Dipa Bhattarai was an entrepreneur just trying to pursue the American dream. Then the state shut her down.

Bhattarai grew up in Nepal, where threading is a way of life, and learned how to thread at a young age from her family. She came to Mississippi after receiving a scholarship to attend Mississippi University for Women, where she saw an opening in the market for eyebrow threading. 

”My friends loved it when I threaded their eyebrows for them, and kept telling me I should open a business,” said Bhattarai, who is now a graduate student at the University of Mississippi. “I knew it was a great opportunity to bring together my passion for threading and my dream of owning a business.”  

It was. Before long, Bhattarai had her own stores in Columbus and Starkville.

Until the state shut her down.

As a new school year approaches for children, some 15,000-20,000 Mississippians won’t be settling into a traditional public or private school classroom.

Rather, they will be classified as homeschoolers, though that definition ranges from those who are part of co-ops to those who take classes online to those who follow standard curriculum at home to those who take a more unschooled approach. Or maybe it’s a little of all that and more. 

While the numbers are just estimates without a formal registration process, we have seen homeschooling jump quite significantly – both in Mississippi and nationwide. According to federal data, the number of homeschoolers more than doubled over the first decade over the 21st century.

And there is no reason to believe those numbers are doing anything but growing.  

After all, it’s easier than ever to homeschool, and to be as engaged (or not) as you would like. Thanks to the power of the Internet, and social media in general, a group of moms (or dads) can easily organize a trip, whether it’s to a museum, zoo, water park, etc., as a group without any formal organization. It’s easier than ever to meet with other homeschool families, to share ideas, or to exchange books and curriculum. Or to just get encouragement from local families.

Reasons families give for homeschooling

Source: National Center for Education Statistics

And Mississippi makes it easy to homeschool, as they should. Families just have to file an annual certificate of enrollment with your local attendance officer by September 15. Beyond that, there are no regulations concerning curriculum or testing, nor do you need to provide any additional information to the local school district. 

Still, that hasn’t stopped school districts in Mississippi from trying. 

Last year, Greenville Public School District Deputy Superintendent Glenn Dedeaux said the district is “legally responsible to ensure every child of educating age receives an adequate education” and he warned that not all homeschool curricula “are approved by the Mississippi Department of Education to meet the necessary standards.” Dedeaux also implied that homeschoolers must take subject matter tests to graduate. Not true. 

We also have the story of a Mississippi mom who was arrested on truancy charges. Her child had previously been enrolled in public school, but she chose to homeschool him because of health reasons. She decided to begin homeschooling the following year, but was arrested before the September 15 deadline to file her notice to homeschool. 

And school districts in general have taken it upon themselves to require more than a notice to homeschool at time. The Natchez-Adams School District tried to demand homeschoolers provide receipts for curriculum purchases. They likely aren’t the only district who has asked for information parents aren’t required to provide.

Our guess is as homeschooling continues to grow in popularity, we will continue to see school districts overstep their authority. And the state might be interested in enacting new regulations as well. 

We can hope they won’t. 

In this edition of Unlicensed, the MCPP team talks about how we can improve the state's economy.

We have heard a lot of talk in political circles about an Amazon report that many believed showed Mississippi as being the fastest growing state for small and mid-sized business. It sounds great, but this has been grossly exaggerated.

While we are making some gains in business climate rankings, we continue to lag behind our neighbors in the Southeast and most of our competitors in the nation in many categories. There is some encouraging news, but we should not deceive ourselves about the work we have left to do. What does that work look like?

Government regulators have found their newest target: dogs. Specifically, restaurants that allow dogs on their premise, usually on a courtyard, patio, or some other outdoor area.

After the Clarion Ledger ran a story on pet-friendly restaurants in the Jackson metro area, the Mississippi Department of Health fired back saying that is illegal. And that Mississippi code prohibits pets in restaurants, even outdoor areas.

MDH cites the Food and Drug Administration's Food Code model, which is housed in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, for the prohibition. That model recommends prohibiting animals in food service establishments, save for service dogs. 

