Remember the tariff debates that dominated Washington just a few months ago?  For a while it was the only thing anyone seemed to talk about.
 
First tariffs were raised by eyewatering amounts.  Then they weren’t.  Eventually, after all sorts of back and forth, we saw tariffs imposed at the highest rates in decades. Free trade advocates warned of economic catastrophe, while protectionists claimed tariff revenue would fix the deficit. When immediate disaster didn’t strike, the issue seemed to fade – until now.
 
Two local stories that caught my eye this week suggest that we are going to hear a lot more about tariffs.
 
Agriculture is Mississippi’s largest industry, and soybeans the largest crop.  Only a few days ago, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced $10-15 billion in federal support for soybean farmers, including those in the Mississippi Delta.  Why is the federal government having to support soybean farmers in one of the most fertile places in America? Exports have collapsed. China, which once bought over half our soybean crop, now purchases from Brazil due to steep retaliatory tariffs on U.S. soybeans, triggered by U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods.
 
In other words, federal funds are now bailing out farmers hurt by federal tariffs.
 
A second story that got my attention this week was about grocery prices.  53% of Americans say grocery costs are a major concern, with prices spiking last month at the fastest rate in three years.  I couldn’t help also notice another news item about how coffee prices have jumped 20% in the past year, partly because of a 50% U.S. tariff on Brazilian coffee imports.
 
It is said that we often tend to overestimate the impact of new technology in the short term and underestimate the impact in the long term.  I wonder if the same might be said of tariffs. The sky did not fall in when tariffs went up, but the lag effects of the historic hike are only just beginning to be felt by ordinary Americans. 
 
There may yet be something in what the free traders keep trying to tell us.  Defenders of free trade have been reluctant to speak up.  I suspect that may be about to change. By the time of the midterm elections, I suspect millions of Americans will be feeling the effects of tariffs.  Tariffs?  We are going to hear a lot more about them than some people expect.

The past few days have been deeply unsettling.  The assassination of Charlie Kirk, gunned down while addressing young Americans on a Utah college campus, was horrifying.

It seems clear that Charlie was targeted for his beliefs, which he expressed with remarkable clarity and conviction.

Over the past decade, Charlie Kirk emerged as one of a number of new conservative communicators who mastered digital media to connect with younger audiences who found traditional conservatism uninspiring.

Bold yet civil, Kirk fearlessly shared his views and welcomed open debate with those who disagreed. Tragically, it was during one such exchange that he was murdered.

The bleakness of the past few days has been amplified by a rush to vilify those on the “other” side.  Where does this appetite for indignation that makes us want to always assume the worst about others come from?  It risks driving us towards disaster.

Most liberals and progressives I know are as horrified about the events of the past week as my conservative friends.  Yet, I fear that too many Americans have elevated politics to be a sort of substitute religion.  It has become a belief system through which they try to make sense of the world.  It won’t work. 

When politics becomes your religion, you view those who share your beliefs as inherently good and those who don’t as inherently bad. This Manichean mindset erodes respect for differing opinions and abandons civility. Once you start to use your social media feed as the moral yardstick by which you judge the actions of others, you enter a world without redemption.  It will be hell.

As a conservative think tank, the Mississippi Center for Public Policy relentlessly pursues practical solutions like eliminating income tax, cutting red tape, and expanding school choice to improve our state.

But what value do these victories hold if the next generation of Americans is indoctrinated with extreme ideologies?  What good is tax reform today if young people are taught to see their country as irreparably beyond redemption; that only the darker parts of our history are to define us, and not the ideals of freedom that the Founders clung to?

Charlie Kirk understood the importance of teaching young Americans the principles that made the nation great. Through Turning Point USA, he educated students on freedom, free markets, and limited government.

We need to stand firm in our advocacy for these principles.  Respectful but absolutely resolute. 

Four years ago, we began the Mississippi Leadership Academy precisely because we recognized that shaping young hearts and minds is just as vital as pursuing legislative reform.

Our Mississippi Leadership Academy, which starts next week, is a two-part program designed to equip students with the skills and knowledge to become effective change agents in our state, ready to defend American principles and free markets. After this week’s events, the need for the Leadership Academy seems more urgent than ever. 

