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A new report shows a sharp decline in the state government workforce over the past 15 years.

According to the Office of the State Auditor, the number of state government employees has decreased by more than 5,200 dating back to 2004. The bulk of the reduction, about 4,500 employees, is from the past nine years.

“While there have been reductions-in-force (RIFs) actions at some state agencies—The Office of the State Auditor underwent two such RIFs in the last decade—most of the reductions have been through attrition and voluntary separations, which include resignations and retirement,” the report notes. “In fact, in FY 2018, 65% of those who left state government left through resignations, and 13% of those who left state government retired.

“Aside from reduction by attrition, the State has likely also been able to reduce the workforce through increased use of technology and automated services. For instance, automating certain processes using kiosks or online services may eliminate unnecessary positions.”

As a result, the ratio of citizens to state employees has improved from 94:1 in 2010 to 108:1 today. The puts Mississippi ahead of Arkansas (50:1) and Louisiana (66:1), but behind Alabama (158:1) and Tennessee (167:1) in terms of efficiency.

Right now in Mississippi, the sale of raw cow’s milk for human consumption is prohibited, but a bill in the Mississippi legislature could change that.

The Mississippi On-Farm Sales and Food Freedom Act, authored by state Rep. Dan Eubanks (R-Walls) would allow intrastate sales of agricultural products directly from the producer to consumers and would prevent local governments from restricting those sales.

The bill would also mandate a “buyers beware” label for these goods that would warn of health risks from consuming raw, unprocessed agricultural products.

The bill is up against a deadline, as Tuesday is the deadline for bills to pass out of committee.

According to Eubanks, Mississippians are spending $8.5 billion a year on food and most of that is imported from out of state.

“Ninety percent of our food we import and we’re an ag state,” Eubanks said. “The irony is we’ll commit billions in taxpayer money on incentives and bond issues to bring in economic development and you might get 500, 1,000 jobs.

“All we’ve got to do is make a little change to our law, wouldn’t cost us a dime. If we started buying five percent more locally grown, you’re talking $400 million plus that would stay in our state. If it stays in our state, it would create jobs.”

He says that passage of this bill would allow the birth of a cottage farm industry in the state and help small farms grow into larger operations.

He also says that it’s absurd that the state sells cigarettes with a disclaimer on each box about their health effects, but won’t allow its citizens to buy raw milk. Also, it’s legal in the state for consumers to buy raw goat’s milk.

“We put such an impediment in the way of people trying to live healthier,” Eubanks said. “We’re the unhealthiest state in the country. We consume so much processed, artificial foods and we need to eat more whole, natural foods and yet we want to put a road block in the way to helping further that for some communities.”

As for neighboring states, Alabama and Louisiana prohibit all sales of raw milk for human consumption while Arkansas allows the on-farm sale of up to 500 gallons of raw milk. Tennessee only allows raw milk to be obtained through what is known as a “cow share agreement” where an individual or a group pay a farmer for boarding and milking a cow that they own.

Nationally, 13 states allow sale of raw milk in stores while 17 states allow sales only on the farm where it was produced.

New York made headlines recently for passing legislation that will legalize abortion to the moment of birth.

The New York state Senate voted 38-24 in favor of the “Reproductive Health Act” last week. This bill has passed the state Senate before but has failed to pass the Assembly in past years. This time, the Assembly passed RHA 92-47.

Press and social media have been in outraged battles over the passage of this state legislation. The implications of this law have shaken up the entire nation.

In Mississippi, it has triggered an influx of volunteer applications and donations to pregnancy help centers from appalled Mississippians across the state.

The cleverly named “Reproductive Health Care Act” is horrific and unconscionable.

This law has five major consequences that should incite fear and disgust in us all:

Most level-headed Americans are appalled at these changes to the New York penal code. Sadly, abortion has only been limited in the third trimester in 43 of our 50 states prior to this legislative session.

What took America over the edge was New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo calling for the entire state to celebrate following his signing of the bill into law. He called for One World Trade Center and other landmarks to be lit in pink, exalting the decision.

Cuomo, who is Catholic, maintains his support of the law despite pending talks of his excommunication from the Catholic Church for violating fundamental beliefs of his own faith. In defense of his unjustifiable actions, he stated, “I’m not here to represent a religion.”

Any decent human can understand the humanity of a child in the third trimester no matter race, religion, or creed.

In an attempt to one-up Cuomo, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam advocated that post-birth abortions ought to be allowed in his state. He voiced support of a bill in his state allowing abortion up to the moment of birth even if the baby was born alive by accident.

