America is now six months away from a Presidential election. If current polls are correct and Donald Trump comes out ahead in the key battleground states, we could soon see a conservative in the White House, and a conservative-controlled Senate and House.
It is one thing to gain power. It is quite another to know what to do with it. Conservatives who try to run the federal government without a clear strategy in place soon end up being run by the federal government. Why is this so?
The administrative state, with its vast alphabet soup of federal agencies, is fundamentally un-conservative. Some might even say anti-conservative.
That is not to say that there is some sort of Deep State conspiracy against conservatives. (Federal officials struggle to issue visas or approve new medicines on a timely basis. I highly doubt they are competent enough to engage in conspiracies).
No, the problem is the mindset of those that work for the administrative state. Or, what the French call “déformation professionnelle.”
Those that work for big government bureaucracies tend to favor more government. If your career is spent working for a federal agency, you will perhaps see federal fiat as the answer, whatever the question.
Many of those that work for the government are very smart. Smart enough, in fact, to fall for the conceit that you can successfully engineer social and economic outcomes from above.
Now that Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion has become the official ideology of America’s public institutions, federal officials likely find it easier to implement “diversity strategies” and talk about “microaggressions” than deliver competent government.
Being part of a national bureaucracy in Washington makes you more inclined to want to work closely with supranational bureaucracies such as the UN, WHO, or the EU.
What can an incoming conservative administration do about all this? It is not enough to instruct the administrative state to govern differently. We need a plan to re-wire the administrative state itself. Here’s how:
1. Find the Right People.
Donald Trump’s decision to appoint Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court proved to be one of the most consequential things he has done. As a result, the US Supreme Court now has a conservative majority for the first time in over half a century.
Trump did not appoint the right people to the Supreme Court because he happened to know them. It was the Federalist Society that identified and vetted suitable candidates for him.
I am delighted to be (a small) part of a project run by the Heritage Foundation and others to help identify the right people not so much for judicial appointments, but for positions across government. Unless conservatives find the right people to install in the myriad of federal agencies, those that work in those agencies will nominate their own and little will change.
2. Shrink the Federal Machine.
Argentina’s new President Milei almost halved the number of government departments in the week after he took office. U.S. conservatives should do something similar.
Do we really need a US Department of Education (created in 1980) or federal Housing department (1965)? Surely education and housing are matters that can be left to each state?
Why stop there? There are currently 438 US federal agencies and sub-agencies. Conservatives should go full Milei on them.
3. Control the spending.
What is the single biggest threat to the United States? It’s not China or Islamism. It is the ballooning national debt. The US national debt is now growing by $1 trillion every 100 days.
Conservatives urgently need to bring federal spending under control.
Remember that kerfuffle a few months back when Rep Kevin McCarty tried and failed to be elected House Speaker dozens of times? One of the objections that the conservative refuseniks had was the fact that Congress did not seem to control federal spending.
The process by which Congress approves federal budgets is far too convoluted. One committee approves agriculture budgets, another defense, and so on. This makes it easier for various vested interests to ensure that their preferred spending items get approved.
We need to return to the principle that there is some form of unified Congressional budgetary oversight. This is the only chance of restoring Congressional control over the administrative state’s spending.
4. Return authority to the states.
The 10th Amendment clearly states that “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Since the days of Woodrow Wilson, there has been a creeping coup that has seen federal agencies, abetted by the Supreme Court, usurp the primacy of the states. Until now.
In a little noticed ruling in 2022, in West Virginia v. the Environmental Protection Agency, the Supreme Court essentially said that a federal agency could not presume to make policy the way the EPA was trying to. The ruling puts a question mark over the presumption that Congress has delegated major political and economic questions to executive agencies.
Conservatives need to build on this, and other similar rulings, to push back against decades of self-aggrandizement by federal agencies.
How often do conservative voters vote for conservative leaders, but end up with more soft-left statism? I would argue that this has been a constant feature of U.S. politics for over half a century, with a brief break from business as usual when Ronald Reagan was in the White House for 8 years in the 1980s.
Unless we are to see more of the same, we need to ensure that if and when conservatives gain control of the federal government, they use their one chance to achieve fundamental, strategic change to the way America is run. There may never be another.
