The 2020 Mississippi legislative session gavels in Tuesday at noon to begin the 125-day session that follows an election year. But most anticipate the session won’t last the full length, which would put Sine Die on May 10. 

After the elections, Speaker Philip Gunn (R-Clinton) was chosen by the Republican caucus to continue serving as speaker. He will begin his third session in that role this year. Rep. Jason White (R-West), a top lieutenant of Gunn’s who served as chairman of Rules last term, has been tapped by the caucus to serve as speaker pro tempore, the number two position in the House.

Though a formality, they will need to be voted on by the full body. 

White replaces Rep. Greg Snowden (R-Meridian), the previous pro temp, who lost in the Republican primary last summer. 

The Senate will see more changes, starting at the top. Sec. of State Delbert Hosemann was elected lieutenant governor in the fall and he will soon occupy the office Gov.-elect Tate Reeves held for the previous eight years. 

And Sen. Dean Kirby (R-Pearl), who has been in the senate for nearly three decades, has been tapped to serve as the president pro tempore of the Senate. Kirby is replacing Sen. Gray Tollison (R-Oxford), who decided not to run for re-election. 

Because of the extended session, the legislative calendar is pretty empty for the first two months. The deadline for introducing general bills is not until February 24, with a March 10 deadline for committees to report on bills. But dates can be moved up. 

There will be some new faces in Jackson, but Republicans will continue to enjoy large majorities in each chamber, with one race too be determined. Rep. Ashley Henley (R-Southaven) has filed an elections challenge in House District 40. She was defeated by Democrat Hester Jackson McCray by 13 votes, as of the last count. It will now be up to the House to determine the fate of that seat. 

Along with the election challenge in the House, the next big move will be the appointments of committees by Gunn and Hosemann. 

In this episode of Unlicensed, MCPP's Jon Pritchett sat down with National Review Institute scholar Andy McCarthy to talk about his book Ball of Collusion, impeachment, the Deep State, and more.

Mississippi suffered its fourth population decline over the past five years in 2019.    

According to new estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, the state’s population declined by 4,871, the sixth highest total in the country. Mississippi and neighboring Louisiana, which saw a decrease of 10,896 residents, are the only states in the south to lose population over the past year. This is a continuing trend.

But what’s happening in Mississippi is an outlier in the South, save for the Pelican State. 

A look at the map of domestic migration, which measures where Americans are moving over the past year, shows a picture of the haves and the have-nots when it comes to population growth. 

Large swaths of the Northeast and Midwest show a declining population, while the interior west, west coast (save for California), and the Southeast saw population gains. Substantial gains in some states. 

Domestic migration growth rate in 2019

Mississippi had a negative domestic migration rate of 3.6, meaning for every 100 residents that moved to Mississippi last year, 103.6 left, according to analysis of Census numbers from the Illinois Policy Institute. Louisiana had a negative rate of 5.5. Every other southern state, south of Virginia, had positive numbers. Some smaller like 0.8 in Arkansas, some larger like 10.3 in South Carolina. 

So people aren’t leaving the South, or running for liberal policy (see California, Illinois, and New York), they are just leaving Mississippi. 

Mississippi over the past decade

While Mississippi’s population grew by about 20,000 during the first four years of this decade, there has been a sharp reversal dating back to 2015, save for a small positive uptick in 2017. The declines have been particularly noticeable over the past two years, losing more than 3,000 residents in 2018 and nearly 5,000 last year. 

Mississippi’s population growth over the past decade was only 45th best. Even Louisiana, who has been on the negative side of things recently, had growth of about 2.5 percent last decade (compared to being slightly above zero in Mississippi). 

Tennessee had the 17th highest growth in the country, while Alabama and Arkansas were middle of the pack. 

Reversing the trend

We can look at Mississippi and say things like, “we don’t have any cool large cities today that people want to move to.” But honestly, were Salt Lake City or Raleigh or Nashville that cool 30 years ago? They certainly looked and performed much differently than they do today. 

