If liberty keeps on winning across the South, America’s center of economic gravity is likely to shift.
Throughout the 20th century, economic activity in America was clustered around the traditional business hubs in the Northeast, the Midwest, and California. Southern states were a bit of a backwater.
Then a generation or so ago, things started to change. In the 1970s, Atlanta, Orlando, and Dallas expanded rapidly. In the 1980s, per capita incomes in a number of southern states started to catch up with other parts of the country. But overall, the South still lagged behind. Even as some of the more peripheral parts of the South began to thrive, the deeper south you went, as a general rule, the less growth and prosperity you were likely to find.
Not for much longer. The southern United States is now not only the most populous part of America. There is mounting evidence that the southern states are going to become America’s economic powerhouse.
According to a new report out this week by ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, economic prospects are brighter in the South than in any other region of the country. With the exception of Louisiana, every southern state in the U.S. is now ranked in the top half of the country in terms of economic outlook. Even my own state, Mississippi, rose five places this year and is now ranked as having the 22nd-most-promising economic outlook in America.
It is the traditional business centers of California (45th), Illinois (46th), and New York (50th) that are the laggards in terms of economic outlook.
To be sure, ALEC’s ranking lists states on the basis of future economic prospects. It is not a measure of how things are, but rather of how the authors think things might be. Even so, it is remarkable that anyone should now rate the economic prospects of Mississippi or Alabama as brighter than California’s.
What explains America’s emerging southern success story? It has a great deal to do with low taxes, limited government, and liberty. California might have once been an easygoing state, with light regulation and an attractive environment for entrepreneurs. Today, it has an almost European zeal to make rules for everything. New York and Chicago are so hostile to businesses, they’ve suffered an exodus of talent and capital over the past decade.
Southern states, meanwhile, have become more business-friendly — and it is not just the giants, such as Texas and Florida, that have introduced free-market reforms. ALEC’s report shows that even states such as my own Mississippi have made themselves more business-friendly than some of the traditional big-business states.
In 2022, Mississippi’s Tax Freedom Act significantly cut the state income tax. That not only gave a massive tax break to hundreds of thousands of Mississippians. The reform also meant that we moved to a flat 5 percent state personal income tax right away, with the rate falling further to a flat 4 percent by 2026. This, perhaps as much as anything, helps explain why our state rose five places in ALEC’s rankings.
Second, Mississippi adopted a universal occupational-licensing law. This sounds very technocratic, but the law’s effect is straightforward: It removes a lot of red tape in the labor market, making it easier for outsiders to move to Mississippi and get certified here if they have been approved elsewhere.
Even more important in the longer term, enabling outsiders to get more easily certified creates pressure within Mississippi to eliminate unnecessarily onerous regulation that prevents Mississippians from being certified. Already, policy-makers are looking at how to eliminate a number of boards that frankly do little beyond restrict the number of people who can earn a living in a particular area of employment. It is probably too early for the impact of this to show up in any data, but the cumulative effect over time could be profound.
Third, Mississippi has gradually reduced the percentage of the workforce on the public payroll. Historically our state has tended to have a lot of people working for government. There are still, according to ALEC’s report, 606 public employees per 10,000 people in our state, but the numbers are now coming down. Shifting more people from employment in big government bureaucracies to the private sector is likely to increase future productivity.
ALEC’s report suggests that as free-market reforms have spread from one southern state to the next, with some southern states emulating their neighbors, growth and prosperity have started to spread.
If liberty keeps on winning across the South, America’s center of economic gravity is likely to shift.
Best-selling author and Fox News commentator Alex Epstein was in Jackson this week advocating for fossil fuels and warning of the harmful effects of the Net Zero movement.
At a lunch event hosted by the Mississippi Center for Public Policy in Jackson, Epstein shared his thoughts on the benefits of fossil fuels and the climate.
A philosopher by trade, Epstein has spent an extreme amount of time researching the facts and figures of our world's energy sources. He saw the move toward a Net Zero environment from government organizations, corporations and financial institutions wanting to completely eradicate fossil fuels, but after years of study found that over the next few decades, in order for our society to thrive, we should be growing, not eliminating, fossil fuels. A better world is one that uses more fossil fuels, he said.
His book, "Fossil Future," states that when arguing in favor of fossil fuels, one should look at the benefits and side effects — both of which prove that fossil fuels are affordable, reliable, versatile and scaleable for a multitude of people to take advantage of.
