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As many prepare to hit the roads to travel for the Christmas holidays, Mississippians will be paying less than most at the pump.

According to the daily updated data from AAA, Mississippians are paying $2.21 per gallon. Missouri is slightly less at $2.206 per gallon. Mississippi’s four neighbors range from $2.23 in Louisiana to $2.30 in Tennessee. 

Residents of Simpson county are paying the least for gasoline at $2.08 per gallon. Residents of Alcorn, Desoto, Hancock, Harrison Jones, Marion, Prentiss, Stone, Tate, Warren, and Yazoo are all paying $2.15 or less per gallon. 

In the metro area, gas is $2.18 per gallon in Rankin county, $2.20 in Madison county, and $2.22 in Hinds county. 

Californians are paying the most among the continental U.S., at $3.62 per gallon. Two counties in the state are posting averages of over $4.00 per gallon. 

A significant amount of attention was dedicated to Mississippi’s gas tax during the 2019 elections, with an emphasis on raising it from candidates in both parties. 

In the Republican gubernatorial primary, former Supreme Court Justice Bill Waller supported a gas tax increase as did Democrat Attorney General Jim Hood. Gov.-elect Tate Reeves, who defeated Waller in the primary and Hood in the general election, opposed a gas tax increase on his way to victory.  

Still, there are others in powerful positions who have voiced support for at least some type of gas tax increase. And the numerous transportation related associations are not likely to give up their continual efforts to raise taxes.

But does a high gas tax correspond with a highly rated highyway system?

Not necessarily, according to an analysis that compared gasoline taxes by state and rankings from the Reason Foundation’s recently released annual Highway Report.

None of the top 10 states scored for highway efficiency and cost effectiveness were among the top 10 in the amount of gasoline tax levied on consumers. The top 10 states averaged 25.25 cents in taxes per gallon, just slightly above 24.85 cent per gallon nationwide average from the American Petroleum Institute.

Mississippi has the third lowest gasoline tax nationally (18.79 cents per gallon) and yet its highway efficiency and cost effectiveness was ranked 25th by Reason. 

Out of the five states with the lowest gasoline taxes, only Alaska (49th overall) and Oklahoma (41st overall) were near the bottom.

Conversely, none of the states with the highest gasoline tax scored higher than Mississippi in the overall score, the best being Illinois at 28th. The Land of Lincoln hits motorists with a 54.98 cent tax on every gallon of gasoline.

California has the nation’s highest gasoline tax at 61.20 cents per gallon, yet it only ranked 43rd overall in the Reason Foundation report. Pennsylvania (35th in the report) has the next highest gasoline tax nationally at 58.7 cents per gallon. 

Missouri was ranked third overall and its gasoline tax (17.42 cents per gallon) is the lowest in the country, yet its rural interstate pavement condition was 17th best and it also scored highly for capital and bridge disbursements per mile (second) despite having the seventh-largest state-controlled highway system nationally.

Mississippi was ranked 25th by the Reason Foundation overall, with its score bolstered by high marks for high maintenance disbursements per mile and low urban congestion. 

While the Mississippi legislature has opted against raising the gas tax, the Mississippi Infrastructure Modernization Act of 2018 will send 35 percent of use tax revenues by next year to cities and counties to assist with infrastructure.

The bill will additionally authorize $300 million in borrowing, with $250 million for the Mississippi Department of Transportation and $50 million for local infrastructure not administered by MDOT.

The other part of the package was the creation of a lottery, which started selling tickets just a couple weeks ago. The first $80 million in tax revenue annually will go to the state highway fund until 2028 and the rest will be put into the Education Enhancement Fund. Just the highway fund portion alone could add up to $720 million. 

State gasoline taxes are levied in addition to the federal tax of 18.4 cents, which hasn’t been increased since 1993.

The cost of going by rail to New Orleans from Mobile will likely be prohibitive for most tourists, according to analysis by the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.

Even the best-case scenario for a train trip and rides to two tourist areas — Jackson Square and Uptown — would cost 65.8 percent more than driving by car, which includes parking near Jackson Square. 

Our hypothetical trip, either by rail or by car, would involve our family of four visiting the area around Jackson Square — where the Aquarium of the Americas, the beignets and coffee of the Café Du Monde, the St. Louis Cathedral and the Louisiana State Museum Cabildo are within easy walking distance — and the Audubon Zoo in Uptown.