Our aim must not be just to oust liberals, or even to install a particular leader. Our goal should be to renew America by overturning the incremental coup that has created in Washington DC an administrative state that our Founders never envisioned and never sanctioned.
Beware of politicians who want to ban things.
What would you most like to see Mississippi’s elected lawmakers do during the current legislative session?
Action to eliminate the reams of red tape holding our state back, maybe? Further tax cuts, perhaps? With so many other southern states moving ahead with school choice, you might wish that our lawmakers would do something similar.
I doubt that a bill to ban “squatted” trucks is your top priority. Yet, that is precisely what one bill in our state legislature aims to do.
I’m not about to invest a lot of effort into opposing this bill, but I do think we should be wary of politicians in the business of banning things.
Typically, politicians resort to banning things when they don’t have any other ideas. The impulse to ban things is driven by their search for validation and purpose.
Those in favor of a ban on “squatted” trucks are quick to tell us that action is urgent given how dangerous these trucks are. I can think of a lot of things that could be deemed dangerous.
Do conservatives really want to get into the business of banning things because they are dangerous? Once you start, where do you stop? If trucks are to be banned for being dangerous, wait ‘til you hear what progressives have to say about guns.
Under this proposed law, anyone caught driving a vehicle whose front ends are raised more than four inches above the height of the rear fender faces a $100 fine. Will police officers pull people over to measure their fenders? Should the guy with a truck raised a mere 3 inches expect to get pulled over every time?
As the parent of a teenager, I’ve discovered how adding a young person to your insurance policy can make your premiums soar. This is because the insurance system is good at assessing risk. Higher risk = higher premiums.
If squatted trucks really were the danger that the detractors claim, surely it would be reflected in raised insurance premiums to the point where they became prohibitively expensive.
In a free society, there must be an overwhelmingly good reason to use the state’s monopoly of force to restrict something. It is not enough to ban something because we disapprove of it. Or. as I fear, disapprove of the people that drive “squatted” trucks.
Once politicians form the habit of seeking out things to ban for the benefit of the rest of us, they won’t stop. Next will come a ban on certain types of vapes. Or, as in California, certain food additives and Skittles. If they can ban one type of truck, why not another?
If you want to see where relentless banning leads, take a look at my own native Britain. Despite having had notionally conservative governments, politicians across the pond have relentlessly banned things from certain breeds of dog to plastic drinking straws. From the ability to use email lists for marketing to self-defense pepper spray. From disposable cutlery and gas water heaters to the internal combustion engine (from 2035).
On their own, none of these restrictions have proved to be a catastrophe (although the ban on internal combustion cars, once it comes into force, may yet prove to be). Collectively, however, the blizzard of bans has been devastating by infantilizing British society.
Treated like children, more and more people behave like children. Denied responsibility, society grows irresponsible. Britain today feels utterly demoralized as a consequence. This is what happens when you put politicians in charge of deciding what’s best for everyone else.
Banning tilted trucks won’t be the end of the world for Mississippi. It will be the end of a little bit more liberty.
The impulse to ban things, I believe, comes from what H.L. Mencken called “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be having a good time.” Let’s leave Mississippi truck drivers alone.
Douglas Carswell is the President & CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.
Did you know that Mississippi spends a higher share of our overall wealth on healthcare than almost any other state in America? Yet despite this, we still have some of the worst health outcomes in the country.
Source: AFP Mississippi report on Certificate of Need, James Bailey
Some believe that the answer is to spend an even larger amount by expanding Medicaid. Mississippi’s House of Representatives has just voted to do precisely that.
The debate over Medicaid expansion now appears to hinge on whether under the expansion scheme there will be any realistic work requirement. Critics fear that without a robust requirement for recipients of free health care to be in work, Medicaid expansion is little more than a something-for-nothing system of soft socialism.
It remains to be seen if the Senate will support the House’s bill – and if it will do so by a large enough margin to overturn any future gubernatorial veto.
There is, however, another proposal that has attracted far less attention that really would improve healthcare in our state.
Healthcare in Mississippi is deliberately restricted by a set of laws known as Certificate of Need, or CON, laws. These laws require anyone wanting to expand existing services or offer new services to apply for a Certificate of Need permit. By not issuing permits to new operators, competitors are kept out of the market - which suits the existing providers.
