The Mississippi Justice Institute filed an appellate brief in the Mississippi Supreme Court in a lawsuit brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center challenging the constitutionality of charter school funding in Mississippi.
The brief was filed on Friday, November 9.
MJI represents several parents of children who attend charter schools in Mississippi, and urged the Mississippi Supreme Court to affirm a trial court’s ruling that the funding for charter schools is constitutional.
The appeal is being handled by MJI Director, Aaron Rice, and MJI pro bono counsel, Michael B. Wallace, a shareholder in the law firm of Wise Carter Child & Caraway, P.A. MJI joined with the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office, MidTown Public Charter Schools, and the Mississippi Charter School Association in filing the joint brief.
The Mississippi Justice Institute is the legal arm of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy. It represents Mississippians whose state or federal Constitutional rights have been threatened by government actions.
The Mississippi Justice Institute is supported by voluntary, tax-deductible contributions. It receives no funds from government agencies for its operations. To learn more about MJI, visit www.msjustice.org.
For the past several years colleges and universities throughout the country have embarked on a mission to limit free speech, in the name of protecting the feelings of those who might not like to hear what someone else says.
Delta State University is one of those schools, but their speech codes go further than most.
For the most part, Delta State’s student regulations include commonsense rules and procedures for any university, such as a requirement that you pay your bills and punishment for destroying property. And there are some rules that likely aren’t followed (or enforced), such as the prohibition of alcoholic beverages on campus or at university sponsored events.
But far more problematic is policy number 27 which states that “words, behavior, and/or actions which inflict mental or emotional distress on others and/or disrupt the educational environment at Delta State University” could possibly “subject violators to appropriate disciplinary action, including suspension and expulsion.”
Essentially, you could be punished up to expulsion for words that inflict emotional distress on others. What is emotional distress? Obviously, different words could upset different people in different ways.
We saw students nationwide requiring days off and tests postponed after the triggering event of Donald Trump winning the presidency in 2016. So we know there are plenty of items that cause mental and emotional distress among our youth on college campuses. And in many instances, for illegitimate reasons (i.e., being unhappy about an election).
Delta State has long had trouble with free speech. They were one of just two schools in Mississippi to receive a speech code rating of red from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE.
Policy number 27 is likely unconstitutional, but more than that it is scary. Scary that a university would put such a policy in place that violates the free speech rights of one student and threatens to expel that student for doing nothing wrong at all. Just something that may have upset someone.
For more than a century, the American university system was considered the best in the world for providing a classical liberal undergraduate education. And for preparing their students to be successful in life. For the sake of our future generations, we must reclaim our universities from the insanity we see daily.
But for now, if you’re on campus at Delta State, use extreme caution with your words. One man’s free speech might be another man’s emotional trigger and the university wants to be the arbiter.
(While the link to the policies is no longer live, a cached version from November 5 can be found here.)
Jeffrey Vitter, the chancellor at Ole Miss, will resign effective in January.
Vitter has been chancellor since January 2016 and he still has two years remaining on his contract. It is likely that he stays on in some role at the university. But this is the second consecutive chancellor to have an abrupt exit from Oxford. In 2015, the Institutions for Higher Learning, which selects the leaders of the eight public universities in the state, chose not to extend the contract of then-Chancellor Dan Jones.
Jones was at Ole Miss for only four years. Prior to Jones, Robert Khayat served as chancellor for 14 years as the university experienced tremendous growth.
There have been numerous issues at Ole Miss recently ranging from football probation, and the marked decline in attendance and interest among fans and alumni, to declining enrollment to how the Ed Meek controversy, among other controversies, was handled.
IHL will be tasked with selecting the next leader for Ole Miss. All indications are that this will be a relatively long process with multiple factions supporting different people.
Only 29 percent of students who entered a public university in 2009 in Mississippi graduated within four years.
