Blog - Page 55 of 193 - Mississippi Center for Public Policy

Covid hit Mississippi’s economy particularly hard. Tens of thousands of jobs disappeared as unemployment rose to 16 percent. In the second quarter of 2020, a record number of businesses went bust, filing for Chapter 11 protection.

However devastating the pandemic, Covid has not destroyed America’s spirit of enterprise. Data just in from the US Census Bureau shows a remarkable rise in the number of new businesses being set up. And you know what’s most encouraging?

The state with the biggest surge in new business applications nationwide is Mississippi.

In January this year, over 6,000 new businesses were started in this state. That meant a 164 percent surge in new businesses registering compared with January last year.

This entrepreneurial spirit is just one reason why unemployment in our state has fallen dramatically from its peak last year, and is now down below the national average.

This surge in start-ups is great news for the future. Growth does not happen because politicians arrange for big businesses to set up shop in our state via all kinds of inducements. Real growth comes when we create the right conditions that enable small start-ups to expand.

At the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, we are promoting policies that will allow entrepreneurs to flourish. That means taking steps to deregulate our state’s economy.

Too many areas of economic activity in Mississippi require some sort of official’s authorization or permit. There are too many boards and commissions in Jackson able to fix the system to keep out the competition. Far too many jobs require unnecessary certification.

If Mississippi is to grow the way Tennessee or Florida have been growing, we need a red tape reduction plan. That means systematically going through the rule book and throwing out unreasonable regulations that hold entrepreneurs back.

Mississippi needs lower taxes, too. There has been lots of encouraging talk about abolishing personal income tax. I think we need to stop taxing entrepreneurs’ inventories, too.

In order to ensure that Mississippi policy-makers help, rather than hinder, innovation, we have just launched the Mississippi Tech Institute. We aim to remove those regulatory obstacles that risk holding our state back.

When folk think about innovation, they often imagine tech start-ups. Important though these are, here in Mississippi there is enormous potential for innovation in other areas, too, such as agriculture and energy production.

The spirit of enterprise is alive and well in Mississippi. Our task is to get big government out of its way.

It is precisely because Mississippi is a relatively small state that we can be nimble, making the kind of changes we need and serving as an example to the rest of America.

Innovation is one of the greatest keys to prosperity, but state regulations are not always friendly to new ideas. In many states, entrepreneurs must climb over mountains of red tape. Many innovators also have to pay thousands of dollars in compliance costs as they try to convince regulators to let them introduce new ideas to consumers.

Fortunately, state leaders in Mississippi are taking action. A bill (SB 2976) introduced by Senator Angela Hill would create a “regulatory sandbox” program that would help new technologies flourish in Mississippi.

The program, administered by the Mississippi Development Authority, would encourage companies with innovative business concepts and technologies to try out new products, without smothering them with regulations. The bill has been referred to the Senate Finance Committee.

One specific industry in Mississippi that is ripe for innovation is energy technology. In light of this, Senator Hill has additionally introduced a bill (SB 2975) that would use the “sandbox” approach to encourage new technologies in the traditional energy sector.

The bill would help generate innovative energy technologies by facilitating the creation of a framework to permanently remove or temporarily waive laws and regulations that may unnecessarily inhibit the creation and success of new companies or industries.

In addition, there are provisions in the bill that would encourage agricultural innovation. SB 2975 has also been referred to the Senate Finance Committee.

Mississippi needs innovation and prosperity. The potential for expanded entrepreneurship as a catalyst for Mississippi businesses to further grow and flourish cannot be overstated. Both of these bills introduced by Senator Hill are excellent legislative steps that help pave the way for growth in the Magnolia State.

Update: While both SB 2976 and SB 2975 failed to advance this session, we appreciate the hard work of Senator Angela Hill in championing sandbox deregulation. MCPP, through the Mississippi Technology Institute, is looking forward to working with the Mississippi Senate to unleash technological innovation in Mississippi.

A bill that eliminates the income tax for most Mississippi workers has just passed the House, clearing a crucial hurdle in the process to becoming law. If the bill (HB 1439) passes, Mississippi workers would have thousands of extra dollars in their pocket each year.

The bill was authored by House Speaker Philip Gunn and co-authored by Rep. Trey Lamar, Rep. Jason White, Rep. Jeffrey Guice, Rep. Dan Eubanks, Rep. Brady Williamson, Rep. Steve Hopkins, Rep. Chris Brown, Rep. Dana Criswell, Rep. Gene Newman, Rep. Bill Kinkade, and Rep. Jansen Owen.

The bill was passed with a vote of 85 to 34.

HB 1439 will now move onto the Senate for further consideration.

Everybody on a payroll in Mississippi today pays $1 in state income tax out of every $20 they earn – on top of all the other taxes they have to pay. Speaker Gunn’s proposal would raise the threshold for income tax, meaning the first $47,700 earned is tax exempt. For married couples, the threshold would rise to $95,400.

