Few policy reforms have been as popular as welfare-to-work. Why, then, is the U.S. Senate trying to kill state efforts at encouraging able-bodied adults to get a job?

Welfare-to-work was one of the signature policy wins of the 1990s, resulting in the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act.

The legislation was signed by President Bill Clinton, after being shepherded through Congress by House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, who recognized welfare had become a trap for many Americans.

The two most important features of the federal law were time limits on how long recipients could remain on welfare and work requirements for those on welfare. Both of these reforms were targeted at able-bodied, working-age adults on cash assistance (TANF) and food stamps (SNAP).

The positive impact of federal welfare reform is well documented. A 2004 report by the left-of-center Brookings Institution states: “The welfare-to-work objective was predicated on a simple proposition: poor families are better off employed than on welfare.

Jobs are the best antidote to poverty. The work requirements have helped increase the employment rate of single mothers, lowering welfare dependency and child poverty.”

In particular, poverty rates for black children reached an all-time low.

In spite of its immense success and popularity, the temptation to reverse federal welfare-to-work and related reforms has been unrelenting. Even though he signed PRWORA, Clinton crafted an expansive waiver process that had already started to undo some of PRWORA’s gains by the time he left office.

President George W. Bush not only failed to reign in the waiver process, he oversaw passage of the 2002 Farm Bill (in his defense, he vetoed the 2008 Farm Bill), which loosened food stamp requirements even more, including opening up the program to noncitizens.

Then, beginning in 2009, the Obama administration used the Great Recession in an attempt to unilaterally–and thus illegally–dismantle TANF work requirements.

To say the least, the waiver process under the Obama administration was not transparent.

As late as 2013, no state had even formally applied for a TANF work waiver. Instead, regional offices pressured state welfare agencies to accept various waivers, allowing longstanding policies to be overturned with a single email. Most state lawmakers, and some governors, were unaware that their human services departments had even requested such waivers.

The results soon became evident. Whereas only 12 states had obtained statewide permission to waive food stamp work requirements before Obama took office in 2009, two years later 47 states were waiving food stamp work requirements.

This stampede was aided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which also suspended the work requirement nationwide for two years (2009 and 2010). Food stamp participation rates–and food stamp spending–skyrocketed, with spending doubling under the Obama administration, even as it had already doubled under Bush.

With food stamp spending hitting $80 billion in 2013, lawmakers in conservative states started ringing the alarm bell.

Kansas was one of the first states not to renew its waiver. In doing so, Kansas merely reverted to what the 1996 welfare reform law actually says–that able-bodied adults without children are only eligible for food stamps for three months every three years.

After three months, these adults have to find work, volunteer, or obtain job training in order to remain on welfare. Kansas tracked what happened to those able-bodied adults who cycled off their state rolls. Almost two-thirds obtained employment within a year, many finding permanent well-paying jobs in a variety of industries. Other quality-of-life measures, like marriage rates, also increased.

Here in Mississippi, the poorest state in America, lawmakers first started pressuring for change in 2015. In 2016, Gov. Phil Bryant declined to renew Mississippi’s waiver. And in 2017, the legislature codified that Mississippi could not waive federal work requirements for SNAP.

The $867 billion Farm Bill (H.R.2) just passed by the U.S. Senate threatens to undo this reform for Mississippi, as well as Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia. The subterfuge was accomplished by deleting 7 U.S.C. 2015(o) and moving the work requirement to 7 U.S.C. 2015(d). This occurs on p. 295 and pp. 326-327 of the 1,242-page Senate bill and is a textbook illustration of why it is bad practice to amend laws by reference without indicating what is being changed.

At best, the substitution creates unnecessary confusion. At worst, the result for Mississippi and the aforementioned states is to invalidate their state laws that specifically cite subsection 2015(o) in eliminating the work requirement waiver.