A baby born alive would be “kept comfortable” and only “resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired.” If a mother did not want the child born alive, that baby would be left to die a slow and painful death at a medical facility with medical professionals present.

Fortunately, that bill was defeated in committee.

In our state, Mississippi Center for Public Policy advocated a bill last year that banned abortion after 15 weeks gestation. It was halted 30 minutes after Gov. Phil Bryant signed it into legislation by a temporary block. In November, activist District Judge Carlton Reeves blocked the law. Mississippi has not given up Bryant’s dream of making Mississippi the “safest place for an unborn child in America.” The 5th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals will be next to hear the case.

As the law stands, abortion is legal up to 20 weeks gestation in Mississippi.

Mississippi is listed as one of four “trigger law states” that will almost immediately ban abortion if the 1973 decision of Roe vs. Wade is reversed. The abortion lobby is working creatively to prevent states from limiting or banning abortion at any level.

Mississippi may be in far better shape than states like New York or Virginia, but we must remain vigilant in defending our state’s right to rule in defense of preborn children.

Someone has to stand for the life of the preborn while the left crowns the “right to choose” as more valuable than life itself.

All too often, ex-offenders are released from prison and unable to land a job because of licensing restrictions. The “Mississippi Fresh Start Act” would provide a second chance.

Introduced by Rep. Mark Baker (R-Brandon), House Bill 1284, which has cleared the Judiciary A Committee and is headed to the full House, would prohibit occupational licensing boards from using rules and policies to create blanket bans that prevent ex-offenders from working.

A companion bill, Senate Bill 2781, has been introduced in the Senate by Sen. John Polk (R-Hattiesburg). It has cleared the Accountability, Efficiency, and Transparency Committee, but a reverse-repealer was added in committee.

Under the proposed legislation, licensing authorities would no longer be able to use vague terms like “moral turpitude” or “good character” to deny a license.

Rather, they must use a “clear and convincing standard of proof” in determining whether a criminal conviction is cause to be denied a license. This includes nature and seriousness of the crime, passage of time since the conviction, relationship of the crime to the responsibilities of the occupation, and evidence of rehabilitation on the part of the individual.

An individual may request a determination from the licensing authority on whether their criminal record will be disqualifying. If an individual is denied, the board must state the grounds and reasons for the denial. The individual would then have the right to a hearing to challenge the decision, with the burden of proof on the licensing authority.

If this legislation passes, it would provide hope for ex-offenders who want to turn their lives around and learn a trade so that they can better support themselves and their families.

Most Mississippians want a law ensuring free speech on college campuses throughout the state.

According to new polling from Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy, 83 percent of Mississippi voters support a law that “would protect speech for all college students, even if others disagree with their point of view.”

“The last place on earth we should expect to see free speech weakened is on a college campus,” said Jon Pritchett, President and CEO of Mississippi Center for Public Policy. “Part of an essential education in the West includes learning to tolerate speech with which you may disagree. And it is clear that most Mississippians agree.”

This law has broad public support in every corner of the state. Seventy-eight percent of Democrats, 88 percent of Republicans, and 80 percent of independents support the law.

Legislation protecting free speech has been introduced in both the Senate and the House. Senate Bill 2495 has been introduced by Sen. Angela Hill (R-Picayune) and is awaiting action in the Universities and Colleges committee. Rep. Stacey Wilkes (R-Picayune) has introduced House Bill 1562, which has been referred to the House Universities and Colleges committee. These bills reflect current First Amendment case law and will protect Mississippi institutions from needless litigation.

The bills must pass out of committee by Tuesday, February 5, to stay alive.

To date, governors in 10 states – both Republicans and Democrats – have signed similar campus free speech legislation. This includes two of Mississippi’s neighbors, Louisiana and Tennessee. As of last year, legislation had been introduced in another 15 states.

Campus free speech bills are popular with voters because of the growing number of colleges and universities that have lost sight of freedom of speech for all students. Many university policies that hinder free speech are unconstitutional. These include the creation of “free speech zones” and “free speech corners,” which limit speech to certain areas on campus, as well as vague policies that require university permission for meetings and demonstrations that meet legal standards of reasonability.

Full poll results can be found here.

Mississippi had a job growth of 1 percent last year.

According to preliminary data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Mississippi added about 11,000 jobs last year. But while Mississippi did experience an increase in job growth, the state lagged behind every neighboring state.

Of the four neighboring states, Alabama had the strongest job growth at 2.13. Tennessee was next at 2 percent, followed by 1.37 percent in Arkansas, and 1.1 percent in Louisiana.

