If the UK feels gloomy and broken, it’s in large part because the Conservative Party has abandoned its basic principles

On a flight back to Britain the other week, I watched Manifest. A story of the supernatural, an aeroplane mysteriously lands several years after it took off. The time-traveling plot might have been daft, but it was good preparation for my arrival at Heathrow, where I felt that I had landed back in the 1970s.

The news in Britain is full of stories about strikes and disruption. Inflation is out of control. Once again, we have a government intent on raising taxes and throwing ever more money at underperforming public services. From the NHS to the police, much no longer seems to work the way it should. A pervasive pessimism seems to hang over every conversation. Conservative ministers and policymakers do not appear to have a clue how to fix it.

How different things feel over in America. There, conservatives are finally overcoming their infatuation with Donald Trump. In the recent mid-term elections, the so-called Republican “red wave” might not have materialized, but conservative leaders in a number of key states showed that they know how to win again.

In the US, the heirs to Ronald Reagan are clambering back into the saddle. In Britain, the heirs to Margaret Thatcher are looking lost.

Last week, at the Margaret Thatcher Conference on Growth, at the Guildhall, organized by the Centre for Policy Studies, I listened to Michael Gove. It was more Ted Heath than Margaret Thatcher. He spoke of a regional policy, now called “leveling up”. Britain’s problems of productivity and inequality would all be solved, he suggested, with just a little bit more government direction.

Other ministers and pundits cling to the delusion that Britain’s woes can be entirely explained by a series of unfortunate extraneous events, such as the war in Ukraine, Brexit and US-Chinese trade tensions. It is almost a case of bad luck, they seem to say. In his Autumn Statement, Jeremy Hunt echoed that idea, describing Britain as being in a “recession made in Russia”.

The reality is that Britain’s economic mess is largely of its own making. Over the past 12 years, British Conservatives have made a number of policy blunders, the consequences of which are catching up with the country.

Britain has become poorer in part because of its ruinously expensive (and unnecessary) Covid lockdowns. For two years, the Government paid people to sit at home and borrowed money to pay for it all. With fewer goods and services being produced, but lots of money in the system, inflation rose. We used up the equivalent of our national overdraft to pay for people to be unproductive. Now, the bank won’t lend anymore. Unsurprisingly, since they presided over it, Britain’s Conservatives seem reluctant to recognize this.

“But surely,” you interject, “every economy around the world is facing a cost of living crisis. The Ukraine war has made matters worse for everyone.”

True, but while geopolitics has increased the price of natural gas for everyone, Britain has done a number of things that have made us especially vulnerable. For most of 2022, natural-gas prices have been five to six times higher in Britain compared with America. Is this because the laws of physics are different Stateside? Of course not. Energy is more expensive in Britain thanks to bad policy.

Britain has pursued the idea of eliminating hydrocarbons as a source of energy more vigorously than almost any other country – including America, despite President Biden’s best efforts. According to Rishi Sunak at the Cop27 climate summit, this will make Britain a “green energy superpower”.

Whatever that might mean, more renewable energy necessarily means being more dependent on natural gas since it is the only realistic energy source that can plug the gaps caused by intermittent wind and solar supply. Since Britain has banned fracking, that in turn means being more dependent on expensive imports of natural gas.

Far from addressing any of this, ministers talk of “doubling down” on their commitment to renewable energy. On the other side of the Atlantic, conservative leaders, such as the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, who has just cruised to a landslide victory, are unapologetic in their support for the oil and gas industries.

One thing Conservative ministers in Britain can be counted on to say they support unequivocally is the NHS. So slavish have they been in their devotion to socialised health provision that they seem oblivious to its shortcomings and quite incapable of proposing desperately needed reform.

A recent report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies revealed that spending on the NHS has grown by 12 percent since 2019 in real terms. There are now 13 percent more NHS doctors and 11 percent more nurses. Yet the NHS somehow manages to treat 5 percent fewer people. Behind these abstract figures sit real stories of personal angst, including a friend of mine whose cancer returned after several years of remission, only for them to discover NHS indifference.

With the NHS accounting for an ever-growing proportion of public spending, its atrocious productivity has a drag effect on the entire economy.

Hunt this week said that he would like the NHS to have “Singaporean efficiency”. In Singapore, every citizen has a dedicated healthcare account, with money following the individual and providers competing for patients. In Britain, ministers can’t bring themselves to charge patients who don’t bother turning up to appointments.

