This week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Biden administration’s revised version of eviction moratorium, lifting a stay on a lower court ruling against the moratorium and holding in a 6-3 opinion that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lacked the legal authority to enact the moratorium.
This outcome was widely expected among legal commentators. In fact, it was expected by President Biden himself. That was because the revised moratorium was virtually identical to the original version first adopted by the Trump Administration. A majority of justices had already signaled they believed that the original moratorium was unconstitutional.
However, the Court (ill-advisedly) did not strike it down at the time because it was about to expire anyway. (As our friend Ilya Shapiro said at the time: “What’s a little Constitution between friends?”). Rather, the Court went out of its way to hint that the eviction moratorium should not be extended without Congressional authorization, because if it were, the Court would be forced to strike it down.
Once the original eviction moratorium expired, President Biden resisted extending it, saying that he did not have the power to do so. But after intense political pressure, he relented and allowed the CDC to enact a new moratorium with slight tweaks to give the pretense that the new and improved moratorium might actually survive judicial review.
Even as it was enacted, President Biden admitted that “the bulk of constitutional scholarship says that it’s not likely to pass constitutional muster.” He even confessed that his real reason for enacting it was because “by the time it gets litigated, it will probably give some additional time while we’re getting that $45 billion out to people who are, in fact, behind on rent and don’t have the money.”
This type of conduct by a President of the United States – who is charged with preserving, protecting, and defending the Constitution – is dangerous and inexcusable. The constitutionality of government action is not a game to be played deftly and under false pretenses. It is a bedrock expectation in our free nation. For a President to openly flout the Constitution, no matter how good his intentions may be, severely undermines our democratic institutions and the Rule of Law.
So why was the eviction moratorium unconstitutional? Primarily because it violates the Constitution’s required separation of powers between the three branches of government. It is the job of Congress to pass laws. It is the job of executive branch agencies, such as the CDC, to enforce those laws – not to create them. For any enforcement action the CDC takes, it must have the authority to do so from some provision of legislation duly passed by Congress.
But that’s not what happened here. Rather than enforcing an eviction moratorium that was passed by Congress, the CDC enacted its own moratorium. When asked what congressionally-approved authority it had to do so, the CDC pointed to a provision of the Public Health Service Act, which allows the CDC to enact regulations to prevent the interstate spread of communicable diseases. The CDC argued that the moratorium would accomplish this goal by preventing potentially infected persons from being evicted, moving to new states, and thus spreading COVID across state lines.
Unsurprisingly, the Supreme Court was not convinced. As the Court pointed out, the very legislation the CDC pointed to makes clear that Congress intended to authorize the CDC to take measures directly targeted at preventing the interstate spread of diseases by identifying, isolating, and destroying the disease itself. Congress provided examples of such measures: inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation, pest extermination, and destruction of contaminated animals and articles. To argue that the CDC could use this limited grant of authority to enact any regulations it wished, no matter how broad and sweeping, so long as it theoretically may have some indirect effect on the spread of a disease, would be to grant the CDC near-dictatorial power during any pandemic.
This is no small matter. While some may believe that it doesn’t matter which branch of government takes the lead on issues like an eviction moratorium, that view could not be more wrong. Congress is made up of elected officials accountable to their constituents. When its members vote on legislation affecting the rights of millions of Americans, they do so at their own peril. They know that if they abuse that power, they might be looking for a new job. In contrast, executive branch agencies are made up of unelected political appointees and bureaucrats with no similar need to worry about the consequences of abusing their power.
Moreover, even if Congress had delegated such breathtaking power to the CDC, there is good reason to believe that legislation would also be unconstitutional. Even Congress may not have the authority to inflict such serious infringements on property rights (especially without compensation) based solely on some indirect, theoretical benefit that may come in the form of reduced disease transmission.
Nobody wants to see anyone evicted from their home under any circumstances. But the right to exclude is a basic property right. It is fundamental to encouraging Americans to invest in property. If landlords (most of whom are working-class people just like their tenants) knew that at any moment, for any reason, the government could force them to allow squatters on their property, what reasonable person would invest in and provide rental properties to their communities to begin with?
