When Javier Milei burst onto the scene as a presidential candidate in Argentina in 2023, brandishing a chainsaw, many dismissed him as unhinged. His radical libertarian platform was presented by the media as evidence of Argentina’s tragicomic decline. Argentina was poorer in 2023 than it had been two decades earlier. That year, the economy contracted sharply, inflation spiraled, and public finances remained in disarray, propped up by repeated IMF bailouts.
A hundred top economists signed a letter warning Argentina against electing Milei. When Argentinians promptly elected him president, the experts all agreed that we should pity the Argentines for their folly. But then of course Milei was crazy enough to actually do in office what he said he was going to do. He slashed government, shutting down entire departments and reducing spending, leading to Argentina’s first budget surplus in over a decade in 2024. He cautiously began cutting taxes. Milei eliminated exchange rate controls, rental market restrictions, and burdensome licensing requirements that once stifled the economy. The entrenched Peronist system of political graft is being dismantled. As a result, living standards are rising rapidly, economic output is growing, and inward investment is surging. Young Argentines are no longer fleeing the country—instead, they’re returning home. In other words, Argentina is doing what Mississippi has been doing; cutting taxes, removing restrictions, encouraging inwards investment – and seeing a surge in growth as a consequence. Mississippi’s conservative leaders might not normally brandish chainsaws, but when it comes to implementing free market reforms, they have been as effective as Argentina’s Milei.
Mississippi started to implement bold tax reforms from 2022, reducing the state income tax to a flat 4 percent. This year we passed a law to phase out the income tax altogether. In 2021, Mississippi passed the Universal Recognition of Occupational Licenses Act, a significant step towards labor market deregulation in an “at will” employment state. The Magnolia state side-stepped most of the renewable energy nonsense that pumped up energy costs elsewhere. Today, Mississippi has some of the most affordable electricity in the country. These are the reasons there has been a flood of inward investment into Mississippi. It’s why Mississippi is seeing a manufacturing boom. Mississippi’s free market reforms explain why there has been more economic growth in our state in the past five years than there was over the previous fifteen years combined. Free market reforms explain why we had one of the fastest growing states in America at the end of last year. In 2025, Mississippi’s per capita GDP is projected to surpass Germany’s. Just like Argentina, Mississippi still has all those condescending ‘experts’ to contend with. The same sort of people who dismissed the idea that free market Argentina might flourish, still won’t accept that Mississippi is shaping up to be one of America’s new economic success stories. I’ve experienced first-hand supposedly rational, educated individuals flatly refusing to accept the evidence that Mississippi is flourishing. Why? To acknowledge that a southern, conservative - and now increasingly free market - state was flourishing would undermine their progressive world view. Perhaps that is just another reason we should all want Mississippi to keep growing. Douglas Carswell is the President and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.
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5 comments:
MAGA! Make Argentina Great Again! Es verdad.
Didn't these people just post about how the PSC needed more power? Free markets?
School choice is not conservative.
Ain't it so!!
The only reason companies can’t me to MS is cheap labor and low energy costs…..and tax incentives…end of story!
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