Joe Biden recently declared that he was “sick and tired of trickle-down economics”. It is an approach, said the President on social media, that “has never worked”. But when was trickle-down economics ever tried?

Having spent much of my adult life in conservative circles on either side of the Atlantic, I have yet to meet anyone seriously proposing to make poor people prosperous by enriching the rich.

That is because trickle-down economics is a myth. It no more exists than the Loch Ness monster.

Why, then, does the President feel compelled to attack something that doesn’t exist? In common with every progressive leader since Bill Clinton, Biden uses attacks on a non-existent economic policy in order to misrepresent conservative tax policy.

Biden feels the need to attack conservative tax cuts as ‘trickle-down’ because the success of conservative tax cuts is a threat to Washington DC’s agenda.

When Mississippi passed the Tax Freedom Act earlier this year, we implemented one of the largest tax cuts in our state’s history. Cutting the state income tax in Mississippi meant that we joined forces with Texas, Tennessee and Florida in lowering the tax burden.

Progressive politicians in Washington DC cannot afford to allow the idea of tax cuts as a way of producing prosperity to take hold. If other states join Mississippi’s example in cutting taxes – as Missouri did this week - it will undermine the progressive claim that we need higher taxes and more government.

The federal government has only introduced substantial tax cuts on three or four occasions in recent US history; under Ronald Reagan in 1981 and 1986, under George Bush the younger in 2001-03, and then under Donald Trump in 2017.

On every one of those occasions, the left condemned them as ‘trickle-down economics!’. In retrospect, the biggest beneficiaries of the Reagan, Bush and Trump tax cuts were middle-income Americans.

If, as the left suggests, the conservatives introduced tax cuts as part of a diabolical scheme to benefit only the rich, they failed. The Reagan, Bush and Trump tax cuts helped all of America prosper.

Ironically, perhaps, the Reagan tax cuts even benefited progressives. The tax cuts of the 1980s produced such a tsunami of prosperity into the 1990s, the additional tax revenues that they generated allowed President Clinton to run a small budget surplus.

Tax cuts clearly work. There’s nothing ‘trickle-down’ about them.

Mississippi is on the front line in the fight for America’s future by showing that tax cuts offer an alternative to Biden’s tax-and-spend approach. No wonder the President is so keen to attack.

Amid the ongoing water crisis in Jackson leaving some people still without clean running water, Hinds County has opted out of trying to receive federal American Rescue Plan Act dollars. 

Is this a principled refusal to tackle the DC dollar? Or just incompetence? 

The federal government created ARPA in 2021 as a way to help local governments recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Its uses include improvements to water, sewer and infrastructure, along with compensating the public sector for lost money. 

Mississippi received $1.8 billion in ARPA. Of that amount, the state legislature allocated $750,000 million to help support local governments to match some of the funds local entities have already received from the federal government – $450,000 specifically will be designated for water. To ensure this money was properly spent, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality created the Mississippi Municipality & County Water Infrastructure Grant Program for local governments to apply for matching funds with a September 30 deadline. 

Hinds County, the county with a failed water system, missed its deadline – intentionally, some suggest. 

Hinds County received $45 million in federal ARPA dollars and could have been awarded up to $17 million if the Hinds County Supervisors attempted to apply for these funds. The county’s reasoning for missing the deadline? The hope that sitting out this round could result in more money in the state’s second allocation round in the spring. 

But nothing is ever guaranteed, especially when it comes to public money.

The determination of how much matching funds a local entity receives is based upon a point system administered by MDEQ. Hinds County Administrator Kenneth Wayne Jones said the points Hinds County received were not enough to justify even applying for ARPA dollars from the state, and he believes going through the application again and looking for items the county might have initially missed will produce a greater outcome. 

In its application, MDEQ states that the process among cities and counties will be very competitive, and some entities may have to apply multiple times before they receive any matching dollars. So even though Hinds County believes it could be allocated more money in the next round, the county is not guaranteed to actually receive these funds. 