That is according to the most recent data from the Education Achievement Council Report Card, which was recently made available by the Institutes for Higher Learning. The national average, according to the United States Department of Education, is 40 percent for all four-year institutions and 35 percent for public institutions.
Fifty-two percent in Mississippi graduate within six years and 54 percent graduate within eight years. Nationally, 59 percent graduate (including data from both all institutions and public institutions only) within six years.
Ole Miss had the highest four-year graduation rate at 39 percent, though that is still less than two-in-five students. Thirty-one percent graduate within four years at Mississippi State. Mississippi Valley State had the lowest four-year graduation rate at just 10 percent.
Ole Miss (61 percent), Mississippi State (60 percent) and Southern Miss (50 percent) were the only three institutions to have more than half of the freshmen graduate within six years. Mississippi University for Women just missed that cut at 49 percent. Valley, once again, had the lowest six-year graduation rate at just 25 percent.
But Valley also had 47 percent of their new undergraduate students enrolled in one of more intermediate courses, with about a quarter enrolled in both math and reading courses during their first year.
In contrast, just seven percent of new undergraduate students at Mississippi State and eight percent at Ole Miss required such courses. The system average was 16 percent.
Higher education spending accounts for about 13 percent of the state budget. Broken down, the total state expenditure per full-time equivalent student topped $15,000 at half of the universities. The highest was Mississippi State at $15,975 followed by Ole Miss ($15,772), Southern Miss ($15,462), and Valley ($15,124). Delta State had the lowest mark at $12,520.
The report cards for each university can be found here.
Mississippi did not join most states in holding statewide elections on Tuesday. That will be next year when every statewide, legislative, and county office will be on the ballot.
But that doesn't mean we didn't have action in the Magnolia State.
Mississippi was in the unique position of holding two United States Senate elections, with the regularly scheduled election for the seat currently held by Sen. Roger Wicker and the special election following former Sen. Thad Cochran’s retirement earlier this year.
Wicker won going away, picking up 59 percent of the vote. In the special election, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, who was appointed by Gov. Phil Bryant, will be in a runoff with Mike Espy, a former Democratic Congressman and secretary in the Clinton administration.
Under Mississippi election law, special elections are essentially a jungle primary. There is no party identification, and everyone who qualifies is on the ballot. If no candidate receives a majority, as was the case on Tuesday, a runoff is held three week later. Hyde-Smith received 42 percent of the vote, Espy was at 41 percent, and Chris McDaniel, who almost defeated Cochran four years ago, was at 16 percent.
What McDaniel’s poor showing may mean will be a question that is being asked today, and will be discussed over the next year.
Essentially, the Republican vote was the same in both Senate races. It was just slightly split in the special election. If Hyde-Smith is successful, she will join a larger Republican majority in the Senate. Pending final counts in Arizona, Republicans may be up to a 54-46 majority in the Senate when all is said and done. This has one major political implication – judicial confirmations.
Conservatives will no longer have to hold their breath on Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski (or Jeff Flake). Perhaps now the many constitutional conservatives and federalist society members will have an opportunity to fill the vacancies and counter balance the President Obama era judges. And there will plenty of energy to use the new strength in the Senate to confirm President Trump’s judicial nominations.
What else might happen in Washington? That is to be determined with Democrats winning control of the House of Representatives. Their immediate priorities seem to be a furthering of “the resistance” with investigations and potential impeachment proceedings, but they will likely also attempt to push through a progressive agenda. Expect a lot of gridlock for at least the next two years, but for those of us who favor limited government that isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the world.
The divided government will likely be good for trade, which is a good thing for the market. Criminal justice reform should continue to receive attention. We expect to see more regulatory reform from the White House and his Cabinet, something that will benefit us all. We expect immigration and healthcare policy to continue to be lightning rods. However, we may also see bipartisan agreement on areas like infrastructure spending. Unfortunately, that probably portends an increasing debt load for the American people.