Fossil fuels power 80% of the world's energy today. Without them, the planet would not be able to properly operate. There is no evidence, he argues, that replacing fossil fuels with solar or wind energy would create a Net Zero environment or would be the most cost-effective solution.
"When it comes to fossil fuels, there is an enormous tendency to ignore or deny the enormous benefits, including climate benefits, and then to exaggerate or ‘catastrophize’ the side effects," Epstein said. "...I think the fate of the world depends on using and expanding fossil fuels."
In order to continue in a free market society, we need the freedom to capitalize on the fossil fuel industry and not be forced to use inferior energy schemes.
Mississippi is on the up! Mississippi’s economic prospects have improved significantly and in terms of economic outlook our state now ranks 22nd out of all 50 US states.
According to research by ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, Mississippi’s economic prospects are now brighter than those of either Alabama or Louisiana. We are only just behind South Carolina.
ALEC’s report shows that the kind of free market reforms the Mississippi Center for Public Policy has helped champion in recent years work. They have helped lift Mississippi up five places in the rankings over the past year, and have directly improved Mississippi’s economic prospects.
This follows three significant free market reforms we have seen in our state in the past few years.
First and most obviously, we cut the state income tax. The Mississippi Tax Freedom Act 2022 was not only a massive tax break for hundreds of thousands of Mississippians. It means that we are moving to a flat 4 percent rate. The report clearly shows that this move has significantly improved the outlook for our state.
Second, Mississippi adopted a universal occupational licensing law. This sounds very technocratic, but the effect of this is straightforward. It removes a lot of red tape in the labor market, making it easier for outsiders to move to our state and get certified here if they have been approved elsewhere.
Even more important in the longer term, enabling outsiders to get more easily certified creates pressure within Mississippi to eliminate unnecessarily onerous regulation that prevents Mississippians from being certified. Already there has been discussion about eliminating a number of boards that frankly do little beyond restricting the number of people who can earn a living in a particular area of employment.
It is probably too early for the effect of this to show up in any data, but the cumulative effect over time could be profound.
Third, Mississippi has gradually reduced the percentage of the workforce on the public payroll. Historically our state has tended to have a lot of people working for the government. There are still, according to ALEC’s report, 606 public employees per 10,000 people in our state, but the numbers are starting to come down.
Why is this important for growth? If too many people work for the government, it takes talent away from the private sector, making it harder for businesses to find the right people. Working in the private sector often means that people are more productive and innovative than they would be working in a big government bureaucracy.
Mississippi, the report suggests, is part of a Southern success story. All the southern US states, with the exception of Louisiana, are in the top half of the country in terms of economic outlook.
At the bottom of the league table in terms of economic outlook at California (45th), Illinois (46th) and New York (50th).
This is clear evidence that economic momentum in America is shifting from the historic hubs in the Northeast, mid-west and west coast to the South.
The southern US is a success story – and thanks to free-market reforms, Mississippi is becoming part of this southern success story.
Douglas Carswell is the President & CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.
Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister is the UK’s Barry Goldwater. A failure at the time, but shown to be accurate in the long term
Liz Truss was in Washington last week. Speaking at the Heritage Foundation, she was unapologetic about her short-lived premiership. Indeed, she doubled down on her warnings that the US and the UK risk “becoming social democracies by the back door”.
Free-market capitalism in the West, Truss told her audience, “has gone off course”, with an anti-growth mindset pervading policymaking circles on both sides of the Atlantic.
While Truss was in America, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced the appointment of Megan Greene to the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee. His decision to elevate yet another establishment economist marinaded in Treasury groupthink underscores how spectacularly unsuccessful Truss’s short-lived efforts to overturn economic orthodoxy in Britain proved to be. The orthodox thinking that got Britain into its current economic mess remains entrenched.
Truss was right to recognise that Britain is in a mess. Growth over the past two decades has been dire, so bad, in fact, that it is difficult to think of Britain as a high-income country any more. Even Mississippi, the poorest state in America, is projected to overtake the UK in per capita income terms. Rather than try to address Britain’s low growth, the country’s economic establishment seems resigned to it.