People moved to those places because of opportunity. And there are policies the state can adopt that would put Mississippi ahead of the curve when it comes to national policy and positioning the state to be competitive nationwide.

For starters, Mississippi needs to move away from a desire to overregulate commerce and embolden government bureaucrats. Mississippi has more than 117,000 regulations that cut across every sector of the economy. A successful model to stem this growing tide would be a one-in, two-out policy where for every new regulation that is adopted, two have to be removed. If a regulatory policy is so important, let’s make the government prove it. 

The Trump administration adopted a similar executive order in 2017, and the numbers show we are actually seeing decreases greater than two-to-one, and these are not insignificant regulatory reductions. 

This could be particularly beneficial in healthcare and tech policy. No department regulates more than the Department of Health, but our goal should be a push toward free market healthcare reforms that encourage choice and competition. In tech policy, the state has the opportunity to be one of the first states to essentially open the door for innovation, rather than one where entrepreneurs need to seek permission from the state. If Mississippi wants to get in the technology world, and we are convinced this is essential, a permissionless innovation policy in healthcare would be a big step in the right direction. In his recent article in the Mississippi Business Journal, Auditor Shad White pointed out the opportunity to focus on creating high margin businesses and jobs with a focus on healthcare tech innovation.

We should also not require people to receive permission from the state to work when they do move here. Open the door to productive citizens by allowing for universal recognition of licensing, following the path paved by Arizona. If you have been licensed in one state, that license should be good in Mississippi. Again, we could be ahead of the curve. 

At the same time, our occupational licensing regime should be reviewed. Today, 19 percent of Mississippians need a license to work. It was 5 percent in the 1950s. While there are some occupations where a license is obviously prudent, we’ve expanded into far too many occupations. 

This serves to lower competition and increase costs for consumers, while not providing those consumers with a better product. Occupational licensing is an example of how Mississippi misses the opportunity to grow her economy by acting in defensive ways to protect the slices of our economic pie for the well-connected when the reality is we could create a much bigger economic pie if we encouraged more creative disruption, competition, and risk-taking. 

If Mississippi is to grow its economy, it will require not only keeping our best and brightest but also attracting others to come to the Magnolia State. Places like Tennessee, Georgia, and the Carolinas did not lose their Southern identities by encouraging newcomers. The economic engines in those states grow because of the quality of the entrepreneurs, capitalists, scientists, and productive people. Not that long ago, Charlotte and Meridian were exactly the same size. Economies are dynamic and once they get momentum, amazing things can happen. There is also the probability that a growing economy will have a “boomerang effect” – bringing back people born and educated here who left to pursue greater opportunities.

There’s no rule that Mississippi has to lose population. Alabama, with whom we share much in common, had a domestic migration growth of 1.9 last year. States like Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida may have done better, but we are not automatically immune to the success of our neighbors.  

Finally, Mississippi needs to shed its abundant reliance on government and the public sector. Whether for public assistance, grants, contracts, jobs, or specific tax breaks, the citizens and companies in Mississippi are too dependent on state government. And the state is too dependent on the federal government. We have the third highest level of economic dependence on federal grants-in-aid in the nation (43%) and the fourth highest level of our economy driven by the public sector in the country (55%). Politicians, state agency directors, and government bureaucrats cannot create the economic growth we need. They can, however, work together with our various representatives and create an environment that allows and encourages private economic activities. Ultimately, with such an environment, it will be the entrepreneurs, business owners, productive workers, creative disruptors, capitalists, managers, and consumers who deliver the economic growth we all seek. 

As the state auditor appropriately ended his article in the Mississippi Business Journal, the time to act is now.

A new tax credit designed to help children being raised in the state’s foster care system and passed this session has reached its cap for business donations, but individuals still have time to take advantage before the year ends. 

The way the Children’s Promise Tax Credit works is businesses and individuals donate to eligible organizations that help children. Then they fill out a form and send it to the state’s Department of Revenue.

For businesses, the credit is a dollar for dollar up to 50 percent of its state tax liability. 