Monetary policy has also added to Britain’s malaise. Ever since the financial crisis, the Bank of England has used a monetary trick known as quantitative easing to try to stimulate economic growth. Initially, it worked, raising output but only by generating ghost growth.

In his brilliant new book, The Price of Time, Edward Chancellor explains how the monetary magic of QE comes at a cost in terms of poorer productivity and underperforming companies. Conservative ministers talk blithely about raising productivity by improving education outcomes or relocating businesses to the other end of the country. In a party that once fiercely debated monetary policy, few even seem to understand the damage caused by central bankers.

Across the pond, the Federal Reserve has not been innocent of the same monetary sins. But it has not held back from raising interest rates, either. The American economy might be first into a recession, but it is likely to be out of it and growing again while Britain stagnates. How many Conservative policymakers yet understand that higher interest rates are not just unavoidable, but essential if we want the next generation to prosper?

Britain’s Conservatives don’t understand the causes of their country’s underperformance. Small wonder they have no idea how to fix it.

While Hunt raises the tax burden as Britain heads into recession, American conservatives are doing the opposite and cutting it. President Biden’s Democrats might run Washington DC, but that has not stopped Republicans from implementing conservative economic policies at a state level.

In my adopted home state of Mississippi, for example, conservative leaders responded to the downturn by implementing the largest tax cut in the state’s history. The state income tax was cut from an average of 7 percent to a flat 4 percent. Mississippi also responded with a far-reaching red tape reduction strategy, giving people with professional qualifications issued in other US states a near automatic right to practice in Mississippi.

“Ha! Mississippi!” some will scoff. “What has Britain got to learn from a small southern US state? Besides, isn’t Mississippi poor?” My adopted home state is indeed the poorest state in America. But in the next 12 months, the per capita income of Mississippi ($45,881 in 2021) is expected to overtake that of the United Kingdom ($47,202 in 2021). A generation ago, Britain was roughly twice as wealthy per person as Mississippi. Tell me again that tax cuts and deregulation don’t work.

Mississippi is in a way simply emulating what other southern states, such as Tennessee, Texas and Florida, have already done. While we have cut our income tax, they have eliminated theirs. While we deregulate, we do so by drawing on what we have seen work next door.

Thanks to the reforms that conservative leaders are implementing at the state level, the American south has become the fastest-growing part of the US. Indeed, it is well on its way to becoming the demographic, economic and, one day soon, perhaps the political center of gravity in America.

If only British Conservatives were willing to look across the Atlantic to see what works over there.

Douglas Carswell is a former Conservative MP and now the president & CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, one of America’s leading state-based think tanks. He lives in Jackson.

This article originally appeared in The Telegraph.

The Mississippi Center for Public Policy launched a “Conservative Platform for Mississippi 2023” today.

The platform offers lawmakers a policy program on important issues that MCPP feels true conservatives in Mississippi should support. Topics discussed within the platform consist of taxes and spending, renewed democracy, combatting extremist ideology, innovation and enterprise, education and healthcare. 

All of Mississippi’s state-wide elected officials have been controlled by self-identified “conservatives” since at least 2015. MCPP believes many of these “conservatives” do not vote in favor of policies that support values involving limited government and personal freedoms, therefore prompting the organization to launch this platform as a guide to voting conservatively. 

Some key issues include a recall, giving residents the power to remove locally elected officials when they fail; the Mississippi Reins Act, which requires the legislature to approve agency spending over $200,000; and an Anti-ESG bill, which prohibits the state’s Public Employees’ Retirement System of Mississippi (PERS) board from investing in Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) policies. 

The Mississippi Center for Public Policy will also publish a detailed, carefully costed draft budget for 2023 in December, which will show what tax cuts should look like in the future. 

MCPP plans to introduce several pieces of legislation during the 2023 Mississippi Legislative Session that follow these policy issues. The organization will promote draft bills and work with allied partners to build a coalition enabling each of these reforms. 

"Mississippi votes for conservatives. It's time for those elected as conservatives to cut taxes, support free enterprise and deregulate," MCPP CEO & President Douglas Carswell said. "Other Southern states have done that - and are growing. We could be, too." 

A copy of the platform can be found here.

Did you know that in Mississippi – the state that led the charge to overturn Roe v. Wade – elective abortions are both illegal and a constitutional right at the same time?

If that sounds confusing to you, it should. That’s why the Mississippi Justice Institute recently filed a lawsuit on behalf of pro-life physicians seeking to end the court-imposed, elective abortion policy in our state.

So, how did we get here?