The bill would seek to phase out the income tax over time. It would also cut our state’s extremely high grocery tax in half, from 7% to 3.5% over time. To offset the lost revenue, the bill would increase the sales tax rate by 2.5% from 7% to 9.5%.

“This is great news for Mississippi”, said President of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, Douglas Carswell. “Giving workers a tax break will boost the state’s economy. It is also morally the right thing for folk to be free to keep more of what they’ve earned.”

“Instead of outright abolition of income tax, it looks like this proposal is a step towards phasing income tax out,” explained Carswell, whose think tank has been at the forefront of efforts to eliminate the tax.

“Instead of asking if we can afford to end the income tax, we ought to ask if we can afford not to. Fast growing southern states like Texas, Tennessee, and Florida don’t have income tax. That’s why incomes in those states are rising and job creation is flourishing. Mississippi could do the same, too.”

“This bill will increase sales tax, which is not normally something we would agree with. However, if taxes must be levied, they should be levied on consumption, rather than income.”

“We are also relieved that this bill proposes lowering taxes on groceries. That will help families struggling to make ends meet.”

“Mississippi needs bold action to grow. We welcome Speaker Gunn’s leadership and encourage swift action by Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann.”

If you are interested in signaling your support for income tax elimination, then be sure to sign this petition.

The Mississippi House is considering a bill (HB 1364) that would increase gas taxes and increase debt for the people of Mississippi. The bill caps new bond debt at a whopping $2.5 billion. The bill also indexes the state gas tax according to the U.S. inflation rate. This means that the state gas tax would go up whenever the U.S. inflation rate goes up. Many economists are expecting the U.S. inflation rate to go up in 2021.

HB 1364 has passed out of committee and is already on the House calendar. A vote by the full House is expected early this week.

Responding to the proposed gas tax increase, President & CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy Douglas Carswell said, “It is wrong for politicians to be raising taxes on gas. History shows that these kinds of tax hikes are never temporary.”

“Making Mississippians pay more every time they fill up with gas means less money for them to spend on their own families. It will hit small businesses and folks who live in more rural areas especially hard.”

The gas tax bill also fails to fix a longstanding problem with how Mississippi funds transportation projects. A recent performance audit found that “a lack of competition in the bidding process has been proven to increase MDOT project costs.” More transparency is also needed so that the state prioritizes high-need projects that serve the most people and maximizes economic development opportunities.

“The idea behind this tax hike seems to be to create a pot of money to spend on infrastructure. Why not work out specifically what infrastructure we need, and set a budget for it, before taking more money from taxpayers? That way we might at least ensure we get value for money from any infrastructure projects.”

“Instead of figuring out ways to fleece taxpayers, we need politicians to focus on spending less, and spending it wisely.”

Mississippi lawmakers need to be able to control our own gas tax rate. This bill will tie our gas tax to the federal inflation rate, which is expected to go up. That means the gas tax will automatically go up, and Mississippi will not be able to do a thing about it. Why are we giving over control of our gas tax to Washington, D.C.?

A bill that eliminates the income tax for most Mississippi workers was unveiled today. If the law (HB 1439) passes, Mississippi workers would have thousands of extra dollars in their pocket each year.

“This bill will increase sales tax, which is not normally something we would agree with. However, if taxes must be levied, they should be levied on consumption, rather than income.”

“We are also relieved that this bill proposes lowering taxes on groceries. That will help families struggling to make ends meet."

“Mississippi needs bold action to grow. We welcome Speaker Gunn’s leadership."

Part II: The Mississippi Broadband Enabling Act of 2019

In February 2018, Mississippi Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley announced an $11 million fiber infrastructure project aimed at spanning over 300 miles through 15 rural Mississippi counties. The project was a partnership between cable provider C-Spire and Entergy to bring the emerging fiber-to-the-home technology, which C-Spire had been offering to urban customers since 2013, to rural Mississippians.

Just one year later, Commissioner Presley lauded the strong bipartisan support for his new project, the Mississippi Broadband Enabling Act, which promised to bring fiber-to-the-home technology to the rest of rural Mississippi via the state’s rural electric cooperative associations (ECAs).

Presley told this author that the success of the legislation was the result of perfect timing. He cited the 2019 Mississippi statewide elections in which candidates (including incumbents) were well aware of the widespread support of Mississippians for universal broadband service availability.

Perhaps Presley was being modest. In reality, as reported by Geoff Pender in the Clarion-Ledger: “He created a task force that ended up with 1,310 members over 33 counties. … He got 60 county boards and 70 city councils to pass resolutions in favor of allowing rural co-ops to provide Internet service.”

