Often in politics, it is easier to define a problem than it is to solve it.

Remember Barack Obama’s eloquent speech about the need to unite America beyond red states Vs blue states?  When Obama left office, America was more politically polarized than before.

Who could forget Al Gore’s theatrics as he talked about the need to save the planet?  I doubt a Gore-run administration would be able to control the country’s borders, let alone control global sea levels or the climate.

Remember how during last year’s gubernatorial race here in Mississippi, Brandon Presley, the Democrat candidate, waxed lyrically about the fate of rural hospitals?  Hosing federal funds around is unlikely to change the fact that hospitals that are underused will remain underused. 

Politicians can certainly make problems worse.  Obama, I would argue, exacerbated America’s divisions.  Gore & co have advocated for an energy policy that does nothing to control the climate, but has made people poorer.  Subsidising an underused health service is unlikely to make it magically sustainable. 

Occasionally, however, politicians have it in their gift to do something that really would improve things. 

In a report we published this week, we show that there is a solution to Mississippi’s healthcare crisis staring us in the face:  our leaders could abolish the anticompetitive laws that intentionally limit the number of healthcare providers in our state.  This would improve access to healthcare and lower costs for everyone. 

For years, if a healthcare provider wants to offer new services or expand existing services in 19 key areas of health care, they are required by law to get a permit.  These Soviet-style permits, known as Certificates of Need (CON), are also required for a provider wanting to spend more than $1.5 million on new medical equipment, relocate services from one part of the state to another, or change ownership.

Unlike other sensible licensing requirements, CON requirements are not designed primarily to assess a provider’s qualifications, safety record, or fitness.  They are about central planning to decide if each new applicant’s services are “needed” by the community.  I believe that it should be up to patients and practioners to decide what is needed, not government bureaucrats.

CON laws in Mississippi limit the provision of long term care, despite demographic change that has seen the number of elderly people needing care increase dramatically.  Ambulatory services, key diagnostic services, psychiatric services and many other services are all limited by CON laws.

If the case for change is so overwhelming, why has it not already been done?  In any market, when there are restrictions imposed to keep out the competition, there will be various vested interests that lobby for their retention.  So, too, with CON laws. 

Defenders of CON restrictions suggest that CON repeal would be risky and dangerous.  They like to imply that any reform would reduce access and quality would suffer. 

Such concerns are unfounded.  Over 100 million Americans—nearly a third of the population—live in states without CON laws in health care. Four in ten Americans live in states with limited CON regimes that apply to only one or two services, such as ambulance services or nursing homes.

If our lawmakers are serious about improving healthcare in Mississippi, I hope they read our report, which sets out not only what needs to be done, but provides a roadmap explaining how to do it. 

High flying rhetoric won’t improve our state.  Getting down to work and removing CON laws will.

Report identifies key reforms needed to boost health outcomes in Magnolia state

Removing outdated restrictions on health care would boost health care in Mississippi, according to a new report published today.  Mississippi has some of the worst health outcomes in the country, and the full repeal of these anticompetitive laws in the health sector would cut costs and improve access to treatment.

For several decades, an official permit has been required for health care providers wanting to offer new services or expand existing services in 19 key areas of health care.  These permits, known as Certificates of Need (CON), are also required for a provider wanting to spend more than $1.5 million on new medical equipment, relocate services from one part of the state to another, or change ownership.

Unlike other health care licensing laws already in place, the CON process is not designed primarily to assess a provider’s qualifications, safety record, or fitness.  Instead, CON laws require regulators to centrally plan the health care sector by assessing whether each new applicant’s services are “needed” by the community. That question, however, can only be truly answered through the voluntary choices of practitioners and patients.

“If you want to know why Mississippi does not have medical care where it is most needed, CON laws bear much of the blame.  They intentionally take away options for health care,” explained Douglas Carswell, President and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.

“What started out a generation ago as a misguided attempt to restrict increases in health costs has become a legally-sanctioned protectionist scheme.  These outdated laws are indefensible and must go.”