It’s also why we run our Speaker Series, bringing leading advocates for liberty, such as Douglas Murray and Corey De Angelis to our state. 

In the wake of this week’s tragedy, it’s understandable that some friends have felt despair. Two hundred forty-nine years after America’s founding, some may wonder, is this where our nation stands?

So let me say this as an immigrant that came late to your country; the United States is an extraordinary nation—the greatest republic in human history.  America will remain great, able to overcome every challenge, as long as you hold fast to the founding principles and freedoms that built this nation.

Now more than ever, our mission must be to pass those principles on to the next generation.

This week, I’ll be traveling to Washington, D.C. talking about Mississippi’s remarkable progress, including our elimination of the income tax and how we might best advance school choice in our state.
 
Mississippi is gaining national attention for our transformative public policies. Once seen as a perennial underdog, our state is now recognized as a leader in free-market reforms that are driving unprecedented economic growth.  A lot of folks in Washington and elsewhere are starting to notice our state for the right reasons! 
 
Over the past five years, under Governor Tate Reeves’ leadership, we’ve achieved more economic progress than in the previous fifteen years combined, attracting massive investment.  The folk making the decisions to put their dollars into our state know success when they see it. 
 
This week, the Mississippi Center for Public Policy was honored with an award for our role in eliminating the income tax—a milestone in a series of reforms, including labor market changes in 2021, flat tax implementation in 2022, and school funding reforms in 2023.
 
As I said in my speech when I accepted the award on behalf of our Mississippi team, together these reforms make a potent policy combination.  Click on the image below to hear what I said to the audience about Mississippi’s success story. 

Now, we’re focused on the next critical step: school choice.   Momentum is building, and there’s strong support from Team Trump, who see it as “the civil rights issue of our time.”
 
This week, two senior Trump administration officials, Deputy Assistant Secretary Laurie Todd-Smith and Deputy Chief of Staff Lindsey Burke, visited Mississippi to advocate for education reform before the House Select Committee on Education Freedom. Their compelling case was met with enthusiasm from parents, who outnumbered the entrenched status-quo lobbyists.
 
Mississippi is on the cusp of ensuring every family has access to the educational opportunities their children deserve. Your support is vital as we work to make school choice a reality.
 
Thank you for standing with us.

What would it take for Mississippi to embrace School Choice? How can we join our neighboring states in empowering families to control their child's share of the education budget? For School Choice to happen, we would need to see several steps.   
 
Number one, we would need a committed Governor, ready to invest his political capital in this great conservative cause. Great news!  This week, Governor Tate Reeves signaled in an interview with SuperTalk that School Choice will be his top priority for the 2026 legislative session.

Step two, we would have to have a supportive House Speaker.  Once again, good news.  This week, Speaker Jason White confirmed that the House is actively crafting legislation for 2026.
 
Thirdly, we would have to have strong grassroots support.  Polling already shows that more than two-thirds of Mississippians support School Choice.
 
This week, Americans for Prosperity – Mississippi hosted an outstanding event in Jackson, led by the amazing Starla Brown.  Speakers like Pastor Greg Divinity and Leah Ferretti powerfully articulated the moral imperative: Every family should have the choices that today are reserved only for the wealthy.

Fourth, it would be a big help to have the endorsement of Team Trump.  Fantastic news on that front, too—having discussed this at the White House some time ago, it's evident to me that Team Trump is not just supportive; they're deeply passionate, viewing School Choice as "the civil rights issue of our time."

Fifth, if we are to allow families control of their child’s share of the budget, it would be helpful to know what “their share” consists of.  Thanks to the 2024 school funding reforms, every child now receives a base amount of about $7,000 annually.
 
All we ask is that those who want to have that money paid into an Education Savings Account that they can then allocate to a school of their choice.
 
Finally, it would be tremendously helpful if those against School Choice endlessly resorted to misleading claims and hyperbole.  I don’t think we’ll be disappointed there, either. 
 