From soon-to-be college students applying for college tuition assistance to charities looking to fund their mission, any time individuals or organizations request federal dollars, there is always a vigorous and competitive process to receive such aid. The amount of money Hinds County could receive when – or if – it actually applies in the spring may be even less than what the county thought it would secure this go-round, or worse, even none at all. 

Based on preliminary data from WLBT Jackson, 429 cities and counties across the state applied for matching dollars, amounting to $435 million in requests. If all desired wants are met, hypothetically, only $15 million remains in the state’s ARPA water improvement fund. 

The city of Jackson requested $35 million for work to improve the O. B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant, the facility that oversees Jackson’s water system. Jackson also plans to spend $27 to $35 million of its ARPA received on water upgrades. While the city of Jackson could potentially end up with nearly $70 million to spend on the water crisis, Hinds County will only be contributing a mere $17.5 million to the project, due to not even an attempt to obtain matching funds. 

Administrator Jones said he is sure the county’s “strategy” will work in its favor though, eventually resulting in more money later than what could have been offered now. For the betterment of Jackson and Hinds County residents and the need for actually clean water one day, we sure hope so. 

Amid the water crisis in Mississippi’s capital city, Jackson has denied its residents once again another basic public service – trash pickup. 

Come Saturday, residents will not have garbage collection and will be forced to find other means of disposal. Instead of identifying a sensible solution for residents, Jackson leadership announced Thursday that people should reduce the amount of waste within each household and store seafood waste inside freezers. Residents do have the option to take their garbage to the city’s hazardous waste site, that is if they have the spare time or means necessary to do so. 

Over 150,000 people will be affected by this – the same 150,000 who just endured an almost two-month water boil notice and several days without running water. 

Jackson began contracting with Richard’s Disposal in April after the contract with the city’s previous disposal group, Waste Management, expired. After much dispute between Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba and the city council, Lumumba issued an emergency contract to Richard’s Disposal, despite it not being approved by the council. The majority of the council wanted to reinstate Waste Management as the city’s service provider, but Lumumba was persistent on contracting with Richard’s due to the lower rates the company offered. 

After six months of work, Richard’s Disposal has seen no compensation, and the company, rightly said they have had enough of Jackson’s incompetency. The company also is suing the city for the $5 million it should have received since work began. 

Why does a capital city continue to see public needs stripped like this? That would be from poor leadership and elected officials who do not know the meaning of collaboration. 

While Lumumba blames the city council for this fiasco, and vice versa, without a legal contract and funds for reimbursement, nothing will be solved for this garbage dilemma. Even though Richard’s has not been paid for its services, Jackson has still been collecting funds from residents for trash pickup, therefore even though the city has the means necessary to pay the company, it just has not done so. 

The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality said that it will fine the city up to $25,000 per day if trash begins to pile up on the side of the road, which could lead to even more debt and problems for Jackson. 

So where do we go from here? 

The only logical solution is for Lumumba and the city council to attempt to work together. One entity will have to swallow its pride and abandon its stance on who should cover the city’s sanitation and agree to contract with the alternative. 

And this can be done. Just recently, Congress found bipartisanship with several legislative measures such as the Violence Against Women Act and a financial reform act for the United States Postal Service. If Congress can find ways to agree, so can a local government.

Councilman Kenneth Stokes, who had previously been against working with Richard’s Disposal, said Thursday he wants the residents to have their trash to be picked up however it needs to be done, so a solution could come sooner, rather than later for Jackson. We just need to hope for a municipal compromise. 

Until then, Jackson residents will have to deal with the pungent odors, filthy streetscapes and old shrimp peelings stored in their freezers.

With charter-school applications repeatedly being denied, it’s time to overhaul the approval process.

Last week, Mississippi’s Charter School Authorizer Board was doing what it does best: saying “no” to people applying to set up new charter schools. In the most recent batch, four out of five applications were rejected. This included, bizarrely, a request from an already successful school in Clarksdale, in the Mississippi Delta, to expand by opening a high school.

You might think that a Charter School Authorizer Board would be in the business of approving at least some new applications. Not, it seems, in our state, where the board has been cheerfully rejecting new applications for years.