Individual taxpayers can receive a dollar for dollar credit up to $1,000 of their liability. Those without a liability have five years to apply the credit before it expires.

House Bill 1613 passed nearly unopposed in the legislature this session and went in effect on July 1. 

There is a $5 million cap for corporate donations that was reached soon after the credit went into effect. Individuals wanting to participate have a $3 million cap. 

Sean Milner is the executive director of the Baptist Children’s Village, which receives 37 percent of its funding from individual donations, but none from state or federal funds. He said he’s had a hard time explaining the new tax to donors for an unusual reason.

“The law is so good that people are having a hard time understanding it. Not because it’s difficult to understand, but quite honestly it makes too much sense and people aren’t used to things coming out of the legislature that make this much sense,” Milner said. “The idea that you can give your money to someone who’s serving the state’s needs as opposed to having to pay taxes, that’s difficult for people to understand.”

According to the state Department of Revenue, $2,751,042.18 of the individual credit has yet to be allocated.

Milner says that the number of allocated credits doesn’t show how much of an impact the credit has had on his donors. He said that most of his donors, who are individuals giving between $25 and $100, aren’t itemizing and won’t be taking advantage of the credit’s advantages. 

He said when his organization sent out a letter with directions on how to utilize the new credit to existing donors, the checks continued to flow in despite most not taking advantage of the program.

“Everybody is so generous in Mississippi. They give money and expect nothing in return,” Milner said. “They don’t report this or keep the receipt to put on their taxes for some kind of receipt. It’s a great law and it’s taking a little while for people to catch on.”

Erin Kate Goode is the executive director of the Jackson-based Center for Pregnancy Choices Metro Area. She said donations to her organization, which uses a licensed medical clinic to educate pregnant women about their choices including adoption and parenting, have been three times as much as the same time last year. 

While she has a donor that is matching gifts during that time, she says the tax credit is definitely helping.

“The gifts have been a higher level than they were last year,” Goode said. “It (the credit) frees people up to give more.”

Milner said another advantage of the credit is that it creates a partnership between childcare agencies, the business community, and general public and that the benefits from that relationship has yet to be seen.

Bob Anderson is a CPC donor and a board member and says that he hopes that people don’t get lost in applying for the tax credit, which he says is not difficult.

“The pot of money for it (the tax credit) is largely there this year, but I think in the future, it’s going to go a lot quicker,” Anderson said. “This credit is a great way to direct money to these organizations that directly help children. A lot of government organizations have a lot of overhead, but the CPC and organizations like them are very streamlined, very efficient. I used to joke they could cut a nickel in half and make 20 cents out of it.

The DOR will accept applications from businesses starting January 1 by email for the credit for 2020. 

What is the high road and why do we need to take it to freedom?

At the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, our duty is to pave the way so citizens are free to choose their own version of flourishing — unencumbered by government’s barriers and burdens. We believe the best way to get every Mississippian on the high road to freedom is to first hold government to its constitutionally limited role so that free market ideas and mechanisms are robust and so that private institutions can blossom. 

That was the inspiration behind the High Road to Freedom, MCPP’s new policy guide with more than 100 policy recommendations on 28 of the most pressing issues in our state. Each topic is backed by rationale, data, ideas, and principles and can be put into action. 

Click here to download and read The High Road to Freedom.

It is our goal that this will serve as a policy guide over the next four years. We will continue to have luncheons that highlight individual issues and run op-eds in newspapers through the state. And when the legislature returns in a couple weeks, we will regularly turn to this book to outline our position on an issue and the reasoning behind it. 

There has never been a question about where we stand or what we believe will be the right policy. This just makes it clear for everyone.

Finally, we didn’t do this because we love policy, but rather because we love people. When we love people, we want them to have every opportunity to raise their eyes to the wonders of what is possible and to be willing to endeavor to live the life they have imagined for themselves and for their loved ones. 

You can check out the High Road to Freedom here.

The Speaker’s Commission on Public Policy held a half-day summit on the phenomena of brain drain in Mississippi.