CON laws in Mississippi limit the provision of long term care, despite demographic change that has seen the number of elderly people needing care increase dramatically.  Ambulatory services, key diagnostic services, psychiatric services and many other services are all limited by CON laws.

The report, authored by Matthew Mitchell, one of America’s leading experts on health care regulation, references overwhelming evidence which shows that CON laws mean higher spending, less access, and diminished quality of care.

Mitchell’s report identifies a road map for reform, highlighting how full abolition could be achieved.  “The evidence from other states without CON laws not only shows how a Mississippi without CON would enjoy greater access to lower cost and higher quality care, but it also gives us a roadmap for how to do it. In the report, I talk about 11 different strategies for reform,” said Mitchell.

“The Governor and the new Speaker have both committed to improving health outcomes in Mississippi by repealing restrictive practices.  We are excited to see legislation aimed at CON repeal, as well as action by the Board of Health to remove the red tape,” added Carswell.

Last year, Mississippi Republicans won an overwhelming majority.  Could 2024 be the year when they use that majority to deliver the kind of big, strategic change our state desperately needs? 
 
Here are a number of reforms that Mississippi conservatives have it in their gift to implement, which would transform the long term prospects of our state for the better.

1. Education Freedom: 

2024 could be the year that we give every family in the state control over their child’s share of education tax dollars, through an Education Freedom Account.  Arkansas passed legislation to do precisely that last year.  Tennessee and Louisiana are poised to do something similar.  Rather than trailing behind, Mississippi lawmakers should take the lead, delivering big, strategic change to improve education in this state, too.   

The Mississippi Center for Public Policy recently held a public rally for education freedom, with Corey DeAngelis and local educators, helping mainstream the idea.  Recent polls now show overwhelming public support.  

• Affordable healthcare: 

Too many families in Mississippi cannot get health coverage.  Rather than hosing federal dollars at the problem, we need to look at what states like Florida are doing to innovate, with alternatives to insurance-based healthcare.  This means ending the restrictive Certificate of Need laws that prevent new low cost health care providers from operating.  It also means allowing nurse practitioners more autonomy.  The Mississippi Center for Public Policy will soon publish a roadmap on how to go about removing CON laws.   

• Tax cuts: 

In 2023 Mississippi had a large state budget surplus.  Rather than wait for politicians to think up new ways to spend that surplus, we need to see tax cuts in 2024.  One option would be a further reduction in the state income tax.  

Our neighboring states are reducing the tax burden on families and businesses.  If we want to reverse the population decline in our state, we need to do so too.

• Abolish DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion): 

In recent months we have seem appalling behaviour by ‘woke’ academics at several leading universities.  It is now clear that DEI is destroying American academia.  So why are public universities in Mississippi still running DEI programs?  The Governor of Oklahoma recently issued an order terminating funding for DEI programs in public universities in that state.  Mississippi needs to stop the rot in public universities and end DEI programs in 2024.

While those are our top four priorities for 2024, here are some other things we would like to see our law makers deliver:

• Women’s Bill of Rights / Parents Bill of Rights:  Early last year, we invited Riley Gaines to speak in Jackson as part of our campaign to mainstream the idea of protecting women’s rights.  We are thrilled to see so many people come out in support of the idea of building on the safeguards already contained within the Mississippi Fairness Act. 

• PERS reform:  The laws of math make the current public employee retirement scheme (PERS) unsustainable.  Mississippi needs reforms so that young people starting work in the public sector have defined contribution, rather than defined benefit, pensions.  Unless we make this change now, our grandchildren will end up with a massive tax bill.  2024 is the year when we need to see sensible changes made to PERS.

• Ballot initiative:  Citizens in our state used to have a right of ballot initiative.  Over a thirty year period, almost 70 initiative attempts to change the state constitution were made, with only three being successful.  A failure to update the rules for triggering such initiatives means that we no longer have this right in practice.  MCPP would like to see the right of ballot initiative restored, allowing citizens to change state law.  

• Young Enterprise Act:  Mississippi ought to do more to encourage young people to become entrepreneurs.  One way to do this could be to exempt minors from having to obtain costly permits and licenses, or collect and remit sales taxes, when they want to run a small business.   A few years ago, such a proposal was considered in the state legislature.  We would love to see it revived. 

