Mississippi Center for Public Policy wins Two Awards at State Policy Network Annual Meeting

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."