Of the 11,000 jobs Mississippi added last year, about 1,400 were in government. Professional and business services had the strongest growth (5,300), followed by leisure and hospitality (3,600), and manufacturing (2,000).

Education and health services added a modest 300 jobs and construction did not any jobs. Financial activities had a loss of jobs (-100) as did trade, transportation, and utilities (-1,900).

Mississippi’s unemployment rate, which is historically among the highest in the country, sits at 4.7 percent. It’s down slightly from 4.8 percent last December, but still higher than the national average of 3.9.

What can Mississippi do better?

Mississippi has the fifth largest government share of state economic activity, and that is due to state and local spending, not federal funds. While there is a large contingent who would want to see the government spend more, it would actually be pretty difficult.

When the government grows, the state has increased ownership and the private sector shrinks. And economic freedom, which is based on free markets and voluntary exchange, individual liberty, and personal responsibility, wanes.

According to the most recent Fraser Institute Economic Freedom of North America report, which measures government spending, taxes, and labor market freedom, Mississippi was ranked 45th among the 50 states. Similarly, Cato Institute’s Freedom in the Fifty States, which measures economic and personal freedom, placed Mississippi 40th in their most recent rankings.

What is the correlation between economic freedom and prosperity? The freer states are more prosperous, have higher per capita incomes, more entrepreneurial activity, and lower poverty rates. We have the model. We need to just look at what similar states have done for economic growth. And it is important to know the difference between the reality of economic growth and the practice of economic development; those can be very different things.

Government incentives, often in the name of economic development and being ‘business-friendly,’ attempt to lure businesses to the state through financial benefits, such as site preparation, infrastructure, job training, or special tax breaks. The only reason these incentives are necessary is because of higher taxes or policies that burden businesses.

Instead of special incentives for a few, Mississippi should work to provide a favorable climate for every business. And let the market decide where a business locates or expands. An economic development officer can sell low taxes and low regulatory burdens to a company looking for a great location like Mississippi. What’s more, the data shows us that such policies allow existing businesses already in our state to expand and grow from a small employer to a large employer without getting any incentives from the taxpayers. That’s economic growth.

Being business friendly isn’t based on who can seek the most favors, it is based on how free your state is.

To their credit, state leaders have attempted to improve the economic climate of Mississippi, most notably through tax and regulatory reform. In 2017, the legislature adopted a new law that will require all new licensing regulations to be approved before they take effect, ensuring new attempts to stifle competition will be reviewed before they are finalized.

And the Taxpayer Pay Raise Act in 2016 will eliminate the 3 percent income tax bracket, allow self-employed individuals to deduct half of their federal self-employment taxes, and remove the franchise tax on property and capital when fully implemented. Even though Mississippi’s overall tax burden is still above the national average, this will move Mississippi closer to a flatter income tax and make our business climate more competitive.

These reforms weren’t easy, but showed forward thinking to align us closer with neighboring states. Making the case for spending more money on your favorite government program is not what is needed to prosper. We need to think much bigger than that. If we want to do better than the bottom ten in categories like per capita income, it starts with doing better in categories like business friendliness, regulatory practices, and tax rates.

Thanks to a recent change in federal regulations for short-term health insurance policies, Mississippians could have a chance to purchase cheaper policies.

In August, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a rule that extended the duration of short-term plans from three months to 12, with renewals that could stretch them out for up to three years. The policy went into effect in October.

According to HHS data, the monthly premium for a short-term policy in the fourth quarter of 2016 was $124, compared with $393 for an unsubsidized individual market plan.

Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney said these policies fill what he called a “doughnut hole” in the market place, where they are between jobs and do not have the ability to pay the high cost of temporary health insurance, known as COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985).

He said a few thousand Mississippians at the most would be buying these policies, but having their availability means they have a chance to buy affordable health insurance that was previously unavailable. He also said several insurance companies are already offering the policies in the Magnolia State.

“It fills a very needy void in the market,” Chaney said. “It gives the consumer another choice. You need to be certain your doctor will accept the policies and they need to be certain to what will and won’t be paid. We’ve not had any complaints on them.”

These policies also could be utilized by seniors not eligible for Medicare and young adults who have aged out from their parents’ plans.

According to a report by the Foundation for Government Accountability, yearly premiums for health insurance have skyrocketed from an average of $2,800 in 2013 to $6,000 in 2017 and more than 30 million remain uninsured. The report also says that 56 percent of counties in the U.S. had only one insurer to choose from in the individual market.

The rule change will help 2.5 million gain health insurance, according to the FGA.