Rather than a top-down, one-size-fits-all approach to evictions, we should leave those decisions to individual Americans and the relevant laws of their states. Some landlords may be willing to wait and let their renters catch up. Others may not be in the financial position to do so. But it’s not the government’s job to decide who can and should bear each and every financial burden caused by the pandemic.
More importantly, Americans should expect their Presidents to uphold the Constitution and the Rule of Law regardless of which party they belong to or how good their intentions may be. Opposing the abuse of power only when the other side does it can only lead to a vicious cycle of never-ending assaults on our democratic institutions.
According to the 2020 census, Mississippi experienced an overall population decrease from 2010 to 2020. As state leaders attempt to determine the cause and implement policies to encourage people to move to Mississippi, repealing the income tax could be a good place to start.
The Mississippi legislature is currently holding hearings on an initiative to repeal the income tax. As the legislature considers the potential implications of an income tax repeal in Mississippi, it is vital to consider the implications of tax policy on population growth.
Mississippi ranks lower than many of its neighbors when it comes to the total tax burden. Meanwhile, other states in the Southeast have better rankings. It is important to note that of the top 5 states that Mississippi has lost population to in the last couple of decades, all of them have a lower tax burden than Mississippi.
These competing states include Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and North Carolina. Texas and Florida have no income tax at all, while North Carolina has a flat tax on income. Georgia and Alabama both have an income tax, yet both of these states have a sales tax of only 4 percent. Meanwhile, Mississippi currently has both the second-highest sales tax rate in the nation (7 percent) and a graduated-rate state income tax.
Repealing the income tax provides a foundation for the citizens of other states to consider moving to Mississippi. Economic growth in Mississippi is dependent on its people. There are several keys ways that repealing the income tax would directly encourage people to move to Mississippi.
According to the 2021 edition of the “Rich States, Poor States” report, published annually by the American Legislative Exchange Council, states with low or no income taxes saw greater economic growth. A review of the data reveals that tax burdens are a direct factor in the economic growth of states.
Repealing the income tax is a proven component of economic growth that has worked in other states. For example, in the wake of Florida’s repeal of the income tax several years ago, the state has seen growth in its workforce and immigration levels, particularly for high-earners. Similarly, the state of South Dakota has seen incredible growth as a result of economically friendly policies, including its lack of a state income tax.
People follow the opportunity that economic growth generates by moving to states with successful job growth. In fact, a study found that approximately 52 percent of all relocations are for economic reasons. Mississippi should notate these facts and encourage people to move to the state by creating an environment that leaves more money in its citizens' pockets.
If Mississippi wants to get competitive with other states and see an increase in its population instead of a decrease, repealing the income tax is an important place to start. While other factors play into people moving to Mississippi, the bare minimum that state leaders can do is enact policies that leave money in the people’s pockets. It’s time to axe the tax.
As Mississippi’s free-market organization, we have led the way on the campaign to abolish the state income tax. We are delighted that the state legislature is taking evidence on how best to do this.
Abolishing state income tax would mean:
- Workers get to keep more of what they earn each month. Instead of handing over $1 out of every $20 they make in their pay packet to the state of Mississippi, they would get to decide how to spend that money on their priorities and families.
- A boost for Mississippi’s competitiveness. Having a state income tax makes Mississippi a less attractive place to do business, which is why so many young Mississippians move to states like Tennessee, Texas, and Florida states with low or no state income tax.
The problem, however, is how to abolish the state income tax?
In 2020, Governor Reeves proposed phasing out the income tax over time. Then, earlier this year, House Speaker Gunn proposed the largest tax break in our state’s history, removing the requirement to pay any income tax on the first $40,000 anyone earned ($80,000 if you are a married couple).
But how can we do this and ensure that the sums still add up?
Concerns have been raised about the idea of paying for income tax eliminating by raising taxes on other things, and the Speaker’s proposal involved a 2.5 percent rise in the state sales tax.