Just round-trip train tickets would cost a family of four at least $144 (if the one-way ticket was $18 per person) or as much as $288 (if the ticket was on the high end of estimates at $30 per person one way). 

Adding in rides from Uber (during non-peak hours) to get to some attractions from the train station in the New Orleans Central Business District and the cost balloons to $189.87 (low end of train ticket estimates) to as much as $333.87 at the top end.

The best-selling car in Alabama and Mississippi is the Nissan Altima, which has a 16-gallon gas tank and gets 39 miles per gallon on the highway. With regular gasoline costing $2.14 per gallon in Mobile, a tank of gas would cost $34.24. 

Parking at Harrah’s New Orleans casino parking garage is $5 per hour. Assuming a three-hour excursion to Jackson Square would cost $15.

Parking at the Audubon Zoo is free. The total by car adds up to $49.24. Using the standard federal mileage reimbursement rate still is cheaper than rail at $83.52.

Regardless of whether tourists decide to go by rail or if by car, taxpayers will be heavily subsidizing the $65.9 million project.

Mississippi has already committed about $15 million in state taxpayer money to the project, with Louisiana adding $10 million. Alabama is balking on whether to provide its share of the matching funds.

The Federal Rail Administration — under the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements Program (CRISI) — is providing up to $32,995,516 in taxpayer funds for improving crossings, bridges, sidings and other infrastructure along the route and adding a railroad station in Mobile. 

A 2015 Amtrak study predicted that 38,400 passengers would utilize restored rail service, which was ended in 2005 before Hurricane Katrina made landfall, across the Gulf Coast. 

It would also operate, according to the study, at a loss of $4 million that would have to be covered by subsidies from state and local governments.

Mississippi has a small inflow of cigarettes that are smuggled from other states. A decade earlier, prior to raising taxes on cigarettes, the state has a small outflow. 

That is according to a new analysis on cigarette smuggling from the Tax Foundation. 

Cigarette taxes are one of the easier targets for lawmakers looking for additional revenue as you combine a large network of health advocates pushing for the tax and a shrinking, unsympathetic demographic of smokers.

That is why cigarette taxes have routinely been floated in the legislature since the last increase in 2009. Even though we know the unintended consequences, particularly with a massive hike such as the 221 percent increase that was unsuccessful last year. 

Mississippi has a mild inflow of smuggled cigarettes at 3.32 percent, according to a new analysis from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the Tax Foundation. That means for every 100 cigarettes that are consumed in Mississippi, three are smuggled from other states. That is 29th highest in the country.

Mississippi is surrounded by states to the north and east that have lower (though slightly lower in some cases) taxes, including Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee. Each of those states actually have a positive rate of outbound smuggling, ranging from 2.5 percent in Alabama to 17.1 percent in Missouri.

In a review of cigarette smuggling in 2006, prior to the most recent tax hike, Mississippi had a small outbound rate of 1.7 percent. 

The estimate is built around a statistical model which measures the difference between smoking rates published by the federal government for each state and legal paid sales. There are often yawning gaps between the two — the amount of cigarettes that should be smoked based on sales and the amount of smoking that actually occurs — and that difference is probably explained by smuggling.

The model can be used to make “what-if” estimates based on proposed changes in tax rates, as compiled by the Mackinac Center last year. At an excise tax of $2.18 per pack, as proposed in 2019, smuggling would leap from the current rate to 35 percent of the total market. That is, of all the cigarettes consumed in Mississippi after such a tax hike, 35 of every 100 cigarettes would be smuggled. 

The model also reports that 21 percent of all consumption would be a function of “casual” smuggling. Casual smuggling is represented by individuals who typically buy lower-taxed smokes elsewhere for personal consumption.

The evidence from around the country and elsewhere tells us that relatively high cigarette excise tax rates can produce every sort of mischief, including undermining the very health goals such taxes were adopted to address.

The Mississippi legislature released its proposed fiscal year 2021 budget Wednesday, which will cut $93.7 million from last year’s total in state funds.

Last year, lawmakers appropriated $6.36 billion on the state budget, a figure that balloons to $21.52 billion when federal funds are considered. 

