Where McCormick and I differ
Watch: 1:17:40, 1:21:00, 1:24:15
A voter asked for concrete decisions McCormick made that I’d handle differently, other than not showing up. Data centers came first again. Georgia ratepayers paid the cost overruns on the last nuclear reactors built in this country. Now a massive data center wants that power. These companies aren’t coming because they like us; they need what we built. Yet towns are bidding against each other to offer the biggest tax breaks.
McCormick’s idea is that if communities don’t want data centers, we can put them on military bases. We have a base in our district. Even there, it draws on our power grid and our water, and it relies on our roads. We deserve a seat at the table.
Maya asked me to picture January 2029. What would a Forsyth voter who didn’t vote for me say about my first term? I can’t promise you every result. I can promise I’ll keep showing up, even when you’re angry with me. I won’t talk down to you at a town hall and then disappear. I’ll keep listening, so every vote I cast reflects how this community feels.
McCormick is running on the claim that I’m a communist. I fought in three wars for this country, and my family depends on a small business. I’m not a communist. He uses fear because he doesn’t want you to know who’s on the ballot.
My kids are nine and twelve. Someday they’ll ask what we did when it was our turn to be stewards of this democracy. I want to tell them we fought like hell to bring our community back together. To everyone who came out Monday night, thank you for showing up. That’s how we get this country back.
Watch the full debate
Time
Topic
0:00 - Welcome; McCormick invited, no-show
1:41 - My opening: why I challenged McCormick to debate
3:44 - What you’ll have in two years that you don’t have now
7:04 - Term limits, money in politics, gerrymandering
9:44 - The Republican I respect: Thomas Massie
11:02 - Growth, infrastructure, and data centers
14:20 - Lowering costs and a seat at the table
16:29 - Housing affordability and corporate homebuying
19:37 - Housing density
22:10 - Voter question: early voting and the SAVE Act
25:17 - Immigration: who should be deported?
28:26 - Where I break from my party on immigration
31:14 - What “affordable” health care means
34:18 - Cutting health care administrative waste
36:22 - Voter question: foster care and DFACS reform
39:47 - Accountability without punishing kids
41:41 - Social Security: raise the cap now
46:23 - A long-term Social Security fix
48:54 - National debt, DOGE, and USAID
52:51 - The tax increase I support: capital gains
55:08 - Bipartisan oversight of spending
58:24 - Taking back war powers
1:01:41 - Iran and my own party
1:04:02 - When Congress must vote on war; Hegseth
1:06:23 - Voter question: veterans and the VA
1:10:28 - Stock trading ban: lightning round
1:11:52 - A government-managed blind trust
1:14:49 - Enforcing the ban
1:17:40 - Data centers, Georgia’s grid, and McCormick
1:21:00 - January 2029
1:24:15 - My closing statement
1:27:39 - Moderator closing remarks
The last debate in the series is in Fulton County and will be hosted by nonpartisan, NAACP North Fulton at St. James Church on October 15 at 6:30 pm. I’ll be there, and I’ll save a spot for Rich. Everyone is welcome to attend!
Early voting begins October 13. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3. I don’t take corporate PAC money. This campaign runs on people like you. If you want a representative who shows up, join us at KozyckiForCongress.com and if you’re able to help support our campaign, no donation is too small.
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