The news about Mississippi just keeps on getting better!
First, the Mississippi House passed a bill to allow public to public School Choice. Not far behind is a bill that would allow a form of public to private School Choice. A few days before that, the House passed a proposal to eliminate the income tax. Then they went and passed a bill to repeal lots of protectionist red tape that restricts the healthcare economy in our state. They even found time to pass a bill to remove the absurd law that prevents adults in our state from buying wine online. Even the Senate went and passed a bill that has the potential to stamp out Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) ideology in our public universities. It would be premature to start celebrating these wins for freedom. Each of these bills still needs to be voted through by both chambers before heading to the Governor’s desk. But it is hard to think of a year in which at this stage in the legislative session the prospects of reform shone as brightly as they do today. After years of seeing free market reforms killed by vested interests in committee, our lawmakers suddenly seem to be giving conservative voters conservative policies.
For decades, vested interests at the state Capitol were able to stifle change. This helps explain why Mississippi was often thought of as 50 th out of 50 states. Perhaps it is time to think again? As Governor Tate Reeves keeps pointing out, Mississippi has momentum. In the second and third quarters of last year, our state had one of the fastest growing per person incomes and per person outputs of any US state. Yes, you read that right. Mississippi was one of the fastest growing states in America. This new growth data might only be a snapshoot, rather than a trend. However, if our legislature really does pass all of the measures listed above, Mississippi will be on an upward trajectory for sure. Of course, even as you read this, an army of lobbyists with their snouts in the Jackson trough are frantically trying to kill off these proposed changes. The absurdly named “Parent’s Campaign” has gone into overdrive to try to prevent giving actual parents more choice. Fake conservatives are thinking up a hundred reasons why we cannot afford tax cuts. Those Tate Reeves calls the “coalition of the status quo” are trying desperately to keep things the way they are. Perhaps most dangerous of all are those commentators who have spent years excusing inertia by implying that Mississippi can only manage to make one change at a time. We will hear plenty of fatuous arguments that the state legislature only has the bandwidth to implement change at a snail’s pace. Some will tell us that this is the Mississippi way. Nonsense. Never accept excuses for mediocrity. If the state legislature in Arkansas and Alabama can cope with tax cuts, school choice and deregulation at the same time, so can we. A great deal of the credit for this reformist momentum is due to Speaker Jason White and his cadre of conservative lawmakers. We must pray that the Speaker and his team hold their nerve. Let us cheer on Speaker White as he faces down the vested interests that want to hold Mississippi back. Let us call out the hypocrisy of the smug, self-satisfied anti-school choice activists that sent their own kids to private school. Playing nicely with such people never works, so don’t. Real conservative lawmakers who want to see Mississippi grow can vote for these changes in the knowledge that we have a President and a primary base behind them all the way! Douglas Carswell is the President and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy. The Mississippi Center for Public Policy sponsored this post.
15 comments:
Instead, put your efforts into improving public education. If that means mandatory Training School for chronic absenteeism or poor behavior, so be it. Give teachers and administrators a way to hold students and parents accountable, and you’d get good results.
Your mantra is obviously, “give me my money, the hell with everyone else.”
Serious question, what is going to happen to education in Mississippi once the department of education is eliminated, along with the federal funding that goes with it ?
Public education is a local monopoly and has little incentive to improve unless competition is introduced. While I'm skeptical of universal school choice, I'm a huge fan of public/public choice.
Mississippi has always gone backwards into the future. At least we're moving Mississippi style.
You'd have a point....if there were any sort of momentum in that direction. There hasn't been for 30 years.
@10:21
How much more money do you think it will take to fix public schools in Mississippi, 53% of the states budget goes to public education.
That’s been the mantra of public education for the last several decades.
So, you just can't fix deliberately ignorant, I guess. This is what you get when you elect people who don't understand economics or bother to find the best methods to use whether it's liquor and wine sales or school choice. They listen to lobbyists or serve their best interests. The middle class and lower classes still won't be able to afford private schools. This is not the voucher model that results in public schools competing with private schools. And, most states had good private schools that began to develop focuses like art or foreign language skills or math already in place and then there would be quasi-lottery. Private schools can still set standards for who they accept. They are not going to accept Bubba's kids unless Bubba's kid is really a genius or first class athlete and in that case, they'd accept Bubba's kid anyway, this will just cost them less.
You will only hurt local liquor stores with online wine buying and it will benefit the wealthiest Mississippians to allow us to buy high end wines online that we can't get here. We won't have to drive them back from NOLA anymore. Instead, allow the liquor stores to buy whatever wines they want for their stores. Better yet, do what the rest of the states do, sell low end wines in grocery stores.
These idiots will also drive up health care costs. Apparently lobbyists are writing our bills. You will benefit insurance companies who will deny care and charge more . Already medicine is using a business model to the detriment of patients and inflation is driving up the costs of medicines as well as everything else.
What you really will achieve is middle class that continues to shrink. Labor costs will indeed go down. Inflation will rise more.
You will make politicians wealthier and more powerful. They are excited.
Ironically, the countries that did do some of this successfully, already had good education and universal health care. Some of them even understood that for capitalism to work at it's best, it allows for healthy competition and for new products to have a level playing field to compete and a healthy, skilled workforce.
@12:06, you think online wine sales will hurt local liquor stores but wine sales in grocery stores won't?
Someone needs a reality check.
Regarding our ABC and the way it was run, it is one of the worst in the country. Go to any other state around us and look at what you can and will get. Much more options. The Mississippi ABC is like the Gestapo. Oh, and that bottle of Pappy Van Winkle, only the high rollers at or friends with the hookup get those. The state doesn't even really let the local stores get those. Yes, the state controls what is in the liquor stores. It's a state run mafia. But if you are trying to get your high four from PERs, and happen to be a higher up in state government, you can get all of the good allocated alcohol you want.
Schools? School choice will never bring the bottom up, but you will bring the top down. It's the law of averages. In the end, if it ever passes, it will be the death nail to the better school districts. Why not force the underperforming districts to do better, consolidate, etc?
Dude, you really need to get on some medication.
Your free-form stream of word-salad thinking is nothing but loose associations that you likely enjoy writing out, but never really actually conveys anything coherent or persuasive.
WELL said.
Private schools love that new people want to attend. That’s why they have the Private School Parents for Choice Club. NOT 🤣
I’d like to see school choice in Mississippi if it means parents get to choose who doesn’t get in.
Since the problem is the fault of the schools, just close JPS, for example, and pay for the scholars to attend Prep, JA, MRA, Hartfield, etc.
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