This year’s proposed 2021 budget would reduce that to $6.27 billion (state funds) and $21.19 billion with federal funds included. 

These funds include the general fund, Education Enhancement, Health Care Expendable, and Tobacco Control funds. Just the general fund alone is $4.9 million less than last year’s appropriations.

Legislators will also have $100.3 million more to appropriate, as the state’s tax revenue collections as evidenced by the November revenue report, are $135.5 million above the revenue estimate for this year’s budget.

Among the recommended appropriations in the proposed budget include:

The JLBC also recommends that the state defund most vacant positions and delete 3,406 of those unfilled jobs while reducing funding for travel and contractual services. The state’s so-called “rainy day” fund, known as the Working Cash Stabilization Reserve Funds, is up to $678 million. 

By law, lawmakers have to set aside two percent of state tax revenue each year to keep the fund filled and protect vital government services from revenue shortfalls during economic downturns.

The 2021 proposed budget would provide a slight increase for K-12 education ($9.54 million or 0.37 percent) from last year’s outlay and reduce the appropriation for the state’s universities by $18.1 million (2.56 percent). 

Community colleges would also take a $9.1 million cut from the 2020 budget (3.61 percent cut).

The recommendation by the Joint Legislative Budget Committee isn’t binding and the real number won’t be known until the session’s end in May, when the appropriation bills for each agency are passed into law by the legislature. The fiscal 2021 budget won’t go into effect until July 1.

In Mississippi, the way the budget process works is state agencies submit budget requests by August 1. 

The JLBC meets every September to hear agency heads make their pitches for their budget requests and to also receive estimates of the state’s tax revenues.

The JLBC meets in November to put together a budget and later releases the budget blueprint in December

The governor also submits a proposed budget as well.

Alabama’s resistance to providing taxpayer money for passenger rail service between Mobile and New Orleans could put the project on hold.

At a meeting of the Southern Rail Commission on December 6, commissioners discussed how to get Alabama leaders to agree to provide taxpayer money to get twice-daily passenger trains that could cost at least $65.9 million in capital outlays.

The service between Mobile and New Orleans would cost each state $3.045 million annually to operate and Mississippi and Louisiana have already committed to providing their shares. Alabama leaders, including Gov. Kay Ivey, are balking about providing taxpayer funds. 

“When you start a new rail line, you have to grow ridership. The cost of operating the train the first two or three years is why we need a source of funding,” said John Spain, an SRC commissioner from Louisiana.

Alabama’s resistance could prove to be the project’s undoing, as Federal Rail Administration grants for restoration and enhancement for rail infrastructure could be reduced or even scrapped for 2020. 

John Robert Smith, former Meridian mayor and Transportation for America chairman, told the commission that there’s no guarantee of an appropriation for 2020 Restoration and Enhancement grants. 

Mississippi has already committed about $15 million in state taxpayer money to the project, with Louisiana adding $10 million. The commitments, according to Smith, would be due a year after the first trains began operation.

The Federal Rail Administration — under the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements Program (CRISI) — is providing up to $32,995,516 in taxpayer funds for improving crossings, bridges, sidings and other infrastructure along the route and adding a railroad station in Mobile. 

These funds would also pay for preliminary engineering and federal environmental reviews needed for another project of the SRC, passenger service between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

The federal grants that would be provided to enact Amtrak service are meant to get the service online. The first year, the grants would provide 80 percent of the operating costs, declining to 60 percent in the second year and 40 percent in the third.

The SRC says the rail service is the final piece of the puzzle for the Gulf Coast’s post-Katrina future.

“We’re sitting in millions of dollars of investment made after (Hurricane) Katrina that is really starting to pay off,” said Knox Ross, commissioner for Mississippi and former Pelahatchie mayor. “You see cities that have leveraged federal investments from Katrina recovery funds that give them downtowns where people want to walk around in, want to live in. 

“One piece of the puzzle that is missing is a way to get people here, get them around. That’s what the train is about and it can get people to the downtowns of the cities while connecting the bookends of our coast, Mobile and New Orleans.”

A 2015 Amtrak study says that a twice-daily train between Mobile and New Orleans would draw 38,400 riders annually. Similar routes have existed from 1984 to 1985 and 1996 to 1997, but both ended because state taxpayer funds were no longer appropriated for that purpose. 