The state doesn't have to follow the FDA model. Indeed, many states have already legalized dogs in restaurants. 

While it may be somewhat tricky to find a formal statistic, there are at least 12 states that explicitly allow dogs to join their owners in restaurants, according to the Animal Legal & Historical Center at Michigan State University. This started with Florida in 2006, and now includes California, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Tennessee.

These laws generally do two things. They often allow local governments to enact ordinances if they would like and they allow restaurants to choose whether they would like to welcome dogs on their property. 

And with that, consumers can choose to bring their dog to a pet-friendly establishment, just as those who don’t like dogs can opt to go somewhere else. And the owner of the restaurant can decide what is better for his or her business. 

What path a restaurant chooses isn’t as important as the restaurant having the ability to choose. But prohibiting dogs in restaurants are just one of the more than 117,000 restrictions in the state’s regulatory code.  

The biggest regulator in the state? As you would imagine, the same Department of Health that is going after dogs in restaurants. 

And why does this matter?

Regulatory growth has a detrimental effect on economic growth. We now have a history of empirical data on the relationship between regulations and economic growth. A 2013 study in the Journal of Economic Growth estimates that federal regulations have slowed the U.S. growth rate by 2 percentage points a year, going back to 1949. A recent study by the Mercatus Center estimates that federal regulations have slowed growth by 0.8 percent since 1980. If we had imposed a cap on regulations in 1980, the economy would be $4 trillion larger, or about $13,000 per person. Real numbers, and real money, indeed. 

On the international side, researchers at the World Bank have estimated that countries with a lighter regulatory touch grow 2.3 percentage points faster than countries with the most burdensome regulations. And yet another study, this published by the Quarterly Journal of Economics, found that heavy regulation leads to more corruption, larger unofficial economies, and less competition, with no improvement in public or private goods. 

A prescription for lowering the regulatory burden on a state is the one-in-two-out rule, or a regulatory cap. In 2017, one of President Donald Trump’s first executive orders was to require at least two prior regulations to be identified for elimination for every new regulation issued. This is badly needed. We have gone from 400,000 federal regulations in 1970 to over 1.1 million today. 

Many years ago, British Columbia took on a similar mission. And in less than two decades, their regulatory requirements have decreased by 48 percent. The result has been an economic revival for the Canadian province. 

Whether it’s a sunset provision, where regulations expire and must be reauthorized after a period of time, or one-in-two-out policy, Mississippi should move in the direction toward a smaller regulatory state with more freedom. And if a regulation is truly important to our well-being, let the regulators prove why.

A decision by the state to allow dogs in restaurants won’t change the trajectory of the state’s economy, for better or worse. But a deep dive into the unnecessary and outdated regulations of each agency can go a very long way toward removing unnecessary barriers and inhibitors. 

One of the most important goals we have for Mississippi is to get our small and mid-sized businesses growing more rapidly.

We want to see a day in the not too distant future when our state’s economy is driven more by private sector actions than by the public sector ones. That will require a lot of changes, including reducing the heavy role governments, and government officials and politicians, play in our economy. It will require less restrictions, fewer regulations, a reduction in licensing regimes, the elimination of protectionism, a commitment to robust competition, and a devaluing of the favor-seeking component of business in the Magnolia State.

The hallmark of a strong and durable economy is a high level of competition, a high number of start-ups, and acknowledgement that pursuing customer delight is more valuable than pursuing legislative support.

An integral part of the motivation to change any person, policy, or action is first to recognize a problem exists in the first place. That requires honesty. It also requires humility. Only after the recognition can we actually commit to making the changes required. Once we make the commitment, then all that remains is the courage to change. Mississippi has no shortage of courage, so I’m very confident in the ability of the free market and capitalism to help us drive small and mid-sized business growth.

Nothing can produce long-term economic growth like a commitment to unfettered capitalism – the kind that has produced thousands of examples of unplanned, unpredicted, and unprecedented private sector success. 