The people of Mississippi have long sought to protect the lives of unborn children. However, in 1973, those efforts came to a near halt following the U.S. Supreme Court’s infamous opinion in Roe v. Wade, which held that abortion was a right protected by the U.S. Constitution.

In 1986, several obstetrician-gynecologists and abortion clinics filed a lawsuit claiming that a Mississippi parental consent abortion statute violated the federal constitutional rights of minors to seek an abortion. That lawsuit ultimately failed, with the federal courts finding in 1992 that Mississippi’s parental consent law did not violate the federal standard for abortion regulations announced by the U.S. Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.

After that lawsuit failed, Pro-Choice Mississippi, an abortion advocacy group, and some of the same obstetrician-gynecologists and abortion clinics filed a new lawsuit in state court in 1994. This time, they did not argue that the parental consent law violated the federal constitutional right to seek an abortion. Rather, they argued that the Mississippi Constitution guaranteed a right to seek an abortion and that Mississippi’s parental consent law violated this state constitutional right.

Every state has its own constitution. While state constitutions cannot restrict rights secured by the federal Constitution, they can offer greater protection of rights than that afforded under the U.S. Constitution. So abortion advocates sought protection under the Mississippi Constitution for conduct that the federal courts had determined was not protected by the U.S. Constitution.

In 1998, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled on the state court lawsuit in Pro-Choice Mississippi v. Fordice. Relying heavily on the U.S. Supreme Court’s holdings and reasoning in Roe and Casey, the Mississippi Supreme Court held that the Mississippi Constitution – like the U.S. Constitution – did protect a right to seek an abortion.

As we all know, the U.S. Supreme Court recently handed down the Dobbs opinion which overruled Roe and Casey and returned control over abortion policy from the federal courts back to the states, where it rightly belongs. After the Dobbs decision, Mississippi enacted a law prohibiting abortion except in cases where necessary for the preservation of the mother’s life or where the pregnancy was caused by rape.

But what about the Fordice opinion? Because it relied so heavily on Roe and Casey – cases which the U.S. Supreme Court has now said were “egregiously wrong” – the rationale for the supposed state constitutional right to abortion appears now to be invalid. But the Mississippi Supreme Court has not yet had the opportunity to overrule its opinion in Fordice. So, as of today, elective abortions in Mississippi seem to be both statutorily illegal and constitutionally protected at the same time.

To make things worse, this legal uncertainty has placed physicians in Mississippi in an impossible “Catch-22.” Several medical societies and board certification authorities have issued guidelines suggesting that it is unethical, and potentially punishable by the government, for physicians who oppose elective abortion to refuse to provide or refer patients to other providers for lawful, elective abortions. But are elective abortions “lawful” in Mississippi? That depends on whether you are looking at Mississippi’s elective abortion ban or the Mississippi Supreme Court’s opinion in Fordice.

Due to this legal uncertainty, physicians in Mississippi necessarily have to guess as to the legality of their actions involving elective abortion, and no matter which guesses they make, they could be punished for guessing wrong. That’s why the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists partnered with the Mississippi Justice Institute to file a lawsuit seeking to clarify that abortion is not protected by the Mississippi Constitution.

In Dobbs, Mississippi secured a major victory for human rights and the rule of law. Now it’s time to finish the job and put an end to the judicially imposed, elective abortion policy in the state that took down Roe.

Aaron Rice is the director of the Mississippi Justice Institute, a non-profit, constitutional litigation center and the legal arm of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.

Andy Taggart is a founding partner of Taggart, Rimes & Wiggins, PLLC, and a volunteer attorney with the Mississippi Justice Institute.

Mississippi Center for Public Policy CEO & President Douglas Carswell spoke to the South Rankin County chapter of Rotary Club.

Clubs or groups interested in having Douglas speak at a meeting or event can make a request at the link here.

The Mississippi Justice Institute (MJI) filed a lawsuit on Monday that seeks to establish that the Mississippi Constitution does not protect the right to abortion. That question has come into sharp focus since July 7, 2022, when the state enacted a ban on elective abortions.

Here’s what you need to know about the suit, filed against state medical officials on behalf of the American Association of Pro-Life Physicians (AAPLOG), which is represented by MJI

1. Whether Abortion is a Constitutional Right Has Not Been Fully Settled.

On June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overruling Roe v. Wade, which held that the U.S. Constitution protected a right to seek an abortion, and returned control of abortion policy from federal courts back to the states. But a similar opinion by the Mississippi Supreme Court, named Pro-Choice Mississippi v. Fordice, still holds that abortion is a right protected by the Mississippi Constitution.