Claims that school choice would force your local school board to accept students from outside areas are simply untrue—and I believe many of those that suggest otherwise know it.  Every proposal I’ve seen ensures school boards retain the final say on capacity.
 
As I learned from the Brexit campaign, dishonest claims from opponents only undermines the credibility of their campaigns.  Having been able to rely on establishment opinion for too long, they’ve never mastered the art of making their case convincingly. 
 
All the ingredients are there for Mississippi to adopt School Choice in 2026. 

I’m thrilled to share that momentum for School Choice in Mississippi is growing! Governor Tate Reeves, Speaker Jason White, and even the White House are championing this transformative opportunity to empower parents and enhance education for our children.

This week, WTOK TV aired an in-depth segment exploring how School Choice could benefit families across our state. I had the pleasure of discussing this important topic with news anchor Anna-Hope Bigham. You can watch our conversation by clicking on the image below: 

The Neshoba County Fair is a Mississippi tradition, bringing together thousands of folk at the height of summer for a week of Southern celebration—music, dancing, food, cattle shows, horse racing, and, of course, politics.  Ever since Ronald Reagan kicked off his 1980 presidential campaign at the Fair, it’s been the place where public officials in our state go to share their vision.

Of course, not every speech I’ve heard at Neshoba was always memorable or historic.  This Thursday was different.  House Speaker Jason White delivered a powerful speech making the case for universal school choice, which may mark a turning point for Mississippi. 

Reflecting on his promise last year to eliminate the income tax—a promise he kept—Speaker White made it clear that we can expect to see a comprehensive bill to extend school choice in 2026.  “Every child regardless of their zip code,” he said “deserves a fair chance to succeed. …. Parents know what’s best for their children”.

White emphasized that Mississippi families should control their child’s share of state education funds, empowering them to choose the best education—public, private, or homeschool—for their children.

White’s speech was frequently interrupted by prolonged applause from the crowd.  Enthusiasm was obvious when the Speaker framed school choice, or what President Trump calls “Parent Power,” as a cornerstone of conservative policy. The Trump White House, Speaker White noted, is fully supportive of his push for Parent Power.

Governor Reeves, who followed Speaker White at the podium talked about school choice at the press huddle afterwards.  Reeves made it clear he is 100 percent onboard with White’s plan.  The Governor suggested that Mississippi needed to prioritize school choice now that so many other southern states had done so. Every neighboring state—Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, and Louisiana—has embraced school choice, giving families choices for their kids that once only rich people had.
 
The 2025 Neshoba County Fair could go down in history as the occasion where the House Speaker came out clearly for School Choice – and the conservative movement, urged on by the Trump White House, rallied in support. 
 
I might not have been at Neshoba for Reagan in 1980, but I was there for Jason White in 2025.  A historic inflection point for our state. 

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.

Speaking to my friends at Smith County Republicans the other day, someone asked me what I most loved about moving to Mississippi from London.

There are so many things I love about the Magnolia state, the more I thought about it, the longer my answer grew.  I thought I’d list a few of my favorite things about life in Mississippi.  

1. Southern Civility. Yes, it’s a bit of a cliché, but as an outsider I can confirm it’s the truth; Mississippi folk are the friendliest people on the planet.  Southern charm makes being here such a joy.  

2. Mississippi BOOM!  Since I arrived almost five years ago, economic output in the state is up about a third.  There’s been a massive injection of inward investment.  You can feel the growth.  Coming from the other side of the Atlantic, it's uplifting to live in a place that is on the up.

3. Income tax on the way out.  Mississippi is on the way to eliminating the income tax entirely, like Florida, Tennessee and Texas.  It is great to live in a society where taxes go down and public officials can’t expect to keep taking more.

4. Space.  With 3 million people spread out over 48,000 square miles, Mississippi has lots of space. There’s a great big outdoors.  Our state might not have mega cities the size of Atlanta or Chicago, but having seen the boarded up offices and shops in Chicago, I wonder if modern technology means that being more spread out is actually the way to go.

5. Stunning small towns.  Too often downtown America feels abandoned, people and businesses having moved to the suburbs.  One of the delights Mississippi has to offer are towns that are actually prospering.  Downtown Oxford, Starkville and Natchez, for example, are full of shops and restaurants – and thriving.