Presley, in fact, succeeded in convincing lawmakers to reverse a 1942 law (enacted less than a decade after the state’s first rural electric cooperative association was established) that had barred ECAs from providing any product other than electric utility service to their customers. But beforehand, he had to win over enough of the state’s 26 ECAs to the idea that they could provide service even to the most remote customers (as they are required to do for electric utility service) without suffering financial losses.

At the time, only those with crystal balls could foresee the coming COVID-19 pandemic or that Congress – and the Mississippi Legislature – would authorize millions of dollars to make meeting their Internet service obligations that much easier – and less financially risky.

When HB 366 was passed, Presley called broadband “the electricity of the 21^st Century,” and hoped for a day when children do not “have to sit in the McDonald’s parking lot to do their homework.” [Again, this was a year before COVID-19.]

Outgoing Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant boasted that, “If anyone wants to know how this bill got passed so quickly talk to the rural electric associations, because we do, and we listen to them.” Lawmakers passed the bill unanimously in the Senate after the House vote had just three “nays.” And with good reason – the ECAs serve 1.8 million of the state’s 3 million people and provide service to half of the state’s electric meters.

Similarly, Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation President Michael McCormick said farmers and ranchers in all 82 counties of Mississippi cited lack of connectivity as a top concern, along with the growing need for telemedicine and distance learning. Moreover, McCormick said, “I’ve talked to some real estate guys, and they tell me five or 10 years ago they would never have someone ask if high-speed Internet is available on a property. Now almost everyone asks the question.”

The 2019 law enables ECAs to establish or allow a separate broadband provider to use their systems to provide service. They can invest or use loans to cover startup costs, but cannot dip into revenues from providing electricity service to subsidize broadband. The law does not require ECAs to offer broadband, and several have so far not opted to do so.

No state funds were allocated for the ECAs, but some federal dollars were already available through existing programs. Then COVID-19 hit, and with it came a cornucopia of federal dollars and programs (see Part III of this series).

Responses by the state’s cooperatives varied widely. The Pontotoc Electric Power Association in February 2020 voted to discontinue its fiber-to-the-home project based on projected costs of $43 to $48 million and a paltry $1.9 million in currently available grant money. But by June 2020 (just before the Legislature voted to pass federal dollars to ECAs) 15 electric cooperatives were already working on plans to build fiber to the home in their coverage areas. All 15 were subsequently awarded one-to-one matching grants.

An elated Presley admitted that the ECA response “exceeds my wildest expectations. We had hoped we would have a couple step out there and then have a snowball effect.”

Part III of this report will discuss the federal CARES Act and federal funding for broadband stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. Stay tuned.

***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE***

Contact: Hunter Estes, [email protected]

Breaking: Mississippi Center for Public Policy Launches Mississippi Technology Institute

(Jackson, MS): The Mississippi Center for Public Policy, a free market think tank, announced the launch of the “Mississippi Technology Institute” (MTI) as a new division of the Center.

The Institute will promote policies that foster technology and innovation within our state. It will produce rigorous research to help inform the public policy debate in Mississippi and advocate a reform program which will make our state a center of innovation and growth.

“I am so excited that the Mississippi Center for Public Policy is today launching the Mississippi Technology Institute to develop and promote the right polices for our state” explained Douglas Carswell. “Technology is fundamentally changing how the world does business, and removing obstacles to innovation is essential in order to produce prosperity”.

Matthew Nicaud will serve as the Tech Policy Specialist for the Institute. In this role he will continue leading the Tech Talks series in which he interviews public policy and community leaders about high profile technology and innovation issues. He will also coordinate research efforts to help drive forward discussion of important tech-related policies in Mississippi.

Matthew noted, “Technology affects almost every part of our lives. MTI is in a prime position to help inform the debate surrounding new issues. I am excited for what we will accomplish to protect liberty and promote prosperity.”

“I am delighted that Matthew will be heading up this initiative. He has a wealth of knowledge and is full of enthusiasm for better tech policy.”

“From rural broadband roll out to our proposal for a so-called ‘sandbox’ bill to facilitating permissionless innovation, we have plenty of policy proposals that we will be pushing. Our aim is to help ensure that Mississippi has one of the most tech and innovation friendly policy approaches in the US.”

The website for the Mississippi Technology Institute can be found here: https://mspolicy.org/mississippi-tech-institute/

MCPP’s President, Douglas Carswell, is available for comments or interviews. Please contact Hunter Estes ([email protected]) with all requests.

***END***

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Hunter Estes, [email protected]

Breaking: Senate Votes to Pass Fairness Act, Protect Female Sports

Senate Bill 2536 would require public school, university, and community college teams to be designated as either male, female or coed, as based on biological sex.

The bill is sponsored by state Sen. Angela Hill (R-Picayune) and has 21 cosponsors.