It is now over a decade since the Mississippi Center for Public Policy helped pass legislation to allow more charter schools. After all that time, we have only eight charter schools in the entire state. Georgia has more than ten times that number. South Carolina has more than 70. Neighboring Arkansas (whose population is about the same as Mississippi’s) has 50, and Louisiana has 143.

Is the quality of applications in our state that much worse than in those other states, or is the political self-interest of the public-education establishment more entrenched here?

In its own defense, the Charter School Authorizer Board might say that it has a duty to reject any suboptimal applications since that might mean allowing suboptimal charter schools to exist. To this one might reply by asking whether the board is aware of how suboptimal some existing non-charter schools are. To reject charter-school start-ups because they are not perfect is absurd.

Thanks to public-education protectionism in Mississippi, the board will not even consider applications for new schools unless they are from districts given a grade of F by the state department of education (which makes assessments based on such factors as test scores and graduation rates). Saying no to charter-school applications in districts consistently given low grades means consigning those children to poorly performing schools. Besides, shouldn’t it be up to parents to decide if a charter school is good enough? Right now, Mississippi’s eight charter schools are heavily oversubscribed, suggesting that parents vastly prefer charter schools to the existing public-school alternatives.

It has also become clear that the old education order in Mississippi is unwilling to allow more than a token number of charter schools in our state, and certainly not enough so that they might compete against the self-serving education bureaucracy.

What is to be done?

Changes around the edges won’t be enough. The role of the Authorizer Board needs to change.  First, the process for approving or rejecting needs to be done transparently, on the basis of objective, clearly stated criteria. Second, the Authorizer Board should be redirected to focus on granting broad approval to organizations wanting to set up and run charter schools; its approval should not be required for each individual proposal. And third, although it certainly should not be necessary to obtain the Authorizer Board’s approval for changes in the way existing charter schools are being run, as is currently the case, once the board gives would-be charter-school operators broad approval to set up and run the schools, those providers ought to be free to get on with doing so as, in effect, licensed charter-school operators in the state.

Perhaps even more radically, the Charter School Authorizer Board needs to lose its monopoly on approving applications. As has happened in other states, alternative institutions — such as public universities — ought to be granted the authority to approve them. Having multiple authorizers would prevent a public-sector monopoly from stifling innovation.

Charter schools in states that allow far more of them come in all shapes and sizes. Some are stand-alone schools; others are part of what is in effect a chain. The providers of charter-school education gain invaluable experience from running the schools. The Mississippi Authorizer Board, on the other hand, has none.

Charter Authorization Board failing Mississippi Children 

Today’s announcement that the Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board has rejected all but one application to open new Charter Schools in our state is deeply disappointing, said Douglas Carswell, President & CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.

"It is over a decade since the law was changed to allow Charter Schools in Mississippi," Carswell said. "So far we have eight Charter Schools in the entire state. At this rate, it would take a century or so before we get a critical mass of new Charter Schools."

"The Charter School Authorizer Board seems almost determined to reject new applications. Any application that is not deemed perfect gets a thumbs down."

"The fact that not every application is deemed perfect is not an acceptable excuse. The job of the Authorizer Board should be to work with applicants to ensure they are acceptable."

"Rejecting any application that is not 100 percent perfect is absurd. It means that children that might be able to go to a Charter School are forced to remain in their very far from perfect school board run school."

"If the Authorizer Board is not up to approving new Charter Schools, responsibility to overseeing the process needs to be shared with other organizations and agencies that are."

The Biden administration is seeking to “cancel” student debt by transferring what individual students owe to the American taxpayer.

Opponents question why Americans who never graduated from college, and had none of the attendant benefits of a degree, should pick up the tab for those who did. Defenders of the Biden order counter with the observation that tens of millions of young Americans are weighed down by debts they may never be able to repay.

What both sides ought to ask is why we are sending so many young Americans to take college degrees in the first place. If students really are struggling to pay off college debts, does that not raise some fundamental questions about the value of what they are being taught?