Our recent report on Certificate of Need reform shows how harmful this red tape can be. If we removed this protectionist red tape, we would get far more bang for our buck, however much the legislature decided to spend on Medicaid.
Florida, Tennessee and both North & South Carolina have all recently removed their CON laws – and they each have significantly better healthcare as a consequence.
Now there is a chance that Mississippi might do something similar. Rep Zuber’s excellent bill (HB 419) opens the possibility that some CON rules could be repealed.
Of course, now that the bill is before the House, every sort of parasitic vested interest is frantically lobbying to kill the bill.
Why? CON confers on existing providers a means to legally exclude the competition.
Imagine in the search engine Yahoo! had been able to use CON laws to shut down Google? Or if Friends Reunited could have used CON laws to prevent Facebook? Or if the folk that made DVDs could have used CON to prevent Netflix from taking off? CON laws have been doing precisely this to healthcare in our state.
CON laws in Mississippi are one of the last vestiges of the good ole boy system that has held Mississippi back.
Often in politics, it is easier to define a problem than it is to solve it.
Remember Barack Obama’s eloquent speech about the need to unite America beyond red states Vs blue states? When Obama left office, America was more politically polarized than before.
Who could forget Al Gore’s theatrics as he talked about the need to save the planet? I doubt a Gore-run administration would be able to control the country’s borders, let alone control global sea levels or the climate.
Remember how during last year’s gubernatorial race here in Mississippi, Brandon Presley, the Democrat candidate, waxed lyrically about the fate of rural hospitals? Hosing federal funds around is unlikely to change the fact that hospitals that are underused will remain underused.
Politicians can certainly make problems worse. Obama, I would argue, exacerbated America’s divisions. Gore & co have advocated for an energy policy that does nothing to control the climate, but has made people poorer. Subsidising an underused health service is unlikely to make it magically sustainable.
Occasionally, however, politicians have it in their gift to do something that really would improve things.
In a report we published this week, we show that there is a solution to Mississippi’s healthcare crisis staring us in the face: our leaders could abolish the anticompetitive laws that intentionally limit the number of healthcare providers in our state. This would improve access to healthcare and lower costs for everyone.
For years, if a healthcare provider wants to offer new services or expand existing services in 19 key areas of health care, they are required by law to get a permit. These Soviet-style permits, known as Certificates of Need (CON), are also required for a provider wanting to spend more than $1.5 million on new medical equipment, relocate services from one part of the state to another, or change ownership.
Unlike other sensible licensing requirements, CON requirements are not designed primarily to assess a provider’s qualifications, safety record, or fitness. They are about central planning to decide if each new applicant’s services are “needed” by the community. I believe that it should be up to patients and practioners to decide what is needed, not government bureaucrats.
CON laws in Mississippi limit the provision of long term care, despite demographic change that has seen the number of elderly people needing care increase dramatically. Ambulatory services, key diagnostic services, psychiatric services and many other services are all limited by CON laws.
If the case for change is so overwhelming, why has it not already been done? In any market, when there are restrictions imposed to keep out the competition, there will be various vested interests that lobby for their retention. So, too, with CON laws.
Defenders of CON restrictions suggest that CON repeal would be risky and dangerous. They like to imply that any reform would reduce access and quality would suffer.
Such concerns are unfounded. Over 100 million Americans—nearly a third of the population—live in states without CON laws in health care. Four in ten Americans live in states with limited CON regimes that apply to only one or two services, such as ambulance services or nursing homes.
If our lawmakers are serious about improving healthcare in Mississippi, I hope they read our report, which sets out not only what needs to be done, but provides a roadmap explaining how to do it.
High flying rhetoric won’t improve our state. Getting down to work and removing CON laws will.
Report identifies key reforms needed to boost health outcomes in Magnolia state
Removing outdated restrictions on health care would boost health care in Mississippi, according to a new report published today. Mississippi has some of the worst health outcomes in the country, and the full repeal of these anticompetitive laws in the health sector would cut costs and improve access to treatment.