Since an agreement could not be reached, the Speaker’s proposal stalled in the legislature.
Now, however, there is a real opportunity to bring all sides together and find a way of making this work.
For years, politicians in Jackson have found ways of spending your money. If we can find an agreement to abolish the state income tax, we will be committing future increases in tax revenue to give people tax breaks, not more public sector fat cats.
With the state budget almost $1 billion in surplus, now is the time to make this happen.
When a government can solve a problem, the best entity to solve it is almost always the elected legislature. This is because they are the officials voted in to enact laws and policies that result in better governing. For in their accountability to the people, these legislators are generally the most in touch with the will of the people.
The problem with many public policy solutions on the state and federal levels is that they adhere to a model that treats policy like a big empty box. When a problem arises, and a policy solution is warranted, some legislatures will fill that box only to a certain point with only general rules and regulatory schemes about how money should be spent. The rest of the box is given to agencies and public officials to be filled at their discretion. While this may work for a time, giving officials and agencies this kind of unchecked legislative power plays with fire and eventually breeds corruption. Mississippi only confirms this theory.
This is especially true when government utilizes taxpayer funds. This money is highly vulnerable if it goes without legislative stewardship. Legislators need to take back their own responsibility to govern. There should be a commitment to producing public policies that rely on constructive deliberation in the legislative chambers rather than the whims of unchecked government agencies and bureaucrats.
Yet somehow, many government leaders take the old saying, “money makes the world go round,” to heart when considering political solutions to problems. While it is true in a certain economic context, this idea is taken to a fault when taxpayer funds are thrown into places with little direction or trajectory for where they are supposed to go. Good policy dictates where these funds will go and what they will be used for. Leaders shouldn’t simply be throwing money at a problem by raising salaries and funding bureaucratic appropriation.
Mississippi, unfortunately, has taken this philosophy in a variety of contexts, which is notably seen through MCPP’s Fat Cat Report, in which it is found that some education superintendents and other public officials have among the highest salaries in the country. This is all despite the fact that Mississippi is one of the poorest states in the country. A recent examination of Mississippi’s welfare system discovered similar findings.
The question for those living in Mississippi is the same question that President Reagan built his campaign upon: are you better off now than you were a couple of years before? It is an important question to consider. As the government continues to grow and tells us that the same growth is necessary to keep the country functioning well, it would be best to remember that government works for the people. Ironically, despite the government claiming that it must get bigger, there never seems to be a point at which it is big enough. People in power will always take the opportunity to get more bloated if the people do not remain vigilant.
When Americans see images of the fall of Saigon which marked the end of the Vietnam War, several descriptions immediately come to mind: failure, quagmire and (fairly or not) defeat. Vietnam veterans fought bravely and do not deserve to be remembered in this way, but that is the reality of the legacy created by the indecisiveness and failures of the civilian political leaders who oversaw the war.
Our Afghanistan veterans deserve a more honorable and dignified ending to their war. They too fought bravely. They put their lives on the line for their country. They sacrificed their friends, their bodies, and their spirits for our country and the people of Afghanistan. We should have been able to learn from Vietnam and ensure that we leave a better legacy for them.
Our veterans do not deserve to be remembered this way. Fairly or not, the images coming out of Afghanistan will go into the history books and will shape the way we remember this war. We have seen scenes of desperate Afghan citizens pleading with the American military to help them leave the country; of fear and uncertainty gripping stranded American citizens, our allies, and our friends; and of violence, unrest, and chaos.
It is a stain on America and the Afghanistan War. Our veterans, our stranded American citizens, our friends and allies, and the Afghan people deserve better. We owe that to them at a bare minimum.
We knew this was coming. We had plenty of time to prepare for an orderly and safe withdrawal. That we would leave Afghanistan on this note is shocking and inexcusable.
Many veterans already struggle with thoughts of hopelessness and despair. The events of this week have caused many more to struggle with anger and grief. When friends of yours don’t come home, you want that to mean something. Veterans can’t help but attempt the impossible task of weighing the sacrifices made against the wartime accomplishments. Some decide the sacrifice was too great. Others hope that the accomplishments were enough to justify the sacrifice. But all must carry that burden and face their own uncertainties.