One thing we can predict with relative certainty – Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Donald Trump will be a great spectacle. While that may not be a great compliment to the current state of affairs in our Republic, it should make for very entertaining content for television… and Twitter is guaranteed to survive for at least a few more years.
After a great deal of debate and discussion over the past year, the new food truck regulations in Tupelo do not include the controversial, and potentially illegal, restrictions that some on the council had floated.
According to the Daily Journal, the final draft looks similar to the draft that was released last month. It did not include a blanket restriction on streets that food trucks could be located, nor did it have a provision requiring food trucks to be a certain distance from brick-and-mortar restaurants.
Protection for brick-and-mortar restaurants is what originally propelled this discussion.
Earlier this year, Councilman Willie Jennings said, in proposing the regulations, “I just want to make sure the established businesses are protected.” Another councilman, Markel Whittington, said brick-and-mortar restaurants have requested food truck regulations. While he didn’t feel food trucks posed a ‘threat’ to those restaurants, he believed it was appropriate for government to act ‘on behalf of select business interests.’
“I think we have to protect some of our taxpayers and high employers,” he said.
And after the first draft of the ordinance was released, Councilman Mike Bryan began to lobby for those brick-and-mortar restaurant protections, such as a ban on major roads. He continued that push until the end still calling for a Main Street parking ban.
“I feel like it is not fair to brick-and-mortar businesses to allow food trucks to park in front of their business,” Bryan said earlier.
But in the end, the controversial provisions were not included. And while there has been some support on the council, Mayor Jason Shelton has long opposed the protectionist measures.
When Tupelo leaders began discussing food truck regulations, Mississippi Justice Institute, the legal arm of Mississippi Center for Public Policy, sent a letter to the city warning of litigation if these regulations passed.
“The very regulation Tupelo is discussing—a regulation about how close a food truck should be to a restaurant—was found to be unenforceable just this past December in Baltimore. Food truck regulations around the country have been challenged over and over in court, from Louisville, to San Antonio, to Chicago, and many places in between. Cities ultimately realize that these kinds of cases are very hard to defend,” the letter said.
Having the food truck option is good for consumers and it is good for the economic interests of a city, whether that is Tupelo or any other city in Mississippi. A glance of the growing cities throughout America shows a thriving food truck market. Food trucks or brick-and-mortar restaurants is not an “either-or” proposition. They can both survive next to each other, and competition will only make each better.
And more choice for consumers is always a good thing. Because it will be the consumers who decide if food trucks are a benefit for Tupelo, not government regulators.
Economic development, incentives via the government, and economic growth, based on free market principles, should not be confused.
Well-meaning public officials, government employees, community business owners and executives, and chamber of commerce cheerleaders have the best of intentions when they propose ideas for economic development. I believe they are genuinely trying to help. I just wish they would stop. When we confuse economic development with economic growth, we make big mistakes in public finance. These two concepts may sound similar but they are, in fact, opposites. An emphasis on one or the other leads to different results.
Those of us interested in seeing economic growth advocate for broad public policies like lower taxes, a reduction of the regulatory burden on businesses, the elimination of double taxation on investments and savings, and a reliable and predictable legal and regulatory environment. In stark contrast, proponents of economic development argue for subsidies, tax abatements, and regulatory relief for specific businesses or industry types in particular regions. The latter believe the economy can be directed by government involvement; the former believe the economy will produce a better outcome when we leave it to the entrepreneurs and consumers to determine the direction.
For those of us with a belief in the durable power of free-markets, the choice is easy. We know, thanks to Adam Smith and 242 years of data, wealth is created by the free exchange between producers and consumers. If we leave markets free and allow the natural incentive of profit-seeking to work, without government trying to influence, direct, guide, orchestrate, manage or nudge, the states maximize their economic growth. Such growth is what drives long-term employment and increased prosperity. When we replace the decisions of entrepreneurs, investors, and consumers in the private market with decisions of politicians, government officials and development boards, we significantly lower the odds of achieving economic growth.