For several decades, an official permit has been required for health care providers wanting to offer new services or expand existing services in 19 key areas of health care. These permits, known as Certificates of Need (CON), are also required for a provider wanting to spend more than $1.5 million on new medical equipment, relocate services from one part of the state to another, or change ownership.
Unlike other health care licensing laws already in place, the CON process is not designed primarily to assess a provider’s qualifications, safety record, or fitness. Instead, CON laws require regulators to centrally plan the health care sector by assessing whether each new applicant’s services are “needed” by the community. That question, however, can only be truly answered through the voluntary choices of practitioners and patients.
“If you want to know why Mississippi does not have medical care where it is most needed, CON laws bear much of the blame. They intentionally take away options for health care,” explained Douglas Carswell, President and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.
“What started out a generation ago as a misguided attempt to restrict increases in health costs has become a legally-sanctioned protectionist scheme. These outdated laws are indefensible and must go.”
CON laws in Mississippi limit the provision of long term care, despite demographic change that has seen the number of elderly people needing care increase dramatically. Ambulatory services, key diagnostic services, psychiatric services and many other services are all limited by CON laws.
The report, authored by Matthew Mitchell, one of America’s leading experts on health care regulation, references overwhelming evidence which shows that CON laws mean higher spending, less access, and diminished quality of care.
Mitchell’s report identifies a road map for reform, highlighting how full abolition could be achieved. “The evidence from other states without CON laws not only shows how a Mississippi without CON would enjoy greater access to lower cost and higher quality care, but it also gives us a roadmap for how to do it. In the report, I talk about 11 different strategies for reform,” said Mitchell.
“The Governor and the new Speaker have both committed to improving health outcomes in Mississippi by repealing restrictive practices. We are excited to see legislation aimed at CON repeal, as well as action by the Board of Health to remove the red tape,” added Carswell.
Last year, Mississippi Republicans won an overwhelming majority. Could 2024 be the year when they use that majority to deliver the kind of big, strategic change our state desperately needs?
Here are a number of reforms that Mississippi conservatives have it in their gift to implement, which would transform the long term prospects of our state for the better.
- Education Freedom:
2024 could be the year that we give every family in the state control over their child’s share of education tax dollars, through an Education Freedom Account. Arkansas passed legislation to do precisely that last year. Tennessee and Louisiana are poised to do something similar. Rather than trailing behind, Mississippi lawmakers should take the lead, delivering big, strategic change to improve education in this state, too.
The Mississippi Center for Public Policy recently held a public rally for education freedom, with Corey DeAngelis and local educators, helping mainstream the idea. Recent polls now show overwhelming public support.
- Affordable healthcare:
Too many families in Mississippi cannot get health coverage. Rather than hosing federal dollars at the problem, we need to look at what states like Florida are doing to innovate, with alternatives to insurance-based healthcare. This means ending the restrictive Certificate of Need laws that prevent new low cost health care providers from operating. It also means allowing nurse practitioners more autonomy. The Mississippi Center for Public Policy will soon publish a roadmap on how to go about removing CON laws.
- Tax cuts:
In 2023 Mississippi had a large state budget surplus. Rather than wait for politicians to think up new ways to spend that surplus, we need to see tax cuts in 2024. One option would be a further reduction in the state income tax.
Our neighboring states are reducing the tax burden on families and businesses. If we want to reverse the population decline in our state, we need to do so too.
- Abolish DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion):
In recent months we have seem appalling behaviour by ‘woke’ academics at several leading universities. It is now clear that DEI is destroying American academia. So why are public universities in Mississippi still running DEI programs? The Governor of Oklahoma recently issued an order terminating funding for DEI programs in public universities in that state. Mississippi needs to stop the rot in public universities and end DEI programs in 2024.
While those are our top four priorities for 2024, here are some other things we would like to see our law makers deliver:
- Women’s Bill of Rights / Parents Bill of Rights: Early last year, we invited Riley Gaines to speak in Jackson as part of our campaign to mainstream the idea of protecting women’s rights. We are thrilled to see so many people come out in support of the idea of building on the safeguards already contained within the Mississippi Fairness Act.