More and more young Americans are, it seems, questioning the value of a college degree. Today, only 42 percent of Americans aged 18-24 are enrolled in college or graduate school. That figure represents a significant drop since 2010 when the percentage attending college peaked.

More does not mean better when it comes to university, and if anyone in America is in doubt, he should look across the Atlantic at the British experience.

In my native Britain, a mere 15 percent of young Brits went to college or university in 1980. Since then, it has been the objective of every UK government to encourage more people to go to university.

By 1990, one in four were going to university. 20 years after Prime Minister Tony Blair set a target of having half of all young people attend, that target was reached in 2019. Today, almost 60 percent of young women in England pursue higher education.

Having so many studying at university sounds impressive. But the rapid expansion of higher learning has come at a price. It is often the students themselves who pay that price through large debts and degrees that don’t always add much value.

UK universities have become big businesses, and their business model has been to borrow to expand. In order to accommodate the 2.6 million students now in higher education, there has been a sustained building boom around university campuses over the past couple of decades, with lots of gleaming new buildings.

The borrowing binge British universities have been on has seen vast debts run up against a flow of revenue that schools expect to receive from students taking out state-subsidized loans.

Almost £20 billion of these state-backed loans are made to students in England each year (the figure is even higher if students in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are included). The value of outstanding loans at the end of March 2022 reached £182 billion and is expected to be around £460 billion (at current prices) by the mid-2040s.

UK universities have expanded by taking on debts. These debts are themselves serviced by state-backed debts taken on by students. It’s a house of cards built on IOUs, and one that is so precarious that, according to a recent report by the Institute of Fiscal Studies, a dozen or more British universities might soon find themselves insolvent.

As the cost of borrowing increases, it is only a matter of time before some British universities start to ask for the government to bail them out. I wonder if all those brand-new student accommodation buildings that have sprung up will be housing students in a decade or so.

In order to maximize revenues, many UK universities have resorted to trying to attract ever larger numbers of overseas students, whom they can charge higher fees. For some overseas students, paying those fees, almost irrespective of the quality of the education they get, is a price worth paying as a means of migration. American universities have seen a dramatic increase in overseas student numbers for similar reasons.

Dramatically expanding the number of universities in Britain has made many of them degree factories. Courses consist of modules, in which students are instructed on what to think, rather than necessarily how to think. Perhaps this is inevitable, given the sheer volume of students that universities now process.

The rise of degree factories has meant more standardization of higher education, not least the standardization of thought. The romantic notion of a university is that it is a community of free thinkers, cheerfully pursuing scientific and intellectual inquiry. Many British universities are very different from that.

Many UK universities have become cheerless institutions in which standardized thinking is rigorously enforced. In one British university recently, a feminist academic was driven from her post by the relentless hounding of balaclava-clad students who accused her of “transphobia.”

Leftist dogmas, prevalent among university faculty, have become long-established campus orthodoxies. Critical Race Theory and ideas about intersectionality influence how many liberal arts and humanities courses are taught.

It is not only in the humanities where standards have suffered. In some science departments at some British universities, scientific empiricism seems to have given way to what one might call “inductivism.” That is to say, observations are made, a general theory is formed, then more observations are made supposedly justifying that theory. The result has been an endless succession of university-backed “scientific” models, on everything from climate change and Covid to the economy and inflation, that proved to be spectacularly wrong.

A big part of the problem is that university expansion in Britain has not been accompanied by effective consumer choice. With state subsidies and state-backed loans, students are not paying the true cost of their education. The system lacks the discerning customers (students) needed to ensure that the suppliers (universities) deliver a quality product.

British universities, in common with most of their American counterparts, have a number of academics on tenure. This makes it almost impossible to remove them unless, of course, they transgress from campus orthodoxies. Worse still, perhaps, the system of accreditation focuses on processes rather than the value of degrees.

Many British universities have become state-subsidized degree factories, churning out mediocre credentials that do little to equip students for what comes next. Perhaps it would be no bad thing if the number of students enrolling in universities fell, in America as well as in Britain.