However, we are not always honest about our current situation. Too often our elected officials and government employees expend much effort claiming success, cheerleading isolated reports, and denying systemic problems.

A ribbon-cutting or a groundbreaking announcement doesn’t indicate success, unless you work in the Department of Economic Development, it indicates a partnership whereby government has agreed to invest a portion of taxpayer money to a particular company in a particular industry. I’m happy when we convince companies to move to Mississippi or to build a facility here, but I’d rather see us celebrating the unprecedented growth of companies that were born here and managed to grow here without asking the taxpayers for assistance. We can do both, and we should do more of the latter.

A good example of our leaders’ penchant for hyperbolic celebration of economic news is the creative way an Amazon-produced, small business report has been turned into something it is not. If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a thousand times from politicians, business leaders, and media members, “Amazon, the world’s largest company, just ranked Mississippi as the fastest growing state for small and mid-sized business.” That is simply not true.

What Amazon actually did was produce a report focused on its own small and mid-sized business partners in the U.S. (SMBs) that sell products directly through Amazon’s stores. Of the SMBs selling within Amazon’s digital platform, Mississippi was ranked first of the 10 fastest growing states.

While that is certainly good news, it has been grossly exaggerated and used to suggest Mississippi is one of the fastest growing states for small and mid-sized businesses. The data does not support such a statement. 

While we are making some gains in business climate rankings, we continue to lag behind our neighbors in the Southeast and most of our competitors in the nation in many categories. There is some encouraging news but we should not deceive ourselves about the work we have left to do.

Here is a sampling of the most recent business-related rankings.

From a public policy standpoint, I could make a very strong case, as did Milton Friedman and William F. Buckley, that our decades-long war on drugs has been a failure.

No different than our previous government prohibitions, major criminal enterprises are the big winners. In essence, our government drives up illegal drug values by interfering with the market in the name of protecting people from their own choices. The benefactors are often the largest cartels who benefit from the lack of competition that results from our actions. Prohibitions on legal alcohol sales, for example, did not reduce the supply of alcohol. It was just as readily available in times of prohibition.

The difference was that bootleggers and speakeasies, essentially criminal entrepreneurs, did the supplying and U.S. consumers were made into criminals by seeking a drink. The same economic law applies to drugs.

I am not, however, trying to make the case for the legalization of recreational marijuana. Instead, I am using the prohibition example to demonstrate the absurdity of opposing the legalization of medical marijuana.

The gubernatorial debate on Tuesday night revealed the unanimous policy viewpoints of the three Republican candidates. To my surprise, each candidate clearly opposed the legalization of medical marijuana. They did so for various reasons, none of which I thought were compelling. For candidates who should be in favor of limited government, liberty, and personal responsibility, the responses were perplexing.

One opposing argument was essentially that Mississippi has no right to make legal the use of medical marijuana and must defer to the federal government on the classification of drugs. In fact, the federal government has no legal authority to prevent states from changing their laws to remove state-level penalties for medical marijuana use and we have at least 34 examples of this.

There was, of course, the claim that using medical marijuana will be a “gateway” to other drugs. Medical marijuana is not the same as recreational marijuana and trying to conflate the two is an insult to the citizens of Mississippi and comes at the expense of patients who should be free to choose a legal option to opiate-based painkillers, with the guidance of their doctor.

Rather than trying to turn this issue into a “law and order” one and attempting to convince us that patients suffering from debilitating illnesses and the doctors caring for them are either criminals or fledgling addicts, our politicians should focus on removing this unnecessary barrier and letting people make choices about their own health care.

The gubernatorial responses also indicated a lack of knowledge about how their fellow Americans and Mississippians feel about the issue. Recent polling demonstrates that citizens are ahead of politicians and legislators across the county on this issue, with anywhere from as low as 65% to as high as 94% of Americans supporting the legalization of medical marijuana. In Mississippi, 77% of voters support it, including 75% of Republicans. It spans all ages, races, and party affiliations. It even includes 69% of frequent churchgoers. 