When George Osborne created the Office for Budget Responsibility, his intention was to ensure that government economic forecasts were honest. What he actually did was to hand control over fiscal forecasting to the OBR, meaning that today it is the OBR, not the Treasury, that drives fiscal policy. This helps to explain why, after 13 years of Tory government, taxes and spending are so high.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s, Britain’s economic establishment believed that fiscal stimulus was the way to engineer economic growth. That was seen to fail, but today officials believe in using monetary stimulus. According to the experts, interest rates need to be lowered to stimulate growth when things are looking down, but raised when the economy perks up. Yet it has proved to be easier to cut interest rates than to raise them. Easy money has allowed overconsumption and ghost growth. Bad investments have been made by those desperate for higher returns. Over time, growth and productivity have stalled.
Ironically, it was as Truss was attempting to move Britain away from this model that some seriously bad investments made by UK insurance firms – so-called “liability-driven investments” – threatened to trigger a full-scale financial crisis.
Truss’s big mistake was not her analysis of the problem, nor even her relatively modest tax-cutting proposals. It was her commitment to a universal energy-relief scheme, which it was feared at the time might mean an additional £130 billion in spending.
Watching Truss in Washington, I thought of that great American conservative Barry Goldwater. Like Truss, he came to prominence promoting a radical new economic agenda. He, too, was to prove spectacularly unsuccessful. Goldwater’s 1964 campaign for the White House saw him lose by what was then the largest margin in history.
For several years afterwards, Goldwater – like Truss today – seemed a byword for failure.
But like Goldwater, Truss’s analysis of what has gone wrong is accurate. Her solutions, like his, are sound. In time, she too will come to be seen as an essential precursor for the change her country needs. As for those creatures of the establishment who are today back in control, they will one day be utterly forgotten – perhaps sooner than they might imagine
Douglas Carswell is president and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy. He was previously MP for Clacton.
This article was originally featured in The Telegraph on April 15.
Mississippi currently has a record budget surplus. As the Magnolia Tribune recently reported, total March 2023 state revenue collections were 16.84% over the sine-die revenue estimate for the fiscal year. Total year-to-date collections came in at $601,866,349 or 12.86% over estimates.
When revenues are far higher than expected there is always a danger that politicians will find new ways to spend it. To try to prevent that from happening, the Mississippi Center for Public Policy published a Responsible 2024 Budget for our state at the start of this year’s legislative session.
Overall, we are pleased to see that although spending increased it did so broadly at the rate we proposed.
The Mississippi Legislature officially set the Fiscal Year 2024 state general fund at $6.63 million. While this is the largest operating budget in state history, it was not as large an increase as we had feared.
In our Responsible Budget for Mississippi, we called for the state’s general fund to have an appropriations limit of $6.75 billion. It seems that lawmakers heeded our advice, spending well below the cap.
The FY2023 estimated state revenue collection is set at $6.987 billion. That leaves our state with at least a $600 million surplus just for this fiscal year alone since the budget for 2023 is only $6.3 billion. Mississippi already has a $3.9 billion surplus in the bank, and with the additional $6.3 million from this year, will have well over $4 billion.
Our report projects revenue collections for FY2024 to be $7.5 billion, according to Mississippi’s Joint Legislative Budget Committee, allowing for an even bigger surplus than the one we already possess. If the legislature continues to follow our responsible budget and caps spending each year at $6.75 billion, the state will see a $0.8 billion surplus each year.
What do we do with the surplus?
A large portion of the approximate $0.8 billion in yearly surplus could be used to further cut the state personal income tax. The data shows we can afford to do so.
The result would be more companies organizing in Mississippi, increased individual liberty and a booming economy.
While it is good news that we have both a budget surplus and room for future tax cuts, we should not lose sight of the fact that overall our state is heavily subsidized by federal spending. Ultimately, for our state to prosper we not only use our surplus to reduce taxes. We need state leadership willing to reduce our dependence on federal handouts as well.
A recent arrival in America, I often get asked what I like most about living in the United States. Here are my outsider’s impressions about the US and some of the many reasons I love living here.
The first reason I love living in America is Mississippi. I might be British by birth, but I’m Mississippi by choice – and I cannot think of any place I would rather live than right here in the Magnolia state.
The climate is delightful – even in July and August. There’s more sunshine most mornings in Mississippi than you’d expect to see in a month in London.
It’s not just the climate that is warm and sunny, but the people. It is often impossible to go and buy gas or groceries without falling into cheerful conversation with a total stranger. Never feel defensive about being from Mississippi. To me, it is an honor to call this place home.
Second, I love America’s energy & enthusiasm. It is easy to overlook things that seem familiar to us. We all take for granted what we know. But take it from me when I tell you that Americans are full of infectious enthusiasm.
Almost everyone you meet is upbeat about something. Folk harbor real pride in their community, university, high school, military, work, state and, yes, country.