6. Universities.  Our family is at the stage where we’re starting to think about college options.  There are so many great choices in this part of the world.  Sending your kid to a southern university reduces the chance they’ll become a communist – which is why, I suspect, we are seeing such a surge in applications from outsiders wanting to study in this state. 

7. High school football.  The football season is about to begin and when it does, the highlight of my week will be watching Friday night football.  It is a festival of everything Americana….. 

8. College football.  The next best thing is college football.  Sure, we don’t have an NFL team, but I genuinely prefer watching SEC teams play.  

9. The weather.  Some folk complain about Mississippi’s heat and humidity.  Coming from London where one would sometimes seldom see the sun, I love the climate here.  The sun in our state is up bright and early (almost) every day.  Glorious. 

10. Gardening.  I love gardening, and it seems you can grow almost anything here.  Sweet peas.  Hibiscus.  This year I’ve had a bumper crop of grapes and even starting to get some mulberries.

If living in America means you’ve won first prize in the lottery of life, being in Mississippi means you got the bonus ball!  

Mississippi is shedding its image as an economic laggard. Over the past five years, the state’s economic output has grown more than it did over the previous fifteen years combined.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Mississippi posted the second-fastest per capita GDP growth and fifth-fastest personal income growth among all states in Q4 2024. Billions in capital investment have flowed in.

This growth is happening across the state—from the Gulf Coast and Pine Belt to DeSoto County, the Jackson metro area, and the university hubs of Oxford and Starkville.

Mississippi whoooooosh!

Mississippi’s recent growth is no accident. It is down to good public policy.  Since 2022, Mississippi has implemented transformative tax cuts, reduced the state income tax and lowered the grocery sales tax and easing business inventory taxes. A 2021 law streamlining occupational licensing reduced barriers for workers and entrepreneurs, with the Mississippi Secretary of State reporting a 12% increase in new business registrations in 2023 alone.

Energy in our state is affordable, Mississippi electricity rates averaging 13.43 cents per kilowatt-Hour, helping draw in energy-intensive industries, including two major data centers in Madison and Rankin counties.  To top it all, Mississippi’s public universities are fueling growth, and around Oxford and Starkville, entrepreneurial ecosystems are thriving.

But to maintain this momentum, our state needs to abandon policymaking as usual and embrace bold reform.  That’s why the Mississippi Center for Public Policy (MCPP) has just launched The Mississippi Miracle? Bold Reforms for Growth.

Our paper details practical steps to sustain and accelerate this momentum:

• Empower Parents Through School Choice: Let families use state funds for public, private, or homeschooling options to drive competition and elevate education standards.
• Refocus Higher Education: Cut administrative bloat, prioritize workforce-relevant programs, and redirect resources from low-value courses to practical, job-focused education.
• Rein in Public Spending: Cap budget growth to population growth plus inflation to ensure fiscal discipline and curb waste.
• Cut Red Tape: Eliminate outdated regulations, repeal Certificate of Need laws, and create a business-friendly environment to spur innovation.
• Reform Public Procurement: Mandate transparent, competitive bidding with regular audits to prevent cronyism and maximize taxpayer value.
• Promote Welfare-to-Work: Emphasize work requirements, job training, and time-limited benefits to foster self-sufficiency and reduce program costs.

These reforms are practical policies that lawmakers can implement to improve lives across Mississippi.

To explore them in detail, visit mspolicy.org under “Publications” or email me at [email protected] for a direct link.

MCPP has a small, but highly productive team.  We punch above our weight, producing policy proposals that become law, and helping set the agenda at the Capitol.  We are able to do all this because we have the input of so many people across our state.  Please read our proposals and share your thoughts—I want to hear what you think.

For decades, Mississippi exported people.  Young people in particular tended to leave our state for places like Atlanta, Nashville, Huntsville and Austin.

I believe the tide is starting to turn.  I often hear anecdotes of young people moving back to Mississippi.  The data suggests that growth in our state is creating opportunities and drawing more people to move here . 

Have a read of our report and help us build on this momentum.