Budget and Taxes

This fiscal year there was a significant boost in state government revenue. While surpluses ideally should be returned to taxpayers, the Legislature did at least stabilize the budget to guard against tax increases in the future. (more…)

Before the year began, many legislators were expecting a relatively noncontroversial session. This was, perhaps, wishful thinking. But one bill that did not seem controversial was SB 2681, the Mississippi Religious Freedom Restoration Act (MS-RFRA). Indeed, SB 2681 sailed through the Senate with little debate and even seemed an appropriate vehicle for the governor's proposal to add "In God We Trust" to the state seal. (more…)

Last year, the federal government took in more money than any year in history - $2.7 trillion. The federal government also spent more money than any year in history - $3.7 trillion. We spent a trillion dollars more last year than we spent in 2006, just seven years earlier!

This shows that no matter how much we increase government spending, the problems that money is supposed to alleviate still exist, now accompanied by the additional burden of astronomical debt. (more…)

Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman coined the adage, "There's no such thing as a free lunch." What he meant, of course, is that nothing in life is free. When we get a product or service we call "free," it simply means that someone else paid for it. (more…)

Yesterday's rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court did NOT create a fundamental right for same-sex couples to marry. Mississippi's laws regarding the definition of marriage are not affected by these rulings. In fact, the Court seemed to reinforce the right of states to define marriage for the purpose of their own laws. (more…)

Government poverty programs usually start with a small nucleus of people who, most everyone agrees, really need help. Then just beyond that nucleus, there is a group of people who almost qualify but make just a little too much money. So wouldn’t compassion demand that you expand the program just a little to include them? When you do that, you’ve now created a bigger circle, meaning even more people just beyond the line, and the pressure builds to include those people. And so it goes, eventually encompassing vast groups of people who would never have been defined as being “needy” when the program first began. (more…)

Most rational people are concerned about the unconscionable burden of debt being placed on our children and grandchildren by the federal government. The explosion in federal spending is largely due to the rapid and unsustainable growth in entitlement programs. (more…)

Fact 1: Medicaid harms patients by providing low-quality care

The goal of Medicaid should be to provide high-quality health care at an affordable price. Medicaid fails to do that.
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Education: Best bills of the session

The 2013 session was heralded as the education session and revealed quite a bit about how far the legislature was willing to go - or not go - in pursuit of fundamental education reform. To their credit, legislators passed a modest charter school bill that allows charters in D and F districts. In addition, they passed a bill ending social promotion for third graders who cannot read. (more…)