Mississippi is one of 17 states with no restrictions in state law that would limit the plans.

These short-term plans are much cheaper for consumers, but lack some of the mandated coverages that are part of the policies sold under the exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. This means these plans can be better tailor-fit to a consumer’s need than the several sizes fit-all types offered by the exchanges.

A network of cameras that could track people throughout a city 24 hours a day is open for misuse and misidentification.

A man is shopping with his family during the holidays at a crowded mall when a law enforcement team swoops in to arrest him, wrongly, as a wanted child predator. News of the arrest quickly passes through Twitter and becomes front page news.

A sheriff is concerned about a NAACP chapter that is critical of her. She begins to track members and have them arrested.

An innocent man is on trial for murder. The most important evidence is an incorrect facial recognition match between him and a video of the perpetrator caught on a home video camera. The match serves to shift the burden to the incorrectly identified man to prove he is not the person in the video.

These things will happen with facial recognition technology. The question is how often.

Sunday, January 13 brought two brutal murders in Jackson. One a slaying of a preacher as he entered his church. The other a shooting in a Wal-Mart parking lot at a busy time when families are present.

The two murders are continuations of a very worrisome trend in which Jackson’s murder rate is increasing when the rates in nearby cities are decreasing. They are part of a murder rate that is the highest Jackson has seen in over 20 years. The city had 92 homicides in 1994 and 1995, and 84 in 2018. But Jackson also had roughly 190,000 citizens in the mid-1990s, and today, after hemorrhaging citizens for decades, stands at approximately 166,865. We are killing more with less.

Mayor Chokwe Lumumba addressed the public after these Sunday murders. One of the crime-fighting methods he announced the city would pursue is a “Real Time Crime Center” that “will give us eyes into our community, so we can hopefully stop crime before it happens because we’re watching the city 24 hours a day, seven days a week.” The center would rely on facial recognition technology used through a network of cameras that could track people throughout the city.

That certainly has the ring of Orwell’s 1984.

It is unclear if the mayor is serious about the city pursuing this technology, or whether his comments were more of an off-the-cuff variety that did not reflect an intentional and definitive policy direction. Understandably, the mayor would like to reassure the public that his administration is serious about the issue of violent crime.

However, facial recognition technology has the potential for misidentification and abuse. Both are obvious problems. If the city is serious about pursuing this technology, the problems associated with it must be addressed and the public needs to be fully engaged in the process – something that is not occurring around the nation as private companies are quietly attempting to sell these technologies to law enforcement agencies.

Early tests of the technology as it exists today (and it is constantly evolving) reveal significant misidentification issues. The ACLU Foundation of Northern California recently tested Amazon’s Rekognition software using its default settings. This mirrors how the technology is used by a sheriff’s department in Oregon. It compared every member of Congress with 25,000 mugshots, and falsely matched 28 members of Congress with mugshot images.

The test also revealed, as have other tests, that facial recognition technology is more likely to misidentify people of color. This is one of the reasons Brian Brackeen, who is CEO of the facial recognition firm Kairos and also is black, has been fighting against the use of the technology by law enforcement.

Abuse is harder to measure since the technology is not used in many places. We know from history that bad actors will periodically be in positions of power when the technology could be abused. We know that China is introducing the technology at a rapid pace and regularly reminds its citizens that the technology will make it virtually impossible to evade the state.

With these potential troubles in mind, it is perhaps time to hit the pause button and fully discuss this technology before using it. A technology’s availability, even its use by the private sector, does not mean it is something the government should use.

And this doesn’t address a more fundamental point. If Jackson wants to be serious about fighting crime, perhaps it should focus first on the easier-to-reach basics it is missing, like prosecuting cases in a timely manner, before reaching for Orwellian sounding technologies that promise magical abilities with great risks to civil liberties.

This column appeared in the Northside Sun on January 31, 2019. 

There are many things we can do to lift up all children. And we don't need to sacrifice our own children to make that happen.

In a recent NBC Think article, author Noah Berlatsky reflected on Mississippi State University (MSU) Assistant Professor Margaret Hagerman’s new book “White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America.” Berlatsky opens with the conflicting pride he felt when his child lobbied his private secondary school to recognize Columbus Day as Native People’s Day because the school should not celebrate “white imperialism.” (His son’s effort was successful.)

Ignore for a moment that Columbus Day is a celebration of human achievement, global trade, and multiculturalism that has been celebrated for more than a century, including in multiple Latin American, non-white countries. Ignore also that instead of educating the student on the rich tradition of this holiday, the school wasted time accommodating an uninformed child’s protest about a holiday he clearly doesn’t understand.