A similar passenger train, the Hoosier Line, received $3 million annually from Indiana taxpayers to provide four days per week service between Indianapolis and Chicago. Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb cut the money from his proposed two-year budget that was approved in April after ridership fell 18 percent from 33,930 rides in fiscal 2014 to 28,876 in fiscal 2018.

Already, other federal money is being earmarked for needed improvements on the existing tracks, which are owned by freight carrier CSX. Service between Mobile and New Orleans was ended in 2005 before Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast.

Another CRISI grant of $8 million for rail infrastructure is going to the Port of Pascagoula, where it will help provide transportation for wood pellets from a soon-to-be built mill near Lucedale.

A 13-year-old earmark from late Sen. Thad Cochran of $846,000 would help Pascagoula build a platform for the potential service.

Commissioners also said there will be another Amtrak inspection train running along the Gulf Coast route within 24 months. The last one ran in 2016.

Commissioners also discussed a study done by Jacksonville State University concerning passenger rail service between Birmingham and Mobile. Operating such a train would cost between $12 million and $32 million to operate annually and would result in $23.6 million per year in additional tourism spending.

The study used similar methodology to a study by the University of Southern Mississippi that said that restoring passenger rail service could generate $282.58 million for the Magnolia State’s economy.

The SRC is an Interstate Rail Compact created in 1982 by Congress and consists of commissioners appointed by governors from Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. 

More than 40,000 Mississippians have moved off food stamp rolls over the past year, representing a decline of almost nine percent in the state. 

According to the most recent data, 446,420 Mississippians were on food stamps, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), in August. In August 2018, that number was 489,938. Mississippi’s 8.8 percent decline was sixth highest nationally, behind only Georgia (14.4%), Indiana (14.1%), Kentucky (11.7%), New Hampshire (11.6%), and Delaware (9.6%). 

Over the past several years, Gov. Phil Bryant and the legislature have moved to restore work requirements for able-bodied, childless adults who receive food stamps. This has the bonus effect of moving individuals into work and off dependency, while reducing the taxpayer burden of such programs. 

A recently released report by the Foundation for Government Accountability says that work requirements have saved taxpayers $93 million since Bryant restored them in 2015 for able-bodied, childless adults who participated in SNAP.

Food stamp enrollment, according to the report, began to drop immediately in Mississippi and had fallen by 72 percent by October 2018. The drop isn’t unprecedented, as two states, Arkansas (70 percent reduction) and Florida (94 percent) posted similar numbers after instituting similar work requirements for SNAP.

Also, since 2016, the average amount of time spent in the SNAP program for able-bodied recipients in Mississippi has dropped by 60 percent.

The study shows that work requirements have decreased dependency on taxpayers by able-bodied, childless adults. According to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 85 percent of these adults on food stamps weren’t working at all in Mississippi in 2015.

Those former SNAP recipients received jobs in 716 different industries and only 23 percent of them are still working in entry-level jobs such as fast food or retail. Their incomes grew by 64 percent within three months of leaving welfare. 

After a year, those incomes increased by 98 percent within a year and 121 percent for those who’d left the food stamp program 18 months before.

“Conservative policies are working, and Mississippi is continuing to reap the benefits of welfare reform,” Bryant said on Twitter. “After implementation of food stamp work requirements we have seen significant improvements.”

Bryant’s administration launched a study to track results of the work requirements, as the Mississippi Department of Human Services worked with the state Department of Employment Security, the National Strategic Planning and Analysis Research Center at Mississippi State University, and FGA to track wages and the industries entered by former welfare recipients.

Up until the mid-1990s, there had been little effort at the national level to end dependence on welfare.

In 1996, then-President Bill Clinton signed into law the Federal Welfare Reform Act. It transitioned a permanent entitlement program known as Aid to Families with Dependent Children to a temporary block grant program known as Temporary Aid to Needy Families or TANF. 

The new law also established work requirements for SNAP, which were later watered down as the federal government granted waivers for states to eliminate these rules for some segments of the population.

In 2015, Bryant restored the work requirements by ending the work requirement waiver. Those able-bodied childless adults who met the work requirements could stay on the program, but those who failed the meet the standard were terminated from the program starting in the first quarter of 2016.