If Mississippi conservatives passed these eight or so laws, they would transform our state for the better.  No longer would we be considered a laggard by some, but as a leader.  

I arrived in Mississippi exactly three years ago, and I am as excited to be here as I was that first day.
 
With so many negative stories in the news media, and progressive pundits constantly talking America down, I wanted to share with you half a dozen things I love about living in your country.

1.  Mississippi.   

I love living right here in Mississippi.  Yes, it was a big change from London, but my family and I love it.  

Bizarrely, there is a certain sort of progressive in our state that is never happier than when moaning about Mississippi.  Ignore them.  If living in America makes me feel that I’ve won the lottery of life, having the good fortune to be in the 20^th state of the Union makes me feel like I drew the winning powerball.  

2. Optimism.
 
Americans are, in my opinion, the most optimistic people on the planet.  This is a country where people believe that tomorrow will be better than today, and that next year will be better than the last.  By and large, they are right. 
 
This optimism is, I suspect, one of the secrets of American success.  Don’t ever lose it!

3. Patriotism. 

Americans, for the most part, have an uncomplicated and infectious love of their country.  
 
Over in Europe, elite opinion sneers at those who love their country.  Chinese patriotism seems to me to often be less about love for China and more about an aggressive form of ethno-nationalism.
 
In America, by contrast, anyone can become American if they subscribe to a set of ideals.  This, to me, still feels like magic.

4. Gratitude.  

One of the keys to living a happy life, I was brought up to believe, is a sense of gratitude.  Americans not only have lots to be grateful for, but I believe show enormous gratitude for what they have.  (You even have a national holiday called “Thanksgiving”!)
 
Everyone living in America today is the beneficiary of good choices made by those who came before us.  Some of the best choices ever were made in a courthouse in Philadelphia in 1787.  Every American today is a direct beneficiary. 

5. Belief. 

America, or at least the southern part of it, has lots of full churches.  In London, people would ask me if I went to church.  In Mississippi, people ask me where I go to church.
 
GK Chesterton once observed that when a man loses faith in the divine, he does not believe in nothing, but becomes capable of believing anything. 
 
The cult of climate change, and ‘woke’ ideology, it seems to me to have become secular belief systems for people that lack any other faith.  I am not sure that faith in either Greta or Gaia will provide ‘woke’ people with much metaphysical comfort.  This could explain why, unlike most folk I meet in Mississippi, they never seem very happy.

6. My job. 

I love working for the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, our state’s unashamedly conservative think tank.  MCPP believes in low taxes, limited government and individual freedom. 
 
Over the past three years, thanks to your support, MCPP has been able to achieve some big wins.  MCPP helped lead the fight to slash the state income tax, introduce a law to combat Critical Race theory and deregulate the labor market.  Mississippi is, I believe, tantalisingly close to achieving universal school choice, healthcare reform and further reductions in tax.

So, are there any downsides to living in America, I am sometimes asked?   
 
I think America is brilliant (as we Brits say).  But the US would be even more brilliant if you made a couple of very minor changes.  Firstly, you need to do hot tea properly.  Second, you could do with a few more roundabouts – the perfect small state traffic management solution.   Oh, and the tune you guys sing to “Away in a Manager” is wrong (Don’t ask me to sing you the right version).  But apart from that, I would not change a thing.

Thanks for having me.  It is wonderful to be here.  

We’ve all heard of the ‘success sequence’, right?  This is the idea that if someone manages to achieve three things - finish high school, get a full-time job and get married before having kids – they will avoid poverty.  
 
According to lots of robust research, anyone that passes these three milestones stands a 97 percent chance of not being poor. 

If only we could just get every young American to do those three things, some suggest, poverty would soon be a thing of the past.  But is the ‘success sequence’ really a solution to America’s socio-economic problems? 

Encouraging young Americans to graduate from high school, find gainful employment and marry before having kids is a good and worthwhile thing to do.  However, I am doubtful that prescribing the ‘success sequence’ as some sort of magic solution will get us very far. 
 