Every state has its own constitution. While state constitutions cannot restrict rights secured by the federal Constitution, they can offer greater protection of rights than that afforded under the U.S. Constitution.

Because the Fordice opinion relied heavily on Roe and Casey – cases which the U.S. Supreme Court has now said were “egregiously wrong” – the rationale for the supposed state constitutional right to abortion appears now to be invalid. But the Mississippi Supreme Court has not yet had the opportunity to overrule its opinion in Fordice. So, as of today, elective abortions in Mississippi seem to be both statutorily illegal and constitutionally protected at the same time.

The lawsuit filed by MJI seeks to clarify this legal uncertainty and establish that abortion is not protected by the Mississippi Constitution and that the state’s elective abortion ban is valid.

2. The Validity of Mississippi’s Elective Abortion Ban is Uncertain.

Mississippi’s elective abortion ban conflicts with the Mississippi Supreme Court’s opinion in Fordice and has already been subject to a state constitutional challenge by an abortion clinic. After failing to secure the right to continue performing abortions while that lawsuit was pending, the abortion clinic abandoned its suit and moved to another state. However, until the Fordice opinion is overruled or recognized as no longer good law, Mississippi’s elective abortion ban will remain vulnerable to legal challenges.

3. Pro-Life Physicians Are Being Pressured to Violate their Conscience.

AAPLOG is the largest organization of pro-life obstetrician-gynecologists in the world. AAPLOG includes obstetrician-gynecologists and other physicians, with over 6,000 medical professionals nationwide. AAPLOG members oppose elective abortion and are committed to the care and well-being of their patients including both pregnant women and their unborn children.

AAPLOG filed suit to defend the conscience rights of its members in Mississippi. Many professional medical associations have sought for years to advocate for pro-abortion political positions, rather than focusing on their missions of upholding medical standards. Even worse, those medical organizations have continuously sought to violate the conscience rights of pro-life physicians by forcing them to provide or refer patients for elective abortions. Several of those organizations have issued guidelines suggesting that it is unethical, and potentially punishable by the government, for physicians who oppose elective abortion to refuse to provide or refer patients to other providers for lawful, elective abortions.

By establishing that Mississippi’s elective abortion ban is constitutional, AAPLOG hopes to finally put an end to those intimidation tactics and to defend the right to life in Mississippi.

4. If Successful, the Lawsuit Would End Court-Imposed, Elective Abortion Policy in Mississippi.

The people of Mississippi have long sought to protect the lives of unborn children. However, in 1973, those efforts came to a near halt following the U.S. Supreme Court’s infamous opinion in Roe v. Wade.

For 49 years, abortion policy was removed from the democratic process and decided by federal courts. Now, the U.S. Supreme Court has returned control over abortion policy back to the states, where it rightly belongs. But Mississippi’s own courts have not yet had the chance to similarly relinquish control over abortion policy. If the lawsuit is successful, Mississippi’s courts will now recognize that abortion policy is for the people of Mississippi to decide, not the state’s judges.

Mississippi has led the charge to protect life, and with this lawsuit, Mississippi will continue to lead the way.

The Mississippi Justice Institute is a non-profit, constitutional litigation center and the legal arm of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy. It defends the personal, economic, and religious liberty of Mississippians in court to ensure that all forms of government are limited to their essential responsibilities as provided by the Constitution and to foster freedom and prosperity in the state.

On election day, we all get to decide who holds public office. But what if the person we elect proves to be a total dud? What if it turns out that they can scarcely run a bath, let alone a city?

Right now, there’s not a lot anyone can do besides sit back and watch the incompetence pile up until the next election rolls around. Good news for dud politicians, not such great news for everyone else.    

Local people in Mississippi need to be given the power to recall local mayors that do not measure up. When the potholes keep growing and the homicide rates keep rising and boil water notices keep coming, there comes a point when local people should be able to act. If enough local residents sign a petition, it should be possible to trigger a simple ‘yes / no’ recall ballot.

“Giving people the power to recall a mayor” some might suggest “would ensure that mayors never take difficult decisions”.

Really? Isn’t that an argument against electing officials in the first place? Having public officials held accountable for what they decide to do in office is surely the essence of democracy.

A few mayors I can think of have managed to make some pretty terrible decisions. Had they known that they could be held accountable for their A-grade folly, they might not have made quite such a mess of things in the first place.

Any incumbent mayor reading this article would, I am sure, be quick to point out that they are already accountable. Mayors face re-election every few years, even without a recall ballot.