The commission, organized by House Speaker Philip Gunn (R-Clinton) in 2018, put on the event with panelists from the state’s universities, entrepreneurs and some from the economic development realm along with legislators. 

The goal was to find ways to keep young, college-educated Mississippians in state and lure other college graduates to the Magnolia State.

Like with a previous summit on human trafficking, Gunn said his goal is for the discussion to provide a framework for legislation in the upcoming session in January.

“Brain drain is something that’s been talked about a lot and I’m don’t know if I understand all of the facets of that and that’s what this day is about,” Gunn said. “It’s for us to not only understand the issues, but come forward with solutions.”

Bill Rayburn is the CEO of mTrade, a Mississippi-based company that has built a proprietary loan acquisition system that brings together data and risk analysis in one portal for mortgage transactions. The company employs 200 workers in three locations in Oxford, Tupelo and New York.

He said the state, as evidenced by a scorecard by Economic Modeling that ranked counties by their ability to attract talented workers, is not doing a good job of not only retaining talented graduates, but luring ones from out of state.

Lafayette County was the only one of the state’s smaller counties to be ranked in the top 100 nationally in the scorecard. Only large county, Madison, was ranked in the top 200.

Rayburn said the state could focus on generating entrepreneurship in agriculture technology and that the state needs a strategic economic plan that is focused, actionable, time dependent and measurable. He also said that improving the state as an incubator of entrepreneurship in the new, knowledge-based economy could be done with private funds, but would do so faster with an infusion of taxpayer dollars.

One thing proposed during a roundtable session that the state needs to change its policies of providing generous incentives to manufacturers to bring industry to the state. 

“What we see from an economic development standpoint, the days of chasing smokestacks are coming to an abrupt end,” said Ashley Edwards, the president and CEO of the Gulf Coast Business Council. “I think most folks in our profession realize that. The numbers of those projects are few and far between. We can’t run a 1995-centric economic development strategy for an economy that no longer exists.”

There was more criticism of the top-down mentality when it comes to economic development in Mississippi. 

While these policies helped land carmakers such as Nissan and Toyoto and tiremakers Continental and Yokohama, there have been some missteps such as the KiOR biofuels plant in Columbus (now defunct and sold for scrap), a pair of defunct solar panel manufacturing plants (Twin Creeks and Stion) and an electric car builder (Greentech Automotive) where taxpayers lost money on their “investments.”

From 2012 to 2017, taxpayers have spent $678 million in just MDA grants alone from 2012 to 2017, or about $19,765 per job.

“Our problem is we don’t have the capital,” said Jeffrey Rupp, the director of outreach and corporate engagement at Mississippi State University’s College of Business. “We spend $600 million on a tire plant, which is great and we need those jobs, but we’re turning out 100 new entrepreneurs per year and with one half of one percent of that, we could really do a lot more.”

State Rep. Trey Lamar (R-Senatobia) touted his tax credit plan to keep college graduates in the state that he says he’ll bring back this year. Lamar introduced the legislation in the past two sessions, but it died in the Senate both times after passing the House.

House Bill 816— also known as the Mississippi Educational Talent Recruitment Act — would’ve provide recent graduates (within two years) from a four-year university or a post-graduate program such as medical school who live and work in Mississippi a rebate equal to all or a portion of the amount of their state income tax liability. 

In this episode of Unlicensed, we talk about the latest controversy at Ole Miss after the journalism school cancelled a conservative speaker, why our reliance on federal funds is not a good thing, and how the Popeyes chicken sandwich compares to Chick-fil-A.

Enrollment is down at Ole Miss for the third consecutive year according to new data from the Institutions of Higher Learning. 

The University of Mississippi, including the University Medical Center, has a fall 2019 enrollment of 22,273. It’s still (barely) the largest university in the state, but it is down 817 students from last year, or about a 3.5 percent drop. Enrollment was down 2.2 percent last year. 

Overall, enrollment at the eight state universities is down 1.6 percent, with 77,896 students, compared to 79,193 students last year. Two years ago, enrollment stood at 81,378. 