- PERS reform: The laws of math make the current public employee retirement scheme (PERS) unsustainable. Mississippi needs reforms so that young people starting work in the public sector have defined contribution, rather than defined benefit, pensions. Unless we make this change now, our grandchildren will end up with a massive tax bill. 2024 is the year when we need to see sensible changes made to PERS.
- Ballot initiative: Citizens in our state used to have a right of ballot initiative. Over a thirty year period, almost 70 initiative attempts to change the state constitution were made, with only three being successful. A failure to update the rules for triggering such initiatives means that we no longer have this right in practice. MCPP would like to see the right of ballot initiative restored, allowing citizens to change state law.
- Young Enterprise Act: Mississippi ought to do more to encourage young people to become entrepreneurs. One way to do this could be to exempt minors from having to obtain costly permits and licenses, or collect and remit sales taxes, when they want to run a small business. A few years ago, such a proposal was considered in the state legislature. We would love to see it revived.
If Mississippi conservatives passed these eight or so laws, they would transform our state for the better. No longer would we be considered a laggard by some, but as a leader.
When running for President in 2020, then-candidate Joe Biden promised to “defeat the NRA” by banning assault weapons and enacting other radical gun control measures. After recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, President Biden signed gun control legislation into law, but did he deliver on his campaign promises?
The latest ‘red flag’ law being debated in Washington increases mental health funding, closes the so-called “boyfriend loophole,” which aims to prevent unmarried domestic abusers from acquiring guns, and most controversially, incentivizes states to adopt “red flag laws.”
Red flag laws allow citizens to go to court to seek an order permitting law enforcement to seize the weapons of a person who has exhibited behavior indicating they might be a threat to themselves or others. Conservatives, wary of big government abuse and overreach, say red flag laws could be used to target people over political beliefs. For example, someone’s leftist ex-girlfriend could pursue a court order against them for posting a picture with guns or sharing a “dangerous” opinion on social media, and if one judge deems it appropriate, those guns could be taken away for some period of time.
Yes, this new law is another step in the left’s march toward stronger gun control laws, but it does not ban assault weapons or deliver any other major progressive “wins” that President Biden promised. Biden admitted this himself, saying that “this bill doesn’t do everything I want.” Other members of the President’s parties have made even more extreme gun control promises than Biden. Texas Governor Candidate Beto O’Rourke, who has lost two elections within the last four years, famously said “hell, yes” in response to whether certain guns should be taken away by law-abiding gun owners. New York Governor Kathy Hochul said that she is prepared to enact gun control so extreme that her state will “go back to muskets.”
Democrats control both chambers of Congress and the presidency, but they still cannot deliver on their anti-second amendment crusade. As their political capital diminishes, their promises become increasingly vague, from an assault weapon ban to “common sense gun reform” to simply “doing something.” This catch-all phrase is designed to create the façade that something truly special has happened thanks to the President’s leadership when, in reality, that is nowhere near the truth.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has struck down a New York law that required citizens to show “proper cause” to get a concealed carry gun license. According to the left, the right to bear arms is dependent on if the anti-gun government thinks the specific reasoning for doing so is good enough. Thankfully, the Supreme Court can recognize an unconstitutional infringement when it sees one. For the past thirty years or more, the anti-gun lobby has promised a lot. But they don’t have an awful lot to show for it.
“Too many boards and commissions in our state have far too much power to decide public policy."
“Drain the swamp!” How often have we heard this phrase bandied about by politicians seeking to signal that they are on our side?
Those that we send to Washington often refer to DC as “the swamp”, a place full of federal bureaucrats making public policy with little reference to the public. But what about the swamp closer to home?
Before complaining about the federal fat cat agencies in Washington, we ought to acknowledge that there are plenty of self-serving bureaucrats right there in Mississippi.
A new report, “Drain the Swamp – the administrative state in Mississippi,” published by the Mississippi Center for Public Policy shows that Mississippi’s bureaucrats are out of control. Of the 222 agencies and boards that we reviewed, we found that only a tiny minority are headed by a directly elected official. Of those that are appointed, the state Senate confirms only a small minority.
The administrative state in Mississippi is able to make public policy and spend public money with too little accountability to the public.