More reforms for the state’s welfare system were still to come.

In 2017, Bryant signed into law House Bill 1090, also known as the Act to Restore Hope Opportunity and Prosperity for Everyone. Authored by state Rep. Chris Brown (R-Nettleton), the law required eligibility monitoring for Medicaid, TANF, and SNAP and required the state agencies to share eligibility data. It also enshrined the end of the state’s work requirement for SNAP into state law. 

It also mandates that state agencies administering welfare programs verify residency and immigration status and bans the use of the EBT cards at ATMs at liquor stores, strip clubs, casinos, and other questionable businesses.

Thirty states still have partial time limit waivers for the food stamp program, while Mississippi is one of 17 states that have no waivers.

State Auditor Shad White ordered Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics Executive Director John Dowdy to pay back $30,122 to taxpayers over compensatory time buy-backs and a clothing allowance.

The auditor’s office issued the routine compliance audit Thursday and the crux of why Dowdy will have to pay back the money is whether he is a sworn law enforcement officer. The MBN says that because he was sworn in as director, he is able to enforce the state’s laws and carry a firearm. 

The auditor’s office says that he hasn’t met the certification standards granted by the Board of Law Enforcement Standards and Training to be considered a law enforcement officer. He never graduated from a law enforcement academy and was supposed to complete his certification a year from his hiring on November 1, 2016.

A formal finding by the MBN and the Department of Public Safety on Dowdy’s status is due a week from the audit and any amounts due to the state would have to be repaid in a week. If the MBN finds that Dowdy is not a sworn law enforcement officer, the DPS will have to reimburse the state for $313,261 for employing the director after he failed to receive certification. 

Dowdy ordered his staff to buy compensatory time on five separate occasions. This is paid time off earned for working past traditional work areas. Agencies are allowed to pay employees for compensatory time in lieu of time off from work.

Sworn law enforcement officers are allowed up to 300 hours, according to DPS regulations, of compensatory time, while other, regular employees are limited to 100 hours. Dowdy, from May 31, 2017 until December 14, 2018, accrued 529 hours of leave, 129 hours more than the standard of a law enforcement officer and 429 more than those for regular employees.

According to state law, the public safety commissioner (MBN is a branch of the DPS which includes the state’s crime lab and state trooper force) has to authorize the buy backs and only one of those times did Public Safety Commissioner Marshall Fisher provide permission via a memo. 

The buybacks added up to $27,662 and were done over the objections of several on the MBN staff. 

Dowdy also spent $2,450 in state funds on clothing, which was against the law according to the audit since he isn’t a certified law enforcement officer. Law enforcement officers are authorized a clothing allowance by state law.

Dowdy’s spending included:

The auditor’s office also chastised the department for its accounting practices, reporting that MBN didn’t perform a proper monthly reconciliation for the nine bank accounts the agency holds outside of the state treasury. 

Also, the department bought higher-grade gasoline on 10 percent of purchases, which goes against state regulations, which only allows regular unleaded or diesel fuel to be bought with the state Fuelman credit cards.

Five MBN employees were allowed to use agency vehicles for commuting, including Dowdy and the department didn’t record fringe benefits for the employees. This added up to $3,720 in fringe benefits in 2018.

The audit isn’t the only controversy weathered by the agency in recent months.

Former MBN chief of staff and counsel Allison Killebrew resigned on October 8. In her resignation letter, she said “I lost in faith in your (Dowdy’s) ability to do the right thing for the employees of MBN and the state of Mississippi many months ago.”

As families across the country assemble to celebrate the holidays, the nation’s largest teacher union, of which the Mississippi Association of Educators is a member, is encouraging its members to politicize the gatherings.

MAE is the state affiliate of the National Education Association, and dues from the local union support activities of the national union. Including NAE Ed Justice, which wants to see families “ring in justice this holiday season.”

How can they do that? Skip the talk about your kids, job, or the deer you killed this morning. Instead, open your meal with “conscious questions.” Such as:

And, naturally, the kids should be involved as well. Recommended questions at the kids table:

We should also bring in new symbols to our holiday gatherings. Beyond lights, candles, and other common decorations, here are how the wokest among us symbolize the holidays:

NAE is no stranger to delving into virtually every left-wing political issue, far beyond the teaching of social justice in public education. At their recent convention, NAE affirmed a new business item that reads:

“The NEA will include an assertion of our defense of a person’s right to control their own body, especially for women, youth, and sexually marginalized people. The NEA vigorously opposes all attacks on the right to choose and stands on the fundamental right to abortion under Roe v. Wade.”

