“All political lives end in failure” observed the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan. His did. So, too, will Joe Biden’s.
Forced out after four years, it is difficult to think of a single significant achievement by the Biden administration. Biden’s legacy will be higher national debt and a more divided America. But is it really the case that political lives always end in failure?
Watching the recent movie about Ronald Reagan, it was obvious that after two terms in office, the Gipper’s accomplishments clearly outweighed any defeats. Reagan’s legacy was a buoyant economy, stronger America and the defeat of Soviet communism.
If Biden’s legacy is of extreme failure, and Reagan’s of remarkable success, many politicians don’t seem to leave much of a legacy at all, good or bad. Like footprints on a beach at low tide, tomorrow it will be as though they were never there at all.
Many politicians fail to leave much of a legacy for the simple reason that they hold office but have little idea what to do with it. That’s not, of course, what they tell themselves in the early days. In the afterglow of their election victory, surrounded by staffers, and praised by smooth-tongued lobbyists, political leaders busy themselves with the business of government.
Yet often the urgent squeezes out the important. Once in office, they end up playing the role of Senator, Congressman, or state Governor, like an actor in a movie handed their lines by someone else.
Rather than implementing a blueprint that matters, they are distracted by the trivial. Instead of delivering difficult messages, they delude themselves that another press conference about blah blah is vital.
Rare is the type of politician who can make the political weather, rather than respond to it. Many politicians fail to leave a legacy because they fool themselves that they are responsible for things that would have happened anyhow. Or they imagine that they will be fondly remembered for things that happened on their watch.
How many Mississippians remember who was governor when the Nissan factory came to Mississippi? How many credit whoever happened to be in office? Any politician in our state wanting to leave a real legacy needs to address those things that have kept our state 50th out of 50 for too long.
First is education. Mississippi needs a wholesale reform of education, with school choice and parent power. With so many surrounding states implementing universal school choice, change is possible. The first wave of Mississippi leaders to actually come out and lead on this will be seen to deliver historic changes for the better.
Second is the state economy. Mississippi’s economy continues to be weighed down by a relatively high tax burden and red tape. Despite cutting the state income tax, Mississippi families and businesses still pay more than in surrounding states. Certificate of Need laws hold back the healthcare economy in our state. State leaders that lead on lower taxes and deregulation would stand out nationally and historically.
These are the issues that will define the future of our state. Our state leaders will be defined by if and how they address them. State leaders that address these issues will leave a giant legacy. Those that don’t, won't be a household name in their own home.
Local mom, Amanda Kibble, is celebrating an important win for her family, and for school choice.
Earlier this year, Governor Tate Reeves signed HB 1341 into law. This new law gives military families in Mississippi the right to transfer their children to any traditional public school around the state, assuming that the receiving school has capacity. Early indications suggest this is extremely popular, with lots of military families using school choice to switch schools.
Amanda, and her family, found out the hard way that the law might not apply to those who serve their country in the National Guard. There was a real risk that Amanda’s son might lose his place at his preferred school.
That’s when Amanda approached MCPP, and we took up her case. MCPP has a long history of fighting for school choice, and our legal arm, the Mississippi Justice Institute has successfully litigated in defense of school choice.
I am delighted that Attorney General, Lynn Fitch, has now issued an opinion that the new school choice law for military families also applies, at least in part, to those in the National Guard. Three cheers for the AG!
If military families now have public-to-public school choice, why shouldn’t everybody? That is exactly what our “Move Up, Mississippi!” campaign aims to achieve.
This week’s win for school choice makes it all the more disappointing that the new State Superintendent for Education, Lance Evans, took a sideswipe at school choice recently.
Speaking at a lunch in Jackson, Evans criticized school choice, suggesting that if a single dollar of public money went into private schools, those private schools should be subjected to the regulatory oversight that public schools are subject to.
Those that oppose school choice, and indeed I suspect Mr. Evans, know full well that extending state oversight across the private school sector would be untenable – which is why they suggest it. But it is not the clever argument against school choice that they might imagine.
Giving every family in our state the right to choose a public school, as military families are now able to do, would not transfer public dollars into private schools.
Amanda Kibble and those military families that now have school choice are not taking money out of public schools. Does Lance Evans oppose their right to choose a school for their child?
MCPP proposes that under a separate program, families that attend private schools, or who home school, could get a tax credit reflecting the fact that they are already paying for a place at a public school that they are not taking.
Evans attack on parent power was not the worst of it. More disappointing was the plodding presentation that preceded it about how amazing education is in our state.
Evans trumpeted the fact that about a third of districts were rated D or F in 2016. Now only a handful are rated D or F. This, he implied, was evidence of progress, rather than a reflection of a broken accountability system.
When officials invoke the broken grading system as evidence of improvement, it is not just the credibility to the grading we should question.
How bizarre, that in a solidly Republican-run state, we have somehow ended up with an anti-school choice official in charge? Are the nine-member State Board of Education aware of Evans’ anti-school choice position? Are the various state leaders that appointed those members of the Board?
Since 2000, the number of students in America has increased by 5 percent. The number of teachers by around 10 percent. The number of education administrators, however, has shot up by 95 percent.
No wonder the education bureaucrats don’t want mom and dad to have control over where their child’s share of the education budget goes. They might start to demand that it goes into the classroom.
Lance Evans talked about making private schools accountable. Private schools already are accountable to every fee-paying parent. The issue is how to ensure that public schools are made similarly accountable, too.
We need to give every family in our state the public-to-public school choice that military families now have.