A vast majority of Americans recognize the legitimate medical benefits of marijuana, as well as a large number of medical organizations. It is less harmful and poses fewer negative side effects than most prescription drugs – especially opiate-based painkillers – and patients often find it to be a more effective treatment.

Licensed medical doctors, already heavily regulated by the state, should be allowed to prescribe solutions to deal with debilitating medical conditions, no matter the derivative of such solutions. If marijuana can provide relief to those suffering from terrible illnesses like cancer and HIV/AIDS, it is unconscionable to prevent it, much less to criminalize patients for using it. People who would benefit from medical marijuana should have right to use it legally. As I outlined in the opening paragraph, legal prohibitions on commonly accepted behavior has never produced positive results. It is simply bad public policy.

Government is already regulating the health care industry at an unprecedented level. The federal government has grown into an unwieldy and unresponsive beast – increasing its paternalism over us all.

I believe Mississippi should join the other states who value federalism and respect the rights of patients and licensed doctors to decide what is best. Based on the progress thus far, I think it is highly likely the 2020 referendum on medical marijuana will pass.

For liberty-minded conservatives, this is an easy decision. It should have been the same for the gubernatorial candidates.

At Tuesday’s Republican gubernatorial debate, all three Republican candidates for the top office in the state said they oppose the medical marijuana initiative that is ongoing and may be in front of voters in a little over a year. 

For various reasons ranging from federal prohibitions to the belief that this is a gateway, Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, former Supreme Court Justice Bill Waller, Jr., and state Rep. Robert Foster all agreed they were opposed to the initiative.

Waller referenced his time on the court saying, “The last thing we need is another substance that could provide issues.” 

He added, “Even in medical use, reports show an increased aggressiveness with the use of it as a gate to other drugs. I am not interested in introducing another drug unless it can be shown there is a void that couldn’t be filled in any other way.” 

Reeves is also a no. 

“The reason I am is because I have three daughters and see this as a potential gateway drug,” Reeves remarked. “In many areas of our society, drugs are killing people, drugs are ruining people’s lives. They lead to a life of criminal activity. I will personally vote no.” 

Foster said he couldn’t support it at this time “because it has not been unscheduled by the federal government.” 

While that is true, the U.S. Congress passed a law five years ago that prohibits federal agents from raiding medical marijuana growers in states where medical marijuana is legal, effectively allowing states to legalize medical marijuana as they have done since 1996. 

“I don’t want what they have in California and Colorado where they have pot shops on every street corner. If the federal government were to allow it to be sold through pharmacies after a doctor has written a prescription for certain things, then that would be a totally different scenario.”

Medical marijuana is now legal in 33 states and Washington, D.C. And much of the movement has been in the past decade. Just eight states legalized medical marijuana by 2000. But 21 states have acted since 2010. The most recent states to legalize medical marijuana were Missouri, Oklahoma, and Utah, each doing so last fall. 

To make Mississippi the 34th state, proponents of a ballot initiative, Medical Marijuana 2020, are hoping to collect enough signatures to have the question on the ballot in November, 2020.

The petition faces a September 6 deadline to submit 86,000 signatures to the Secretary of State. Jamie Grantham, a spokesman for the campaign, said they have collected more than two-thirds of the necessary signatures.  

Mississippi has seen a drop in government jobs over the past two months and the government workforce in the state is now smaller than it was one year ago.

In June 2018, Mississippi had 241,200 government employees according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and that number had increased to 242,100 this past April. But after declines the past two months, preliminary numbers show Mississippi has 240,400 government employees as of June 2019. This includes federal, state, and local government employees. 

Government jobs in Mississippi, June 2018 through June 2019

At the same time of the loss in government jobs, the private sector has grown. Employment rolls grew by 2,500 in May and another 2,000 in June. Mississippi employers have added 14,000 jobs over the past year. Payrolls in Mississippi now sit at 1,168,100. 