Mississippi State University, the second largest university in the state, had a gain of 252 students. State now has 22,226 students. They had the greatest gain in terms of the number of students, but Mississippi University for Women enjoyed the highest percentage increase at 3.8.

While no school had a bigger drop in terms of actual numbers than Ole Miss, Mississippi Valley State University had the largest drop percentage wise. They are down 6 percent. Alcorn State University also had a significant drop, 3.7 percent. 

Southern Miss, which is down 376 students over the past year, remains the third largest university in the state. Valley remains the smallest at 2,147 students. 

The cost to win Mississippi’s governor mansion can get expensive when a competitive Democrat is on the top of the ticket.

Tuesday’s election won by Republican Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves over the state’s lone remaining Democrat in statewide elected office, Attorney General Jim Hood, was the second most costly in state history after the 2003 race.

Then-Gov. Ronnie Musgrove was defeated by Gov. Haley Barbour in an election that cost a combined $18 million.

The final tally for 2019 added up to about $16 million, with Reeves spending $10.8 million and Hood spending about $5.2 million. This was more than the last two gubernatorial races combined.

Hood’s spending added to about $13.43 per each of his 402,080 votes (46.6 percent), while Reeves spent $24.01 for each of his 449,746 votes (52.1 percent). 

Those vote tallies are eerily similar to 2003, when Barbour defeated Musgrove 52.59 percent to 45.81 percent. Barbour had 470,404 votes against Musgrove’s 409,787 total. Turnout was higher in 2003 by 31,878 votes.

Hood had the best performance, both percentage-wise and numbers wise, in the last four cycles for a Democrat in a statewide race. 

The closest in percentage was John Eaves, who lost to the incumbent Barbour with 42.1 percent of the vote in 2007. Eaves received 313,232 votes out of 744,039 cast. 

Hood did better than predicted by several pre-election polls and won largely-Republican Madison county by 445 votes, swept all of the Delta counties and was competitive in GOP stronghold Desoto county with 37.7 percent of the vote (13,919 votes). 

In the hotly contested U.S. Senate runoff in 2018, Mike Espy earned 40.9 percent of the 42,884 votes cast in Desoto county.

Comparisons are difficult between statewide and national elections, but the possible ceiling for Democrats in Mississippi can be extrapolated from the 2008 and  2012 presidential elections won by Barack Obama with high statewide turnout. He earned 43 percent (554,641) of the 1,289,865 votes cast statewide in 2008 and 43.79 percent in 2012 (562,949 out of 1,285,584 total).

Speaking of Desoto county, Obama received 30.51 percent in 2008 in (19,627 votes) and 32.79 percent in 2012 (21,575 votes).

The U.S. Senate race in 2018 had the second-best Democrat showing statewide in the 2000s. Espy received 420,819 votes or 46.4 percent in the runoff won by Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith.

One of places where the 2019 election was won for Reeves was in northeast Mississippi. The eight most northeastern counties went decisively for the lieutenant governor after voting heavily for Hood in his elections as attorney general. The Gulf Coast was also a place where Reeves racked up big numbers, as he received 64.1 percent of all votes there.

Gov. Phil Bryant’s path to the governor’s mansion after two terms of Barbour was easier than Reeves (or Barbour). 

In 2011, Bryant beat former Hattiesburg mayor Johnny DuPree in the general election 61 percent to 39 percent. DuPree spent $1.197 million in the race and received 348,617 votes. That adds up $3.43 per vote for the Democrat.

Bryant spent $5.58 million in the race and earned 544,851 votes. His spending amounted to about $10.24 per vote.

The 2015 election was one of the cheapest in recent memory. Bryant faced an unknown Democrat, truck driver Robert Gray. Gray, whose CB handle was the “Silent Knight,” spent a mere pittance on his campaign. His $4,835 in campaign spending added up to two cents per each of the 231,643 votes cast for him in the general election or 32.3 percent of votes cast.

Bryant spent $2.74 million on his race or about $5.74 per each of his 476,697 votes for 66.4 percent of the votes.