True, but come election day, voter choices are influenced by a myriad of factors. Some folk will be influenced by what is happening in the national news. Others might vote in a general election on the basis of broader questions of identity and party affiliation.

The beauty of a recall vote is its simplicity. Voters are invited to make a simple judgment as to whether the current officeholder is up to the job. It’s not about preferences for a particular party, or ‘their’ political side, or what they saw on Fox News or CNN the night before.

“Why only mayors?”, you might ask. “If recall is such a great idea, why not extend it to all elected officials?”

Put simply, because we need to start somewhere. Introducing a power of recall is going to be contentious. Rather like the issue of term limits, there will be no shortage of politicians who will come out against it. Turkeys don’t vote for Thanksgiving.  

By applying the idea of recall elections initially to just mayors, we might just manage to achieve change.

Besides, recall elections work best when held locally. There is far greater proximity between local voters and their mayor than there is when it comes to state-wide elected officials. This means that local people are in a much better position to judge how their mayor is actually performing at their job.

I believe passionately in recall elections. So much so in fact that back when I was a Member of the British Parliament I even managed to recall myself. In 2014, fed up with the left-wing direction of the then “Conservative” government (no change there), I switched parties.  

I did not have to, but I voluntarily resigned my seat in Parliament so that I could then face a special election – and the judgment of those I served locally. Voters overwhelmingly backed me. Public officials that have the support of the public have nothing to fear from recall votes.

Recall elections are an established part of America’s tradition of democracy. Right now nineteen other States in America have some form of recall. Allowing people in Mississippi to recall local mayors would bring us into line with what happens elsewhere.

In some sense, Mississippians already have the power to remove elected officials outside of ordinary elections. There exists buried inside the Mississippi code some provision to trigger the removal of those in office – but it is an arcane and archaic procedure that has seldom, if ever, been used.  

Creating a right of recall that actually works is long overdue.

Liberty needs leaders, and to secure the future of the liberty movement in our state, we have launched the Mississippi Leadership Academy. We held our inaugural session on Saturday.

Twenty young people are taking part in this six-part program is designed to equip them with the skills necessary to be effective change agents in Mississippi. 

The students, many of whom attend the University of Mississippi, Mississippi State University, Mississippi College and several local high schools, heard from former Representative Hon. Chip Pickering and the state director for Americans for Prosperity, Starla Brown. 

MCPP CEO & President Douglas Carswell began the program by encouraging the students to think critically about issues within our state as they continue the course over the next six months. Pickering discussed what makes Mississippi a unique state, and Brown led her session on the importance of liberty. 

The students proved to be intelligent scholars, asking thought-provoking questions and engaging in unique discourse about public policy. 

The program ended with the students receiving two books — "Inventing Freedom," written by Daniel Hannan and "The Rational Optimist," written by Matt Ridley. In a few months, the students will get to speak with both of these authors and ask questions about the books and the themes within them.

The students will convene again in November for their second session where they will hear from State Auditor Shad White. 

We're so thankful the first session was a success and look forward to meeting with our students again. 

'An Absurd Narrative Mississippians Can See for
Themselves'

This article was originally published in The Epoch Times on Oct. 30, 2022.

As the finger-pointing over what caused the summer water crisis continues in Jackson,
Mississippi, a proponent of the free market and individual liberty examines how local
and national media coverage concocted two culprits—racism and climate change—to fit
a narrative disparaging to the state while downplaying what he said is the true cause:
incompetence.

For Douglas Carswell, President & CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy
(MCPP)—a non-profit organization that advocates for low taxes, light regulation, higher
standards in education, and American exceptionalism—the divide between the media’s
narrative and what the people of Jackson were seeing with their own eyes became a significant wake-up call for the state capital.

“Any time something goes wrong in Mississippi, media will attribute it to events that happened 50 to 150 years ago to say that it’s all a consequence of white racism,” Carswell told The Epoch Times. “It’s an off-the-shelf template that reporters dust off whenever Mississippi comes up, but I think the water crisis was a tipping point for that narrative because ordinary Mississippians could see for themselves how ridiculous it really was.”

National and local media platforms blamed the water crisis on systematic racism within the majority-black city. Some reports got it entirely wrong by flat-out stating that the city had run out of water because of climate change, while, as Carswell pointed out, Jackson has one of the largest reservoirs in the southern United States.