Polling of registered Mississippi voters shows that 79 percent support such legislation. The poll revealed that a state law to prohibit biological males from competing on female-only teams has broad support across political demographics: 87 percent of Republicans support the legislation, along with 83 percent of Independents and 65 percent of Democrats.

“Mississippians are breathing a sigh of relief now that Mississippi’s senators have voted overwhelmingly to protect the rights of girls and women who engage in competitive athletics,” stated MCPP Executive Vice President, Lesley Davis.

She continued, “Unlike what is happening in other states, our girls’ and women’s’ records will not be shattered by biological males competing against females. Women deserve to compete on a level playing field. Allowing males to compete in women’s sports destroys fair competition and women’s athletic opportunities.

“Mississippi owes a debt of gratitude to those in the Senate who stepped up and supported this legislation. We are especially grateful to Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann for his strong leadership and Senators Rita Potts Parks, John Polk, and Angela Hill. We also thank Speaker Philip Gunn, Rep. Becky Currie, Rep. Stacey Hobgood-Wilkes, and Rep. C. Scott Bounds for signaling their support in the House. Mississippi’s female athletes and future female athletes thank you.”

Three high school girls who run track in Connecticut filed a lawsuit last year challenging a policy of allowing male athletes to compete against girls. The three — Selina Soule, Alanna Smith, and Chelsea Mitchell — have been beaten consistently in track meets by a pair of transgender athletes born as males.

The lawsuit says the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference’s rules allowing transgender athletes to compete with girls poses a threat to Title IX because of physiological differences between men and women after puberty. Boys and men have more muscle mass and larger lungs and hearts and thus have the capacity to run faster and jump farther than most girls and women.

Title IX is a federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in educational institutions that receive federal funds. The law, passed in 1972, has led to a massive growth in the number of athletic opportunities for women. The NCCA currently allows member schools to set their own policies in this area, with the condition that a biological male competing on a women’s team must undergo at least one year of testosterone suppression. Several studies suggest, however, that even after a year of such treatment biological males enjoy a physical advantage over their biologically female peers.

MCPP’s Executive Vice President for Public Policy, Lesley Davis, is available for comments or interviews. Please contact Hunter Estes ([email protected]) with all requests.

***END***

Mississippi has more than 2,600 hair braiders registered to practice their art with the state. And these numbers are only growing. They have more than doubled in the past six years.

Our neighbors to the southwest, Louisiana, as of 2019 had only 19 people who held the permit that is required to braid in the Pelican State. This, despite the fact, that Louisiana has a larger number of African Americans and a larger African immigrant population than Mississippi.

Why is there such a discrepancy?

Louisiana requires hair braiders to receive an “alternative hair design” permit that includes at least 500 hours of classes. And only three schools in the entire state even offer curriculum for that license.

But in Mississippi, Gov. Haley Barbour signed a law that freed the state’s African hair braiders from the irrelevant and unnecessary requirements of the Board of Cosmetology in 2005. Prior to that, hair braiders who wanted to teach others, such as Melony Armstrong, had to spend upwards of 3,200 hours in the classroom to learn cosmetology instructions that didn’t relate to hair braiding.

After the Institute for Justice filed a lawsuit against the Board on behalf of Armstrong, along with Christina Griffin and Margaret Burden, two women who wished to learn hair braiding from Melony and become licensed, the Mississippi legislature responded by freeing hair braiders and exempting them from cosmetology regulations.

And as we have seen, an economic boom has occurred within this profession.

Now, hair braiders only have to pay a $25 registration fee and complete a “self-test” on infection control. And despite what proponents of licensing might offer, even with the repeal of most regulations, there were zero health and safety complaints filed against braiders in Mississippi between 2006 and 2012.

The story of Melony Armstrong has been told many times in the fight for economic liberty, both in Mississippi and throughout the country – deservingly so.

This isn’t much different than the lawsuit we filed in 2019 on behalf of Dipa Bhattarai, an eyebrow threader who is originally from Nepal, where threading is a way of life. Bhattarai was running two successful stores employing four people, while in college, until the state shut her down.

Mississippi law requires eyebrow threaders to take 600 hours of classroom instruction, even though they won’t learn anything about threading in class. Rather, they will just spend thousands of dollars while not being allowed to work.

The cases of Melony Armstrong and Dipa Bhattarai are classic examples of government overreach and licensing boards having the power to regulate – and limit – who can practice within their field.

But as we saw with hair braiders, we can eliminate needless licensing barriers, put people back to work, and help improve the economy for everyone.

The legislature has now taken up legislation that would allow for folks like Dipa and Melony to practice their trade without burdensome licensing barriers. Unfortunately, the bill also seeks to bar unlicensed hair braiders from working in salons, even though they've been doing so for years now without any major issues.

There's no reason to take one step forward and two steps back. Let's remove unnecessary obstacles to work and not further hinder those who are already successfully working.