Of course, there are plenty of departments and boards that are essential to effective public administration. But Mississippi has dozens of agencies and boards that we could probably do without. I have no doubt that plenty of good people work for the Auctioneer Commission or the Board of Physical Therapists. But other states seem to cope without such entities. Might Mississippi be able to manage without an Interior Design Advisory Committee?
When Ronald Reagan launched his presidential campaign at the Neshoba County Fair in 1980, he famously observed how “When you create a government bureaucracy, no matter how well-intentioned it is, almost instantly its primary priority becomes the preservation of the bureaucracy.”
The Gipper was absolutely right back then, and the problem has grown much worse since.
Too many boards and commissions in our state have far too much power to decide public policy. Often this is the fault of the legislature that has delegated to these agencies broad powers. But it is also, as Reagan understood, in the nature of bureaucracy to expand unless it is kept in check.
Our report makes a number of suggestions to make more of Mississippi’s public officials better accountable to the public. We propose reining in the wide discretion that the legislature has foolishly granted officials. We suggest sunset provisions to ensure that bureaucracy does not continue to expand long after it has served its initial purpose. Our report considers giving the legislature more effective oversight over the bureaucracy and how it spends public money. We even suggest that it might be time to eliminate some agencies altogether.
Many of these agencies and commissions have become a source of patronage. They are run in the interests of vested interests. Instead of economic freedom, they have spawned a cartel economic system in our state, in which someone’s permission is always needed to do something.
The key to achieving economic prosperity in Mississippi is to overturn this cartel economic system and eliminate our home-grown version of the administrative state. Our report shows how.
The report can be accessed on our website, mspolicy.org.
This editorial, written by the Mississippi Center for Public Policy CEO & President Douglas Carswell, was featured in Y'all Politics on May 31.
Mississippi’s administrative state has a major democratic deficit, according to a new report published today.
Of the 222 state government bureaucracies reviewed in the report, only 5 percent are headed by a directly elected official. The state Senate only confirms a small minority of appointees to other key positions.
According to the report, published by the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, the administrative state in Mississippi has the ability to spend money and decide on public policy without reference to the public. 81% of bureaucratic spending comes from agencies run by appointed leaders with very little regulatory accountability.
The report acknowledges that certain departments or boards are essential to the success of Mississippi, but that there are dozens of agencies the state could probably do without. Might not Mississippi be able to manage without an Interior Design Advisory Committee?
“When people talk about ‘draining the swamp,’ they usually mean Washington D.C.,” explained CEO & President Douglas Carswell. “Our research shows that there is a ‘swamp’ here in Mississippi that needs dealing with, too.”
In order to assess the entire administrative state of Mississippi, we analyzed four elements of 222 state boards, agencies and commissions: accountability, spending power and size, regulatory power and function. Our findings reveal that while much of the state bureaucracy is unaccountable, it is well-resourced and has expanded in terms of its regulatory remit.
“We reviewed 222 state-based bureaucratic organizations here in Mississippi, and we discovered that there is a serious accountability deficit,” Carswell said. “Big, powerful bureaucratic organizations are able to impose rules and spend public money without meaningful accountability to the public.”
What should we do about the administrative state of Mississippi? How can we hold these bureaucrats accountable, and how can we better manage the regulations and functionality of these boards? We at the Mississippi Center for Public Policy have some suggestions.
1. Rein in the broad discretion given to bureaucrats by laying out parameters for regulations and requiring routine audits
2. Establish more grassroots accountability through elections by expanding the amount of elected, rather than appointed agency representatives
3. Look at the possibility of term limits for high-level officials to help remove the problems that can come from a system of career-centered bureaucrats
4. Consolidate or eliminate certain entities to save taxpayer dollars
5. Put in a sunset provision that requires any new regulation to be automatically repealed after a certain period of time if not extended, in order to eliminate the overbearing regulatory authority
6. Require all unelected regulators to submit annual public reports to the legislature outlining enforcement actions, subjecting these entities to higher scrutiny
The Mississippi Center for Public Policy believes “draining the swamp” would have a positive impact on the state by eliminating unnecessary agencies that negatively hold back citizens, while also ensuring those in power do not have an overabundance of money and control.
You can read the full report here.
For media inquiries, please contact Tyler B. Jones, [email protected].