As we watch the events in Afghanistan with heavy hearts and deep concern for what lies ahead, we should also make sure our veterans know that they will not be remembered for these disgraceful scenes. We are proud of them. They fought bravely and served their country honorably. They made the world a better place and gave hope and resolve to the Afghan people to strive for a better way of life.
They kept America safe by fighting the enemy overseas and stopping the fight from coming here. They prevented terrorist attacks on the American homeland by destroying and degrading terrorist networks. They brought to justice those responsible for the horrific attacks of Sept. 11. For all of that, Americans are grateful.
We should also remember that the war in Afghanistan was a just war. In fact, the invasion of Afghanistan was the most clearly justified act of war that America has taken since our entrance into World War II following the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Civilians were attacked and killed on American soil on Sept. 11. The Taliban was harboring and sponsoring the terrorists responsible for that attack. We even gave the Taliban the opportunity to turn over those terrorists and avoid war. But they refused and America defended itself. We were right to do so.
That doesn’t mean we all have to support staying in Afghanistan for the past 20 years, or nation building, or so-called “forever wars.” But we should remember the reasons we sent our young men and women to fight in Afghanistan in the first place and we should honor them for answering the call. The best way to do that right now is to ensure a safe and orderly evacuation of Americans, our friends and our allies.
This opinion piece by Aaron Rice, Director of the Mississippi Justice Institute, originally appeared in the Clarion Ledger.
The technology sector carries some of the highest-paying salaries in the market. Technology workers bring immense potential to state economies with their high-value skills and abilities to drastically increase productivity. Mississippi is in a position to attract tech sector workers and jobs.
Software developers, network engineers, data scientists, web developers, and other tech workers bring unique skills that are becoming more and more critical to the modern economy. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, tech workers produce approximately 18 percent of the United States GDP.
Areas with these high-income tech workers stand to benefit from their incomes. More money in the economy leads to more spending, saving, and investment in a state. Many might think such technology jobs have the highest salary potential almost exclusively in big technology hubs such as Silicon Valley and New York City.
However, the data suggests otherwise. According to Visual Capitalist, Mississippi ranks among the top ten states in the country regarding the income difference between tech workers and workers in other sectors. This places tech workers as some of the most in-demand earners in the state.
While some areas may offer numerically higher tech salaries than Mississippi, their higher cost of living makes it less attractive to live in these areas. To put this in perspective, the average tech salary in Mississippi is $71,720. While California’s tech workers have an average salary of $116,820, the raw numbers themselves don’t tell the whole story. The average tech salaries in Mississippi are indeed numerically lower than in states like California that have more urban centers. But many factors may actually put Mississippi tech workers in a better financial position than their counterparts in California or New York.
Much of the salary differences are due to the higher cost of living in many states compared to Mississippi. For instance, a dollar in Mississippi has 33 percent more purchasing power than a dollar in California, based on data from the Tax Foundation. In fact, a dollar in Mississippi has more purchasing power than anywhere else in the country. This gives the state a competitive advantage as a place of residence for tech workers seeking a lower cost of living.
Furthermore, in the wake of expanded opportunities for remote work, many tech workers now have the option to earn high-paying salaries from companies based in tech hubs like Silicon Valley while avoiding the high cost of living. Workers are doing this by having their actual residence in lower-cost states.
When such workers come to Mississippi, they bring their knowledge and abilities to Mississippi. While some may continue to work remotely for out-of-state companies, evidence suggest that many also use their skills to start their own startups and create more tech jobs in the state.
Tech job listings in tech hubs like New York and San Fransico have not seen drastic increases. On the other hand, many cities with traditionally smaller tech ecosystems have increased their tech job listings as new startups come about from the Silicon Valley exodus. In the second quarter of 2021, several such cities saw tech job listing increases. This would include Richmond (68 percent increase), Salt Lake City (33 percent), San Antonio (32 percent), Cincinnati (29 percent), and others. Exceptional tech startup growth has happened in the cities of other states. So why can’t we see the same thing happen in Mississippi?