There’s far less of that cynicism-masquerading-as-sophistication in America compared with what you find elsewhere (Yes, and that’s even after you take into account one or two Mississippi newspaper columnists, too!).
I suspect that this enthusiasm is one of the secrets of America’s success. It helps explain why people in the United States are so entrepreneurial. Enthusiasm confers on Americans, especially younger Americans, a can-do attitude that drives them to do things and to innovate.
Third, I love American civic-mindedness. When tornados devastated several towns in the Delta the other week, I was struck by how ordinary Mississippians responded. They didn’t talk about what the government should do to help but did it themselves.
Churches rallied round. Rotary clubs and others sent supplies to those impacted. One gentleman I was talking to down in Pascagoula this week went to one of the areas affected and took it upon himself to rebuild the home of someone that he met there.
When Fox News’ Douglas Murray came to speak in Jackson a while ago, he explained why he was optimistic about America’s future. Americans, he said, don’t sit around waiting for the cavalry to arrive. They realize that they are the cavalry – and act. I can see what he means.
Fourth is football (although some of y’all perhaps think that should be first). I was raised playing rugby and cricket, and I never saw a football game until two years ago. Now there’s nowhere I’d rather be on a Friday night than watching the local high school game.
Football is not just a game – it’s the entire school or university putting on a spectacular performance full of infectious pride. Come to think of it, football is a perfect fusion of American enthusiasm and civic-mindedness, which is maybe why I like it so much ….
“Is there anything you miss about England?” I am occasionally asked.
America is awesome and there’s not much I would want to change about this amazing country. But if there were two things I would do differently, it would be hot tea and roundabouts.
No matter how much I love sweet tea, I sometimes struggle to find hot tea served the way it is supposed to be. As for roundabouts, they seem to me to be the perfect libertarian way of managing the traffic. No need for any government-run traffic lights, but an entirely self-regulating flow of traffic instead. I’m more than happy to live with those two minor imperfections.
Douglas Carswell is the President and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.
MCPP CEO & President Douglas Carswell spoke at the Rotary Club of Pascagoula on Wednesday.
Douglas regularly attends luncheons hosted by Rotary Clubs, Kiwanis Clubs and other organizations to promote the mission of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.
Anyone interested in having Douglas speak at a luncheon or meeting can make a request here. Aaron Rice, the Director of the Mississippi Justice Institute, is also available for speaking requests to discuss litigation and constitutional law in Mississippi.
American patriotism is in decline, according to a recent poll published by the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ-NORC poll makes grim reading. It shows a steep decline in the number of Americans who say that patriotism is very important to them, down from 70 percent in 1998 to 38 percent today.
There has also been a similar slide in the percentage of Americans who say that religion is very important to them. Perhaps most disturbing of all, only 23 percent of American adults under the age of 30 regard having children as very important.
These poll findings suggest the sort of collapse in self-confidence that you might expect to find in a country that had suffered defeat in war, or after a cataclysmic economic crisis. Why this loss of self-belief?
What explains this massive change in American attitudes toward their own country in the past 25 years? And what can we do about it?
America was founded on the principle that every American is created equal, and that each individual is in possession of inalienable rights. Of course, there were times when America failed to live up to those lofty ideals, but for the first two centuries of the Republic’s existence, these principles were the essential ingredient of American cohesion.
Thanks to these Founding principles, folk from different ancestral backgrounds in England, Poland or Italy, eastern Europe, west Africa or south Asia, could all come together and see one another as fellow citizens of the same Republic.
About 30 years ago, things started to change.
Rather than being taught to see themselves as individual citizens, young Americans were increasingly encouraged by left-wing educators to define themselves in terms of their racial background or gender or various other immutable characteristics. Many young Americans are invited to see their primary loyalty, not to fellow citizens of the Republic, but to whichever oppressed group it is that they supposedly belong to, in a hierarchy of victimhood.
The consequences of seeing the world this way can be murderous, literally.
For much of the 20th century, Americans were taught to believe that through hard work and perseverance, they could achieve anything. Today, many young Americans are invited to believe that nothing they do matters much since it is ‘the system’ that either privileges them or stacks the odds hopelessly against them. Is it any wonder that the same poll showed a sharp decline in the percentage of young Americans who believe in the importance of hard work?
Unequal outcomes between Americans are increasingly attributed to ‘systemic’ discrimination, rather than being seen as reflective of differences in individual behavior. As a result, in the name of ‘equity’, we have started to see a return of government-sponsored discrimination, further undermining America’s Founding ideals.