Douglas Carswell is the President and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy and is a former Member of the British Parliament. 

Mississippi’s free-market think tank, the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, won two national awards at the State Policy Network annual conference in Atlanta yesterday. 

• 1ST AWARD - “Biggest win for Freedom” award: Earlier this year, Mississippi passed historic tax reform, with the Mississippi Tax Freedom Act. The change cut the state income tax and gave 1.1 million Mississippians a tax break. In recognition of MCPP’s role in achieving this landmark reform, MCPP was given the “Biggest Win for Freedom” Award, jointly with Empower Mississippi.

"Mississippi has historically had a high tax burden and slow growth," said Douglas Carswell, MCPP’s President & CEO. "Our campaign to cut the state income tax is helping to change that."

"We won this award for the work we did to bring key people and organizations into alignment, found common ground for carefully costed state income tax cuts, and at the same time built popular support for the idea.”

• 2ND AWARD - SPN Network Award: In recognition of our effort to overturn the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate, our litigation division, the Mississippi Justice Institute, won the SPN Network Award. We were given the award jointly with a number of other think tanks, including the Texan Public Policy Foundation and Louisiana’s Pelican Institute.

"We are honored to be recognized alongside so many esteemed constitutional litigation centers," said MJI director, Aaron Rice, who helped lead the fight. "We will continue standing up against government overreach and protecting constitutional rights at every opportunity."

The State Policy Network supports a movement of over 60 independent think tanks across America and has over 90 partners. At this year’s conference, SPN gave out five awards. MCPP was a finalist in three of the five categories, going on to win in two.

"It is wonderful that MCPP was a finalist in three of the five categories," Carswell said. "But we like to win for Mississippi, so it was wonderful to go on to actually win twice.

"Mississippi has been one of the poorest states in America for as long as anyone can remember," Carswell said. "MCPP exists to try to change that, and we believe we will only change that by achieving big, strategic changes that improve decades of public policy failure."

"These awards show that MCPP is an effective vehicle for change," Carswell said. "We are helping to drive the far-reaching change that Mississippi needs. Now we want to try to achieve big, strategic wins in improving education and healthcare in our state, too."

An American city of 150,000 people is without running water.  Pumps at the main water treatment plant in Jackson, Mississippi failed this week.  Low water pressure means that many homes and businesses can’t even run the taps.  Those that are getting a trickle are advised not to clean their teeth with it, let alone drink it, since it is likely contaminated.

How did this happen?

Jackson city leadership would like you to think it has something to do with all the recent rains we have had here in Mississippi.  Speaking somewhat cryptically at a recent press briefing, Jackson’s mayor, Chokwe Lumumba, said the water-treatment facility had been “challenged, as it relates to these flood levels”.  Putting the blame on the rain, he went on to say that the city’s water administration was trying to “figure out how they contend with that additional water that is coming in”.

Officials in neighboring towns and cities, such as Madison, Flowood and Clinton, managed to figure out how to supply residents with clean water despite having just as much rain.  

Unless the laws of physics are different in Jackson, the only logical conclusion one can draw from this fiasco is that Jackson’s water problems are a consequence of systemic mismanagement.

Two thousand years ago, the Romans figured out how to supply a city with running water by putting it in pipes.  Jackson today seems to be struggling to master this technology.

Key water treatment plants in the city did not employ qualified personnel to run them.  Now they have stopped running.  What did city authorities think would happen?

For years, city authorities have underinvested in Jackson’s water infrastructure, to the point where it is now falling apart.  This, some will be quick to tell you, is because of a lack of money.  But why is there not enough money?

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.  That left a healthy surplus that competent management might have allocated to meet maintenance costs.  

This year, the amount of revenue collected is likely to be closer to $40 million, far below running costs.  Not only is there no surplus to go towards maintenance, there does not seem to have been much maintenance even when there was a surplus.

How on earth does a city water authority manage to lose almost a third of its revenue in the space of five years?  In large part because the city authorities have not collected revenue since they have lacked an effective water billing system.  