This is a sharp change from prior years when they attempted to walk more of a middle ground on abotion, saying they support “reproduction freedom,” not abortion, while bragging about not spending money in regards to pro-abortion legal services.

As we have seen with the left, abortion has moved from “safe, legal, and rare,” to legal until the moment of birth and funded by taxpayers. And if you disagree with that you are evil, anti-woman, and essentially support violence against women. 

But the bigger question is, is it necessary for the NEA, or its affiliates, to take a position on abortion? NEA is certainly a left-wing organization, that has never been in doubt. But, what does abortion have to do with education or teachers? 

One might presume a rejected item that calls for a renewed emphasis on quality education would be more in line with the NEA. That read:

“The National Education Association will re-dedicate itself to the pursuit of increased student learning in every public school in America by putting a renewed emphasis on quality education. NEA will make student learning the priority of the Association. NEA will not waiver in its commitment to student learning by adopting the following lens through which we will assess every NEA program and initiative: How does the proposed action promote the development of students as lifelong reflective learners?”

But, alas, the union rejected those ideas. 

Amazon is bringing another of its distribution hubs, known as fulfillment centers, to north Mississippi and will receive $2 million in infrastructure funding and local tax breaks to do it.

The online retail giant announced this week that’ll bring the fulfillment center to Olive Branch that will eventually employ 500 workers.

According to Mississippi Development Authority spokesperson Melissa Scallan, taxpayers will provide $2 million in road improvements for the facility. Also, Desoto county will negotiate a fee-in-lieu agreement for the project which will likely involve the fulfillment center’s property taxes. 

According to the release from the MDA, the million-square-foot warehouse will ship large customer items such as sports equipment, patio furniture, kayaks and bicycles.

“This announcement serves as a shining example to industry leaders around the globe that Mississippi plays to win,” Gov. Phil Bryant said in an MDA news release. “We offer a supportive business climate and integrated transportation network so companies with shipping needs, such as Amazon, can reach their customers in rapid time and remain a step ahead of their competition.”

Some of the other taxpayer-funded economic development projects in Desoto county include:

From 2012 to 2017, taxpayers have spent $678 million in just MDA grants alone from 2012 to 2017.

Select incentives for a few may generate headlines or photo-ops, but it does not generate sustained economic growth. 

Economic development policy really means the state picking the winners and losers by employing direct subsidies and tax breaks to attract or promote specific businesses or industries. An authentic effort to grow our economy would not focus on giving targeted companies the assistance and resources without providing those to all companies and industries. 

It is not fair to the current companies in Mississippi, who built their businesses without government help, to find themselves competing with companies subsidized by taxpayers. For too long, Mississippi has followed a policy that supposes “economic development” can be a meaningful driver of economic well-being in the state. It cannot. That policy is a losing one.

The evidence produced from analysis points convincingly to the conclusion that these targeted incentives do not produce long-term benefits in excess of their costs. In many cases, the cost-per-job is extraordinarily high. While some high-profile companies and their political allies may be better off, non-beneficiary companies may lose workers or experience wage increases, or both, and the state’s economic activity as a whole slows.

When political favor seeking is emphasized like this, it thwarts the private sector and tips the scales in favor of those companies and individuals with access to political relationships. It sends a message to the private sector that it should not focus on consumer-oriented actions, like product/service innovation or marketing, and focus resources instead on lobbying, legal representation, and elections. That’s not a recipe for sustained economic growth.

And we should also acknowledge the opportunity costs of corporate welfare. By eliminating corporate welfare, Mississippi, and every state in the nation with income taxes, could reduce their personal and corporate income taxes for everyone. Or, the money that is sent to select industries could instead be used for infrastructure, healthcare, education, law enforcement, or other basic functions of government. 

Rather than increase the hand of government in our economy, we should trust the “invisible hand” of the marketplace and the proven incentive of profit and loss for the allocation of resources. 

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