As the state continues to look for avenues to attract talent, the tech sector's future in Mississippi carries the dynamic potential for new startups and high-paying jobs to grow the economy. The state could see a real increase in tech-driven growth by enacting policies that lower taxes, promote safer streets, lower regulation, and promote prosperity. In the friendly competition among states to attract tech talent, Mississippi should rise to challenge and take these steps to make the state a more attractive place for the free market. Tech sector growth will be sure to follow.
The City of Jackson took over a year to provide public records to WLBT, a local news outlet that requested the records under Mississippi’s public records laws. Those laws require public records to be provided within seven business days. The city’s egregious delay will cost it and its residents in a big way. Last week, the state’s Ethics Commission ordered Jackson to pay more than $170,000 in legal fees to WLBT – the largest fee award ever levied against a government entity by the commission.
WLBT filed an ethics complaint against the city in October 2019, after the city failed to respond or responded exceedingly late to seven requests for public records to the Jackson Police Department for crime statistics, emails, memos, and related documents.
The city failed to respond to five of the seven requests. For the other requests, the city took excessively long to provide the requested records. For example, the city took nearly 600 days to produce a portion of the phone and text logs WLBT requested from JPD Chief James Davis.
Even after the ethics complaint was filed, the city still did not produce any additional records for 10 months.
The ethics complaint resulted in a hearing before the Mississippi Ethics Commission in November 2020. Nine witnesses appeared before the commission, mostly current and former city employees. On August 6, 2021, the Ethics Commission voted unanimously to approve a final order against the city of Jackson. The order requires the city to pay $170,397.50 to reimburse WLBT’s legal expenses and also fined the city an additional $900 for nine separate violations of state law.
The order also mandates that Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba take several measures to ensure the city does not violate the Public Records Act in the future, such as designating public records officers for the city and each of its 10 departments. Those officers must also undergo at least two hours of training on the Public Records Act each year from a curriculum approved by the commission’s executive director, Tom Hood.
Additionally, the city will be required to post weekly reports on Jackson’s website showing all pending requests for public records to promote transparency.
“The commission and its hearing officers have given the city more than enough warnings and guidance, more than enough chances to comply. Yet the city and its elected officials and, therefore, its employees, have continued to ignore the law and persistently failed to meet legal obligations with no reasonable explanation,” Hood wrote.
The Public Records Act provides a fine of up to $100 per violation, and also allows the Ethics Commission to impose reasonable expenses against government entities who have Complaints filed against them.
A frustration often expressed by advocates of government transparency is that the Ethics Commission rarely imposes significant costs against violators, and the $100 fine, by itself, amounts to a meaningless slap on the wrist.
For that reason, while it’s unfortunate that Jackson’s taxpayers will have to foot the bill for the city administration’s deliberate indifference to state law, last week’s historic fee award is welcome news for those who believe that government must be honest, transparent, and accountable to its citizens, and should face real consequences when it fails to do so.
Facts don’t have to answer to anyone. But is this true in our day when Big Tech social media is the established forum of public discourse? If one were to use the Big Tech content labels and fact checks as the ultimate arbitrators of truth in the public square, the facts would change almost daily. Unfortunately for Big Tech, facts don’t answer to anyone, not even the experts.
At the beginning of 2020, the news of a strange, new, deadly virus that originated in Wuhan, China went out like shockwaves across the globe. Almost immediately, the social media scene became abuzz with millions of voices reacting to the news of a virus that would threaten their health, jobs, futures, and very lives.
As reports began to flow out of China that the virus had possibly originated through a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, social media began circulating this possibility. But before the public discourse got too carried away with a free discussion of the virus origins, social media fact-checkers decreed in early 2020 that such conversations contributed to misinformation and banned any user that purported such a view. The experts had spoken, and those who dissented would be silenced.