Why?  Sociologists may be right when they point out the correlation between the success sequence and avoiding poverty. But might that not be because the kind of person that finishes high school, holds down a job and invests in stable relationships tends to be the kind of person that has what it takes to make a success of their life anyhow?

I imagine that every US company with a market capitalization in excess of, say, $ 1 billion has impressive corporate head offices.  But shiny corporate offices are just an indication of success.  Big corporate HQs do not themselves explain why successful firms are successful.
 
It is something else – having lots of happy customers, perhaps – that accounts for both the high market capitalization and the impressive corporate offices.  Similarly, it is not the success sequence itself that is the engine of a person’s accomplishment, but rather a reflection of it.  

So, what might the engine of personal accomplishment be?  
 
When people talk excitedly about the success sequence, I suspect they are really talking about one of the most important (and often overlooked) ideas in economics; time preferences.

Several decades ago, a professor at Stanford, Walter Mischel, conducted the famous marshmallow experiment.  He offered kids one marshmallow right away, or two marsh mallows if the child chose to wait a while before eating it.
 
Mischel’s marshmallow experiment measured the extent to which each child was prepared to delay gratification.  Those that were willing to wait had what we call a low time preference.  Think of them as being ‘tomorrow people’, prepared to wait for what they wanted. 
 
Those that preferred one marshmallow, but right away had what economists would call a high time preference.  Think of these as ‘today people’, more inclined to want things right away. 

Over the years that followed, Mischel discovered a remarkable correlation between the time preferences of the kids, and their subsequent achievements in life, not only academic but in terms of relationships, too.  
 
‘Tomorrow people’ tend to have brighter tomorrows than ‘today people’.
 
Those that invest the time and effort in graduating high school, starting out in the jobs market and forming permanent relationships, I would venture, have lower time preferences than those that don’t. 
 
Rather than see the success sequence milestones as the solution to poverty eradication, policy makers ought to think instead about how we might encourage us to be better ‘tomorrow people’.  Many government policies encourage us to be ‘today people’.  High inflation, for example, discourages savings and incentivizes us to spend.  Low interest rates encourage us to borrow.  Welfare programs leave millions living a hand-to-mouth existence.

If we want to see more young Americans follow the success sequence, we should implement policies that encourage them to invest their time and efforts in the future.  That means stable prices, but it also means taking steps to ensure young Americans can afford to buy a home of their own.
 
It means lower income taxes, so those that work get to keep more of what they earn. It means taking more active steps to reduce long term welfare dependency.  It means giving young families school choice so that they can ensure their children get the right education for them. 

Politicians should not just talk about the success sequence.  They need to make changes to public policy so that it is easier for young Americans to do the right thing.

The ‘success sequence’ must never become a pretext for social engineering.  Someone’s own time preferences are ultimately a matter of personal choice.  Some Americans are more ‘today people’ than ‘tomorrow people’, and it takes a certain conceit to believe that government can change that.

Even with the most benign public policies in place, there will always be some who make impulsive choices that diminish their chances of a better tomorrow.  Good public policy deals with human nature as it is, not as some might want it to be. 

Any sensible person can see that there is something seriously wrong with many American universities.  

For several decades many of our most prestigious seats of learning have become hostile to free speech and genuine inquiry.  Speech codes have been introduced to prevent so-called ‘micro aggressions’. 
 
Speakers that do not subscribe to ‘woke’ orthodoxies have been ‘de-platformed’.  Those that do get invited on to campus risk being mobbed, as recently happened to a federal judge at Stanford and Riley Gaines at San Francisco State

Intellectual inquiry, too, has narrowed.  Anyone presenting ideas outside the approved parameters risks having their career terminated.  (See what happened to Harvard’s then President, Larry Summers, in 2006 when he suggested that genetics might help explain why there are more male than female scientists.)
 
Then on October 7^th, Hamas slaughtered over a thousand Israelis, most of them civilians.  Far from condemning the massacre, student groups at Harvard, Cornell and other universities, rushed to issue statements attacking Israel.
 
Anti-Israel protesters on campus made statements and chanted slogans that went beyond being merely rude or unpleasant.  Some seemed antisemitic.  Others sounded like they were calling for a Jewish genocide.