Several years ago, Siemens was contracted to create a new billing system, while at the same time upgrading much of the city’s dilapidated water infrastructure.  That arrangement ended with Siemens being sued by the city for $89 million.

Was that large dollop of Siemens’ money given to the city used to improve Jackson’s water system?  Twice as much was spent on attorneys ($30 million) as went to improve Jackson’s water and sewage system ($14 million).

Given what happened with Siemens, I worry that Jackson might not be able to find a contractor willing to undertake the herculean task of fixing the city’s water supply, even if the money could be found.  I also suspect that any large outside contractor prepared to undertake the task may want to ensure that they were free to subcontract with their preferred partners on the basis of value, and not to be subjected to various ‘contract rules’ on the basis of politics.

Without some sort of outside support, Jackson’s water crisis will not be resolved.  Our’s may become the first state capital in America where it becomes impossible for residents to take a daily shower.  

At the state level, Mississippi’s Governor Tate Reeves, who lives in Jackson, has stepped in.  He has taken on the task of providing emergency water distribution to local residents – and offering state money to pay for half of it.  

The federal government also seems keen to help out.  President Biden specifically mentioned investing in Jackson’s water system, during the passage of the Infrastructure Bill.  But as Representative Bennie Thompson has sensibly suggested, for the federal authorities to step in “the city to come up with a plan”.  Representative Thompson is right.  

The federal and state authorities seem willing to act.  The key question is whether Jackson’s city leadership is willing to let them come in alongside.  

Douglas Carswell is the President & CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy. He lives and works in Jackson. 

Mississippi might be one of the poorest states in America, but we manage to produce plenty of overpaid officials - and these ‘Fat Cats’ are getting fatter. 

The Mississippi Fat Cat report is a list of the fifty highest-paid public officials, which we publish every year.  Our report reveals some shocking truths about public sector pay.

Did you know, for example, that the school superintendent of Tupelo (7,005 students) is paid more than the governor of Texas (population 28 million)? Or that the D-rated McComb school superintendent makes more than the governor of Florida?

Mississippi’s 50 highest-paid public officials make (I hesitate to use the word ‘earn’) more than the 50 governors of the US states.

Worse, the Fat Cats are getting fatter. Our report reveals that top public sector salaries in our state are rising faster than the salaries of the average Mississippi government employee, and a lot faster than the salaries of ordinary workers in the public sector.

From gas to groceries, the cost of living is rising fast.  Since the salaries of many Mississippians are not increasing as quickly, many are likely to see a decline in their household income.  I don’t imagine this is quite such a problem for those public officials who have been awarded above-inflation pay raises.

Of course, higher salaries for Fat Cats means fewer nurses, teachers and police. Our report calculates that the combined salaries of Mississippi’s 50 Fat Cats could pay for an additional 194 nurses, 232 state troopers or 228 teachers. 

The aim of our report is not to criticize every highly paid public official.  Some are paid to do demanding jobs requiring specialist medical and legal skills that generate a lot of public good.  Top performing school district superintendents may be worth every dollar. But there seem to be an awful lot of highly-paid public officials that preside over some pretty awful public service outcomes. 

Our report show that there is little correlation between what top bureaucrats are paid, and their performance.  Many of the worst-performing school superintendents seem to enjoy inflated salaries.

Every time there is a public debate in Mississippi about how to improve public services, it rapidly becomes a conversation about how many more federal dollars we need to throw at the problem and how much more public money we should spend.  Our report suggests that this is the wrong approach. 

With a $1.4 billion surplus in the state budget, there is plenty of money to pay a lot of mediocre officials a lot.  The problem seems to be that the money isn’t always spent in the best interests of the public.

 Our report lists some practical steps that our lawmakers need to take in order to ensure that there is proper accountability when top public sector salaries are being set. Our lawmakers need to act in the 2023 session to ensure public money is spent more wisely.

Douglas Carswell is the President & CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy. A copy of the Mississippi Fat Cat report 2022 can be downloaded from our website mspolicy.org/publications/the-2022-mississippi-fat-cat-report/.