After summarily declaring that the Wuhan lab leak theory was so untrue that it could not even be spoken of, Big Tech platforms such as Facebook, had a policy change several months later. The experts had spoken again. This time they determined that now the lowly rank-and-file Americans should be permitted to discuss the lab leak theory that it would have been dangerous for them to discuss only months before.
Granted, these are private sector companies that enact social media censorship. But the massive size, liability protections, and political connectedness of Big Tech call into the question whether or not Big Tech companies have control over public discourse that has grown beyond the proper extent of the private sector. Indeed, many of these private sector moderators have a power over public discourse that sometimes carries a greater sway than even the government itself.
However, such power in Big Tech hasn’t kept the influence of big government out of content moderation. For instance, in the case of the Covid lab leak theory, social media executives communicated directly with government bureaucrats to determine what content to remove. Such actions turned the content moderators into the government’s proxy henchman. As if this were not enough, some have advocated for Big Tech to be formally and legally directed to take down posts that the government considers misinformation.
Is this censorship at the bidding of “the experts” truly the type of public discourse that America can thrive in? We live in a day in which there is widespread civil disagreement on issues ranging from immigration to Covid, and from critical race theory to gun control. Just about every party has the same facts to work with, but many come to differing conclusions. Yet, for practically every issue, there is an “expert” who attempts to establish the acceptable narrative.
America has a long heritage of open discussion and debate of facts under the microscope of the public square. While censorship and the tyranny of the experts might be the status quo in some societies, there are few things more dangerous to a free-thinking society. Those at the top must not control the state of public dialogue.
Facts and ideas are the currency of civil discourse. The powers that be should not leverage their clout to suppress the open and robust discussion of the facts. This is America. Every thinking person should be permitted to civilly discuss and review the facts before them. Such an environment is critical for free-thinking citizens to draw their own conclusions about the pressing questions that confront our nation -without Big Tech censorship and the tyranny of the experts.
Individuals should be skeptical whenever the welfare state is invoked. As a general principle, because the government is funded using other people’s money, it can be highly prone to inefficiency and waste. But it can be hard to measure how far the inefficiency goes. This is especially true of the welfare system.
The cost of fighting the War on Poverty is very hard to quantify because it has been fragmented into a myriad of programs. Some of these programs may aid in certain cases. However, the government’s general approach to welfare is to simply pump money into such programs with the hope that some of them will work. This is a problem.
For example, last year, it was revealed through a 104-page audit that nearly $94 million in welfare money was spent in ways that were not above board through the Mississippi Community Education Center.
This included hiring lobbyists without describing the work they were set out to do, making lump-sum payments to family members of agency directors (in some cases totaling over $1 million), and spending welfare funding on projects that have nothing to do with welfare. There were even instances of funds being used for college football tickets. This has constituted what some have considered Mississippi’s largest embezzlement scandal.
However, this goes beyond merely the misappropriation of funds. In 2018, the most recent year of reliable data, Mississippi ranked 10th in how much money is spent on healthcare, allocating 76.6 percent of its health budget to public welfare. Per resident, the state of Mississippi spent approximately $2,561. Yet, Mississippi remains one of the poorest states in the country and contains among the highest number of residents dependent on welfare.
Continually pumping money into systems that have already proven to be ineffective is not good policy. Instead, good policy is driven by a trajectory of good leadership and principles that keep in mind that the government works for the people.
If the welfare state is incapable of stewarding taxpayer dollars in a manner that is honest and efficient, then there really is no justification for taking those funds from taxpayers in the first place.
Robert Rector and Vijay Menon of the Heritage Foundation even strengthen this concept as they single out cutting wasteful and directionless spending as one of the biggest ways of bettering our welfare system as a whole. If the government is going to get involved, make sure it has a workable plan.
The citizens of Mississippi ought to consider if the state’s welfare system has truly improved their way of life. If it has not, as the data suggests, then perhaps it’s time for meaningful change. Viewed as a whole, the current state of welfare programs demonstrates that individuals are the ones best equipped to take hold of their livelihoods. As the legendary Ronald Reagan quipped, “the most dangerous words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’”