Economic development policy really means the state picking the winners and losers by employing direct subsidies and tax breaks to attract or promote specific businesses or industries. An authentic effort to grow our economy would not focus on giving targeted companies the assistance and resources without providing those to all companies and industries. It is not fair to the current companies in Mississippi, who built their businesses without government help, to find themselves competing with companies subsidized by taxpayers. For too long, Mississippi has followed a policy that supposes “economic development” can be a meaningful driver of economic well-being in the state. It cannot. That policy is a losing one.
The evidence produced from analysis points convincingly to the conclusion that these targeted incentives do not produce long-term benefits in excess of their costs. In many cases, the cost-per-job is extraordinarily high. While some high-profile companies and their political allies may be better off, non-beneficiary companies may lose workers or experience wage increases, or both, and the state’s economic activity as a whole slows.
When political favor seeking is emphasized like this, it thwarts the private sector and tips the scales in favor of those companies and individuals with access to political relationships. It sends a message to the private sector that it should not focus on consumer-oriented actions, like product/service innovation or marketing, and focus resources instead on lobbying, legal representation, and elections. That’s not a recipe for sustained economic growth.
While economic development incentives, like those practiced by the Mississippi Development Authority, may lead to the creation of new jobs; that does not mean such jobs lead to the creation of economic growth. Measuring jobs alone is an insufficient way to measure economic growth. For example, roughly 90% of the Canton-based Nissan plant employees were already employed when that Madison County facility opened. Those new employees were already paying state income taxes. Yet, every job created by the state and local government incentive package was subsidized. In total, roughly $1.3 billion was promised to Nissan. According to data analyzed by Mississippi State University’s Institute for Market Studies, Nissan pays its 6,400 workers at the plant an average of $62,500, which costs taxpayers $203,125 per worker. Had that taxpayer subsidy not occurred and the dollars remained in the private sector, would individuals and businesses have found a better “investment” use? Decades of economic research and free market evidence informs us that private citizens and firms are more effective at allocating resources to their highest uses than is government.
The chief argument around government incentives is that “everyone else is doing it, so we must join the process in order to remain competitive.” That’s the wrong approach. The desire to provide incentives is an acknowledgment that our tax, regulatory, and legal system is not competitive. It says our state has not adopted freedom-based policies. Instead of offering incentives to just a few, our goal should be to create the most business-friendly climate in the country. A public policy based on freedom is how we’ll grow our economy.
Rather than increase the hand of government in our economy, we should trust the “invisible hand” of the market place and the proven incentive of profit and loss for the allocation of resources. It is either folly or hubris to think government can have the knowledge to do that more efficiently than the market. Nobel Prize-winning economist F.A. Hayek once wrote, “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”
This column appeared in the Clarion Ledger on November 2, 2018.
Popular homesharing site Airbnb announced that they recently remitted $1 million in taxes to the state of Mississippi.
Since September 2017, Airbnb has been automatically collecting the 7 percent state sales tax and local tourism taxes on behalf of hosts and remitting the revenue directly to the state. At the time of the announcement, Airbnb anticipated collecting $245,000 during the past year.
Airbnb was able to quadruple expectations due to a 92 percent year-over-year growth for the platform in Mississippi. Over 69,000 guests utilized the service in the state during that time.
The fact that Airbnb collected and paid $1 million in taxes last year should be considered a good thing. The fact that consumers now have more choices if they want an option besides a traditional hotel is a good thing. And the fact that new competition has been inserted into the lodging industry is a good thing.
Of course, the industry that once enjoyed this monopoly doesn’t see things that way.
Linda Hornsby, executive director of the Mississippi Hotel and Lodging Association, calls it a “definite concern as it (homesharing) continues to grow.” She added, “We are monitoring the negative economic impact of that not just here in Mississippi...As it continues to grow, it exacerbates the problem.”
The so-called negative impact may be to one specific industry, but it is not to the guests who are gladly choosing this option. And it is certainly not a negative to the hosts who are earning a new income stream.