Held up to any scrutiny, this situation is absurd, but not more absurd than Berlatsky’s reflections on it. Berlatsky is conflicted because, while he is proud of his child’s “anti-racist activism,” he feels shame for his white privilege affording his child an education at an expensive private school where school administrators take such activism seriously. In his view, this exemplifies the much larger problem of structural racism. He then explores the MSU professor’s book.

How About Help the Needy Instead of Hurting Children?

One of the many lazy assertions in this book is that even anti-racist white parents “actively reproduce inequality” by not spending enough time discussing racism with their children and by giving their children books whose characters happen to be white. There is no end to the left’s shaming of people who have done nothing more than teach their kids to be good people to the best of their ability.

Berlatsky has done nothing wrong, and unlike Hagerman suggests, Noah has not actively reproduced racism. On the contrary, his son obviously demonstrated his awareness and opposition of racism at a young age. In an attempt to appease his ideological possession, Noah brainstorms over possible lifestyles choices that might mitigate his child’s privilege footprint.

He pulls from Hagerman’s book: “Everyone is trying to do the best for their kid,” she says. “But I actually think that there are times when maybe the best interest of your own kid isn’t actually the best choice. Ultimately, being a good citizen sometimes conflicts with being good parents. And sometimes maybe parents should decide to be good citizens over being good parents.”

Berlatsky mulls over a few examples of this. “That could mean voting to raise taxes so to better fund public schools. Maybe in our case it should have meant choosing a public school rather than a private one.”

This Isn’t Only Stupid, But Evil

It’s incoherent, at best, to imply that worse parents make better citizens. While white liberals ponder the various ways they should have neglected their kids to appease “oppressed groups,” I and many other millennials reject this ideological disease.

I am a young, half-white mother and wife who has seen the expansion of the radical left politically correct culture since I was in elementary school. When Gillette is lecturing you about how to behave, you know things have gone too far. The only result of this decades-long Marxist campaign is more outrage at good people.

According to many on the left, I am supposed to teach my son of the repressive nature of his existence as he develops. I am to tell him at every turn to sacrifice himself to others for the transgression of being himself. This thinking is not only intellectually pitiful, but also profoundly evil.

How About Some More Constructive Responses

The smallest minority is the individual. I reject the notion that my son’s value is determined by his skin color, sex, or life circumstance. I look forward to teaching my son about self-discovery. I want to see him develop his talents and learn to appreciate the talents of his peers. I want him to feel the joy of hard work and achievement, and to admire the qualities of others in a society that appreciates individuals.

If we raise our children to appreciate individualism, then we will end all the various flavors of collectivism, from racism to white privilege. Teaching our children about the horrors of imperialism, slavery, and racism is critical. However, there is no greater good to be gained by sacrificing the quality of my child’s education or economic circumstance.

To maximize the quality of each child’s path to quality education, economic prosperity, and social well-being, I propose a few different policy points. School choice, not mandated-by-ZIP code education, will give children the propensity to thrive. Rather than blame individuals who move to a highly rated school district or make them feel guilty for choosing to send their child to a private school, open the door to more students to do the same.

Eliminating barriers to economic progress, such as excessive licensing, will create a world of jobs for entrepreneurs, especially low-income entrepreneurs. While licensing was once limited to areas that most believe deserve licensing, such as medical professionals, lawyers, and teachers, this practice has greatly expanded over the past five decades.

In my home state of Mississippi, approximately 19 percent of workers need a license to earn a living. This includes everything from a shampooer, who must receive 1,500 clock hours of education, to a fire alarm installer, who must pay more than $1,000 in fees to become licensed. In total, there are 66 low- to middle-income occupations that are licensed in Mississippi. Similar stories exist is every state, yet the outcomes are the same: higher cost for consumers and less opportunity for entrepreneurs.

Finally, promoting, or at the very least not discouraging, marriage will lead to more intact families and the benefits that surround it.  The success sequence––graduate from high school, obtain employment, and get married before having children––has long been debated, but it is undeniable from numerous points of view that following these (not so simple) steps will put an individual, and a family, on the path to prosperity.

This, of course, will require a cultural response, similar to anti-smoking campaigns, as much as a government response. Unfortunately, too few people seem interested in taking up the cause of marriage, despite it being the leading cause of inequality in American children’s lives.

I want what is best for my son, and I will do what it takes to make that happen, no matter the political trends. And that is the best thing we can do for a better society.

This column appeared in The Federalist on January 30, 2019.

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