When looking just at the state workforce, this continues a trend over the past 15 years even though numbers may fluctuate month-over-month.

According to a 2018 report from the Office of the State Auditor, the number of state government employees has decreased by more than 5,200 dating back to 2004, largely through attrition and voluntary separations. The bulk of the reduction, about 4,500 employees, occurred in the past seven years.

Even with the declines, approximately 56 percent of Mississippi’s economy is controlled by the public sector, putting its reliance on government fourth worse in the nation. To continue to generate sustainable, long-term growth, we need to continue to grow the private sector through lower taxes and a lighter regulatory burden.  

Few things could be better on a hot Mississippi summer day than a refreshing glass of ice, cold lemonade. And, if you’re lucky, you might just find a smiling face selling lemonade during your travels. 

Lemonade stands are one of the great American traditions. For generations, boys and girls turn into aspiring entrepreneurs making and selling lemonade. The young children are able to earn money, whether it’s for a special toy they have been wanting or to save for a future purchase.   

Without even realizing it, the children simultaneously learn valuable lessons. They learn that money comes from work. That you have to plan, and then produce a stand, signs, and lemonade. Introducing kids to the valuable concepts of marketing, costs, customer service, and profit motive.

That’s why the lemonade stand has always been celebrated in our society.

But lemonade stand entrepreneurs began to meet a force that strikes fear in the hearts of even the most seasoned professionals: the government regulator.

By now, you have probably heard the stories, but they bear repeating because of the sheer lunacy of feeling the need to shut down a lemonade stand operated by kids. And because these stories highlight the over criminalization of our society - thanks to laws we have adopted to fix every supposed issue or problem.

In Colorado, three young boys, ages two to six, had their lemonade stand shut down by Denver police for operating without a proper permit. The boys were selling lemonade in hopes of raising money for Compassion International, an international child-advocacy ministry. But local vendors at a nearby festival didn’t like the competition and called the police to complain. When word of this interaction made news, the local Chick-Fil-A stepped up as you would expect from Chick-Fil-A. They allowed the boys to sell lemonade inside their restaurant, plus they donated 10 percent of their own lemonade profits that day to Compassion International.

In Texas, two sisters, seven and eight years-old, had their lemonade stand shut down by the local police, also for lacking the proper permit. The city, kindly, for lack of a better word, agreed to waive the $150 “Peddler’s Permit,” but the young girls would still need an inspection from the health department before they could proceed. The girls were hoping to raise money so they could go to a local water park with their dad, who is often away from home because he works in the oil field, for Father’s Day. The water park and a local radio station donated tickets after hearing the story. 

Since these stories, and others like it, we have seen a shift away from the ludicrous. The lemonade stands are fighting back. Common sense seems to have prevailed. 

Texas and Colorado have now become two of the first three states to legalize lemonade stands for children. Utah became the first state to pass such a law in 2017. These laws, which have passed with overwhelming, bi-partisan support, allow minors to run “occasional” businesses, such as a lemonade stand, without needing a permit. 

If you run into a regulator in a state that doesn’t enjoy such lemonade friendly laws, Country Time Lemonade has launched “Legal-Aide.” For those who receive a fine for operating an unlicensed stand, they will cover your fine up to $300. They also have a handy website that will help you contact lawmakers and get engaged in the fight to legalize lemonade stands in all 50 states.  

At the same time, Lemonade Day is national program that has grown considerably in the past several years. Participating cities, including Jackson and cities in the Golden Triangle, give children in the area the opportunity to run a business during a community-wide Lemonade Day. 

What these stories have shown is that when the government has overreacted, the private sector has stepped up and provided opportunities for children. 

Hopefully, these stories raise more than a few eyebrows. Perhaps they will cause people to recognize the downside of our regulatory burden and maybe even cause legislators to review more than a few of the laws, rules, and licensing regimes that are stifling growth, innovation, and capitalism.

If we want a thriving and growing economy, we’ve got to have more entrepreneurs – including those future ones who sell lemonade in their neighborhoods today.