It is understandable that a group or organization that spent decades pursuing regulations to limit competition would be upset when new innovations threaten their monopoly. But the answer isn’t to impose outdated regulations on the new economy, but to deregulate existing industries.
And for government to rely on the free market and trust their citizens to be able to make the best decisions for themselves.
Few people would argue with the beauty of a California sunset. The bright lights of Times Square are tough to compete with. But there is one thing that can top the allure of California or Manhattan: your pocketbook.
While many on the left may argue that a certain class of Americans enjoy the high-tax, high-regulation burdens of our most liberal cities and states, and the perceived protections that go with it, the numbers paint a different picture.
Americans are moving to lower tax states where they are able to keep more of the money they earn. This isn’t a talking point, but a statistical reality based on migration data. Unfortunately, Mississippi is on the wrong side of both taxes and, as a result, in-migration.
Sales, property, and individual income taxes, as a percentage of personal income in Mississippi, are 9.9 percent, according to Cato Institute. That’s pretty high. In fact, only 14 states, including traditional high tax states like California, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York, fared worse. All neighboring states had lower tax burdens than Mississippi. What effect does this have?
Mississippi had a net migration loss of over 3,500 in 2016. On a per capita basis, this means Mississippi lost 100 residents for every 88 the state gained. This is parallel with migration loses in Louisiana. Alabama and Arkansas were essentially flat in terms of migration while Tennessee added over 13,000 residents. For every 100 residents that Tennessee lost, they added 119.
Tennessee, a state without an individual income tax, is home to one of the lowest tax rates in the country with a tax burden of 6.5 percent. And they are reaping the benefits of smart fiscal policy. The Wall Street Journal reported in May: “Alliance-Bernstein Holding LP plans to relocate its headquarters, chief executive and most of its New York staff to Nashville, Tenn., in an attempt to cut costs…In a memo to employees, Alliance-Bernstein cited lower state, city and property taxes compared with the New York metropolitan area among the reasons for the relocation. Nashville’s affordable cost of living, shorter commutes and ability to draw talent were other factors.”
Twenty-six states had a tax burden of 8.5 percent or greater. Of those 26, 25 had a net out-migration. Only Maine was able to buck the trend. And not surprisingly, of the 17 states that had net migration gains in 2016, all but one has a tax burden of less than 8.5 percent. All totaled, more than 500,000 individuals moved from the top 25 highest-tax states to the 25 lowest-tax states in 2016. Those high tax states lost an aggregate income of $33 billion.
Along with the relatively high individual tax burden, our business tax climate sits at 31st best, according to the Tax Foundation. Not terrible, and actually better than Alabama, Arkansas, and Louisiana, but not great either. The same report had Tennessee at 16.
So what can we do in Mississippi? We can follow the lead of high-growth, low-tax states in the Southeast that have lower taxes, lighter licensure and regulatory burdens, and a smaller government.
This past session, the legislature debated a bill known as the “Brain Drain” Tax Credit. It would have provided a three-year income-tax exemption to recent college graduates who are Mississippi residents. And there was an additional two-year exemption for those who start a business. It passed the House unanimously but died in the Senate without a vote.
States are in competition with one another. We know this because we routinely offer incentives for select companies in the form of subsidies or tax breaks, or we propose eliminating the individual income tax for three to five years for recent college graduates.
While we are always in favor of lower taxes, these moves are just an acknowledgement that our tax burden hurts individual opportunity and the state’s economic growth. We have succeeded in phasing out the lowest income tax bracket. Instead of eliminating the income tax for just a few, we should work on eliminating the income tax for all taxpayers. And instead of offering incentives to just a few, our goal should be to create the most business-friendly climate in the country – for all types, sizes, and industries.
A public policy based on freedom is the recipe high-growth states have adopted. It’s how we’ll grow our economy in Mississippi, too.
This column appeared in the Daily Leader on October 31, 2018.