If you spend three decades trying to make Americans believe that their country is, as CNN might put it, a Republic founded by slave owners on stolen land, it is hardly surprising that patriotism then declines.
If you tell a generation of young Americans that human civilization has messed up the planet and that looming eco-catastrophe means we are all doomed, you should not be surprised that they are less keen on having kids than their grandparents.
This new poll shows that bad ideas have bad consequences. Combating bad ideas, and countering them with good ideas is what we at the Mississippi Center for Public Policy do. Here is how we are helping lead the fight back.
Last year we led the campaign for a law to combat Critical Race theory in our state. It was a good start, but it is not enough. Legislation alone will not stop ‘woke’ ideologues pushing their views on kids. We need to inspire the next generation of American leaders to fight back.
This is why we launched the Mississippi Leadership Academy last year. Two dozen future Mississippi leaders took part in the six-month program, one day a month. They heard from leading conservative historians, academics and authors. They were given an introduction to the morality of the free market and America’s Founding ideals. They listened to talks by some of our state leaders, including Attorney General Lynn Fitch and State Auditor, Shad White.
The program was so successful in energizing a cohort of young Mississippians, we will be expanding the program next year.
If we are going to root out left-wing ideology from the classroom, America needs an education revolution. In half a dozen states, including Texas, Florida and Arkansas, moms and dads now have control over their child’s share of education tax dollars. They can allocate their child’s portion of the budget (often around $10,000-15,000 a year) to a school of their choice – public, private or home-school.
The moment mom and dad have more control, guess what happens? Money gets spent in the classroom, not on an army of ‘woke’ education administrators. Schools stop promoting left-wing ideology and start teaching kids the way they should.
Sadly, in Mississippi too many self-styled ‘conservative’ lawmakers continue to have intentionally done everything they can to prevent education freedom. Every time a supposedly ‘conservative’ lawmaker thwarts school choice, they are helping sustain radical leftist ideas in the classroom. This needs to change.
Two years ago, shortly after I had arrived in America, I went to watch my first-ever game of football. It was at a local high school on a Friday night, and I did not even know the rules of the game.
Just before the start, the crowd rose to their feet to sing the Star Spangled Banner and declare the Pledge of Allegiance. So new was I to your country, I did not know the words of either back then.
But I did know I was witnessing something special; a display of authentic, uncomplicated patriotism. I was so moved that the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Please don’t ever abandon that belief in your own country, as other less happy lands have done. American exceptionalism is worth fighting for.
Douglas Carswell is the President & CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.
(Jackson, MS): Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was in Jackson this week outlining her roadmap for education freedom in America.
At a lunch event hosted by the Mississippi Center for Public Policy in Jackson, Mrs. DeVos shared her candid thoughts on what it was like to work with President Donald in the White House.
A passionate campaigner for school choice, Mrs. DeVos spoke about how un-American much of our current education system actually is. Sharing her thoughts on the Covid lockdowns, Mrs. DeVos explained why the decision to lockdown schools was one of the worst decisions made by public officials ever. Covid lockdowns, she explained, set back the educational attainment of a generation of young Americans permanently.
Covid lockdowns did, however, alert parents across the country to what was happening – or often not happening - in the classroom. Since then, Mrs. DeVos explained, America has seen a ‘great parental awakening.'
Starting in Virginia, with the election of Glenn Youngkin, a parent-led revolution in education is underway. West Virginia, Arizona, Texas, Florida and Arkansas have all started to implement school choice programs that will allow moms and dads to allocate their child’s tax dollars to a school of their choice.
Mrs. DeVos talked about her new book, Hostages No More, which explains why education freedom is so necessary, and discussed what it might take to bring a similar change in education in Mississippi.
Interviewed on stage in front of hundreds of people by Douglas Carswell, President & CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, Mrs. DeVos talked about some of the vested interests that want to control every aspect of the education system.
She went on to explain why education freedom was essential in order to combat extreme ‘woke’ ideology in the classroom.
“Here in Mississippi, we passed a law to combat Critical Race theory,” Douglas Carswell explained. “Listening to Mrs. DeVos is it clear that that is not enough to stop radical leftist ideas being promoted in schools at taxpayers’ expense. Only education freedom – giving moms and dads the power to allocate their child’s share of tax dollars – will end the advance of ‘woke’ ideology in our schools."