How come those campus speech codes suddenly no longer applied?  Having spent years policing what could be said to avoid ‘micro aggressions’, where were the university authorities when Jewish students faced actual aggression?  

Giving evidence before a Congressional committee the other week, Claudine Gay of Harvard appeared to suggest that however unpalatable the protesters might be, it was all part of their right to freedom of speech.  “Our university embraces a commitment to free expression” she said.  Both she, and Liz Magill of Penn, failed to confirm that calls for genocide of Jews violated the university’s code of conduct. 

Free speech appears to apply at these universities when you want to call for genocide, but not if you want to talk about genetics.
 
Watching both Gay and Magill give evidence, they both appeared out of their depth.  I may not have been the only person left wondering how either of them was appointed to their respective roles in the first place.  (Some have unkindly suggested it may have something to do with ‘woke’ hiring practices.) 

The problems at US universities run deeper than just a handful of poor appointments.
 
Many US universities, including some right here in Mississippi, have DEI, or Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, programs.  This needs to stop.  Now.  
 
DEI can sound entirely harmless.  Who could possibly be against supporting different groups of individuals, including people of different races, ethnicities, religions, abilities, genders, and sexual orientations?  Pretty soon, however, DEI proves to be something much more sinister. 
 
In the name of diversity, some US universities have been systematically discriminating against some Americans on the basis of their race, limiting admissions to ‘overrepresented’ groups.  In the name of equity, US universities have set out to address structural inequalities – historic and current – that advantage some and disadvantage others.  In the name of inclusion, those with the wrong views are excluded.

DEI is flawed because it demands we think in terms of groups of individuals, rather than just individuals.  Universities that apply DEI no longer treat everyone on campus equally, but on the basis of their immutable characteristics.  DEI is a fundamentally un-American ideal.
 
DEI is also a formula almost guaranteed to produce institutional incompetence.  Imagine, for a moment, that your favorite football or basketball team was to be run on the basis of DEI.  If they recruited players on the basis of something other than their ability to play the game, they would lose.  It makes no sense to run a public university that way. 
 
What is to be done?
 
Last week, the Governor of Oklahoma, Kevin Stitt, showed the way.  He issued an executive order banning DEI programs in public universities.  Mississippi needs to do something similar.

An executive order in Mississippi could prohibit public universities from using state funds, property or resources for DEI initiatives.  
 
To be sure, if the Governor was to do this in Mississippi there would be howls of protests.  Various pundits would whine.  It is what pundits do.  Some will scream “supremacist!”.  There is nothing supremacist about insisting every American is treated equally.  Others will warn that unless we continue to pay DEI staff six figure salaries Mississippi will somehow regress. 
 
I suspect most Mississippi parents wanting the best for their children would breathe a sigh of relief knowing that the sort of scenes we witnessed at some of those so-called ‘elite’ institutions never happen here.  
 
If we want to stop the ‘woke’ takeover of our institutions, we need to act now.

The movement for school choice in Mississippi has momentum. 

There is a growing chance that we will see a move to create a universal Education Savings Account for every child in Mississippi, similar perhaps to those in surrounding states such as Arkansas.

Fearful of this, ideologues opposed to parent power are starting to marshal dishonest arguments against school choice.

Some have started to suggest that creating Education Savings Accounts in our state would be somehow unconstitutional, citing a case currently before the state Supreme Court regarding the use of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds in support of this idea.

The argument that the constitution prevents Mississippi establishing a program of universal Education Savings Accounts is nonsense.  Many of those making it must know it is a nonsense.

The danger is that those looking for a convenient excuse not to support education freedom in Mississippi will latch on to these bogus arguments. 

“Of course, I personally support school choice” some will say.  “But sadly, our constitution means that we just can’t have the type of system they have in Arkansas”. 

To ensure that every lawmaker knows that there is no constitutional impediment to establishing Education Savings Accounts in Mississippi, we have prepared the following briefing note, and sent it to every lawmaker.

No one that reads it can credibly claim that there is a constitutional impediment to school choice in our state.