“The Romans managed to master the technology of putting water into pipes to supply a
city with fresh water 2,000 years ago,” Carswell said. “There’s no excuse for Jackson
not to master that technology today. It’s incompetence, and the people of Jackson can
see that.”

While Carswell says the city government’s mismanagement is transparent, the
Mississippi chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) has alleged that Republican Gov. Tate Reeves disinvested funds from Jackson
that could have gone to fix the problem.

The NAACP called on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recently formed
Oce of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights to investigate the matter,
stating in its letter to Reeves, “We have been in keen observance of the long history of
Jackson getting less than its fair share of public funding from the Mississippi state
budget and at times, being denied of any funding at all when it was deserved.”

The NAACP filed a complaint with the EPA under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of
1964, solidifying the allegation that the water crisis was caused by racial
discrimination.

The Oce of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights didn’t immediately
respond to a request for comment on the investigation.

On Oct. 17, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who serves as chair of the Committee on
Homeland Security and chair of the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6
Attack, launched his own investigation into the state’s spending, asking Reeves for data
on how it plans to distribute American Rescue Plan Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure
Law funding.

President Joe Biden pledged millions to combat “structural racism,” which has led to
equity, diversity, and inclusion departments cropping up in government agencies.
Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba stated in a city press release, “We know that
the condition of Jackson’s water system didn’t happen overnight but is due to decades
of disinvestment in the city’s infrastructure.”

However, there are many within Jackson who have been watching this play out for
years and point to the city government’s own underinvestment in its water
infrastructure, which has led to 150,000 citizens without potable water.

According to Reeves in an Oct. 17 press release, “Throughout this emergency, we have
had to procure chemicals, workers, and materials for the city routinely because they
were incapable of doing so.”

Reeves added that the state has “poured millions of dollars from taxpayers of every
county into this effort to rescue the city from a crisis of incompetence.”

On Oct. 20, during a traditional turkey pardoning ceremony to support a campaign
designed to raise money for families in need for Thanksgiving, Reeves answered (the
discussion beginning at 14:00) a question from a reporter about the problems with the
city’s water system.

“The mayor has gone on national TV and blamed that on a lot of things,” Reeves said.
“But what we have proven over the last 52 days is the water struggles in Jackson were
specific to the incompetence of this administration.”

The state stepped in on Aug. 29, Reeves said, and set up a unified command structure,
naming both the Department of Health and the Mississippi Emergency Management
Agency as leads.

Within 72 hours, Jackson’s water was restored, Reeves said, and the boiled water notice
was lifted 15 days later.

“Running water systems isn’t that challenging,” Reeves said.

Out of his 19 years in office, with over 1,100 water systems in the state, Reeves said this
has been the only time he’s had to sign an emergency proclamation to ensure that
water was delivered to the city.

‘Grotesque Incompetence’

Carswell said much of the problem stemmed from a simple failure to bill its citizens.

“In 2017, Jackson’s water billing system collected $61 million in revenue, and the
operating costs of the city’s water system were about $54 million,” Carswell said. “That
left a healthy surplus that competent management might have allocated to meet
maintenance costs.”

In 2022, the amount of revenue collected is likely to be closer to $40 million, Carswell
said, “far below running costs.”

“Not only is there no surplus to go toward maintenance, but there does also not seem
to have been much maintenance even when there was a surplus,” Carswell said. “How
on earth does a city water authority manage to lose almost a third of its revenue in the
space of five years?”

In any given city, water is what Carswell called a “cash cow” because it has a captive
market.

“Citizens are billed, and they have to give the city government a check,” Carswell
explained. “What Jackson did is it monstrously failed to invoice people.”

Several years ago, the city government contracted with an engineering firm to set up a
new billing system, Carswell said, which ended in the firm being sued for $89 million,
leaving consequentially more money to be spent on city attorneys than on improving
the city’s water system.

“If a private business fails to invoice a third of its customers, it will go bankrupt,”
Carswell said. “Here we are in Jackson with the authorities failing to generate a third of
its revenue because they couldn’t get their act together and issue invoices.”
In addition to a failure to invoice, the city failed to have qualified personnel running
the water facilities, he said.

“The state repeatedly offered to help, and those offers were ignored,” Carswell added.
“Eventually, things got so bad that the state had to step in and pick up the cost of half of
it and fix things.”

After the federal and state governments stepped in, the total bill came to less than
$200,000, he said.

“It was a minuscule amount of money to fix a problem that was overwhelmingly
caused by grotesque incompetence among civic leaders in Jackson,” Carswell said.

The city of Jackson didn’t reply to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.