Political change unfolds in three stages.  First, when a new idea comes along, they will say that such reform is unthinkable. 

Then as the idea starts to take hold, opponents admit that it might be a good idea after all, but it is unfortunately impractical.  Finally, at the third stage they will tell you it was their idea all along.

School choice, the idea that we give families control over their child’s education tax dollars, is no longer unthinkable.  Several states, including our neighbour, Arkansas give each child an Education Freedom Account, into which the state pays about $8,000 – 10,000 each year.  

Mom and dad are then able to allocate that money to either a public, private or church school of their choice.  They are even allowed to use the funds to home school their kids.  School choice is now a reality in half a dozen states across America.  

Why don’t we do something similar in Mississippi?  

Those opposed to putting parents in control in our own state have switched from principled objections to the more practical sort of excuses.  

A recent article in Mississippi Today, for example, asserted that the Mississippi Constitution precluded school choice, citing section 208 and referencing a case currently before the state Supreme Court.

During Covid, the Mississippi legislature authorized a state agency to distribute about $10 million of federal Covid relief funds to private schools for infrastructure improvements.  The decision has been challenges by an activist group who argue that Section 208 made such payments unconstitutional.  

Even if our state Supreme Court rules that the provision of $10 million in federal relief funds to private schools was unconstitutional, that decision would not prevent Mississippi from enacting school choice programs, including those available to families using non-public schools. 

The Mississippi Constitution only prohibits the appropriation of state education dollars for institutional aid to non-public schools. It does not prevent the state from providing individual aid to students who choose to use those funds for tuition at non-public schools. Indeed, to avoid future confusion on that point, our legal division, the Mississippi Justice Institute, asked the Court to explicitly say so in its ruling.

A second practical objection we are starting to hear is that school choice will not work in rural areas that only have one available local school.

Surely a lack of options is a reason to extend choice, not to limit it?  If there is only a single school available, all the more important that we allow families to use some of their children’s tax dollars to pay for additional tutoring, or some alternative lessons, on top.      

Others object to school choice on the grounds that it would defund public education. Allowing families to choose their grocery store does not ‘defund’ Walmart.  Allowing families to choose their school does not ‘defund’ public schools.  

Since when did those tax dollars belong to the school board bureaucracy?  Our tax dollars are there to educate our children.  School choice would give every family the opportunity to choose what is best for their children.  

When opponents of parent power claim that giving families control over the money would mean less money for school board bureaucrats, they are making an important admission.  They are acknowledging that if they were able to, some families would chose something different.  

Over the coming months, we will hear all kinds of practical excuses advanced against parent power.  Do not be discouraged.  Those citing practical objections against parent power are doing so because they have had to abandon any principled opposition.  Once that process begins, the case against school choice begins to crumble.  Momentum for change will only grow. 

Parents, children, lawmakers and educators gathered at an ‘Education Freedom Rally’ in Jackson on Wednesday. 

The event, hosted by the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, was attended by over 120 people, with representatives from half a dozen different organizations taking part.

“Last week saw the Republicans win a super majority in Mississippi.  Parents at our rally would like to see them use that majority to achieve major strategic change in Mississippi education,” explained Douglas Carswell, CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.

Corey DeAngelis of the Federation for American Children spoke at the event, explaining why school choice is essential in order to improve education in Mississippi. 

Over half a dozen states – including neighbouring Arkansas - now have universal school choice programs, with families having control over their child’s education tax dollars.  Families in Arkansas can now allocate that money, worth about $9,000 - $10,000 a year to a school of their choice. 

“Moms and dads in Arkansas can spend that money from the government to send their child to a public school, private school, church school, charter school or even home school.  They can even use the money to buy their child extra tuition if they need support in certain subjects,” Carswell explained.  “We believe families in Mississippi should have the same right.”

Rep Aaron Pilkington, one of the cosponsors of Arkansas reforms, spoke at the event, explaining how school choice could be implemented in Mississippi.

Also speaking at the event were children from the Redeemer’s School in Jackson.   They explained how important school is to them, and how attending Redeemer’s has given them great opportunities.