It is tempting to believe the Senate didn’t realize that in the back and forth of crafting the Farm Bill it might be gutting state efforts at helping able-bodied adults find work. Given the tendency of past Farm Bills to expand welfare eligibility, the artful deletion seems intentional.

This assumption is buttressed by the Senate’s tabling of a floor amendment aimed at reforming the food stamp waiver process altogether. In any event, the offending language needs to be fixed now that the Farm Bill is headed to conference.

As demonstrated in a new study by the Employment Policies Institute, more generous welfare entitlements lead to more poverty and more people on welfare.

Whatever the benefits of a targeted and limited safety net for families in crisis, able-bodied adults should be expected to work. Allowing these folks to remain on food stamps indefinitely is personally and socially destructive.

It is immoral that the U.S. Senate is not only doing nothing to free people from the welfare trap, it is also trying to stop states from doing so themselves.

This column appeared in the Daily Signal on July 6, 2018. 

Conservatism is a word I’ve heard a lot since moving here to take the position as CEO of Mississippi’s conservative think tank, the Mississippi Center for Public Policy. It seems almost everyone considers himself a conservative. I’m discovering the word has lost some of its meaning, though. It has become interchangeable with the GOP or with one’s views on the Second Amendment or on being pro-life. But those definitions of conservative are not wholly accurate. More importantly, they’re not enough. A conservative is also willing to stand up to encroaching power of all forms of government, to the growing corporatism that seeks to govern us from the boardroom, and to the menace to our society that is a progressive culture.

To make Mississippi a leader in economic growth, entrepreneurship, job creation, and prosperity, we have to make progress on the issue of our long-standing dependence on government. We have to change our public policy. We need to value work, remove barriers to risk-taking, free parents to choose the education path that works for their own children, and leverage the power of the private enterprises of faith, family, non-profits, and private organizations. The faith-based and philanthropic generosity of Mississippians is amazing. It can create so much good, but we have to prevent government from competing with this philanthropy. The best solutions in civil society come from local, efficient, effective, temporary actions where a personal relationship ensures mutual accountability. This is how we used to solve the problems in our civil society.

There are far too many Mississippians who seek to petition government to do this work. Worse, too many individuals and companies are looking to the government for a contract, a job, a partner, or protection from competition. When we allow government to become the Holy Grail in this way, we weaken the free market. We create a disincentive to the formation and deployment of capital. We thwart the opportunity for all Mississippians to prosper. What’s more, such reliance on government ensures only those with power have significant influence on Mississippi, including determining who represents us in the legislative and executive branches of our government.

What makes a “conservative” is not a party or allegiance to a particular leader or political campaign, but the power of ideas. As conservatives, our ideas are based on bedrock values and fundamental truths. Freedom is a policy that works. A limited and restrained government is the essence of our system. And the principle of ordered liberty holds it all together. Our goal at the Mississippi Center for Public Policy is to play a leadership role in building a Mississippi where individual liberty, opportunity, and responsibility reign because government is limited. We believe this is the only way nations, states, and cities have ever enjoyed durable prosperity.

If we remain committed to these ideas and work hard to convince others of their value, we can all experience a Magnolia renaissance. And we can say conservatism made it possible. Real conservatism. The kind of which Bill Buckley, Ronald Reagan, and Milton Friedman spoke. The kind where we are free to pursue our individual liberty and speak our minds. The kind where we encourage people to take action and take risks in pursuit of their happiness. The kind where we take personal responsibility for our futures and stop looking for government to solve all of our problems.

There is an important role for government but it must be limited. Government functions best when it is closest to the people and when it is open and transparent. And the states are the best avenue for getting things done. Although our national government continues to grow into an unwieldy and bureaucratic swamp, our country is still federalist. We are a collection of semi-sovereign states. Federalism is a conservative idea. As Reagan stated in his first inaugural address, “The federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government.” Thanks to our founding fathers, the real political and policy power is supposed to belong to the states.

Though I’ve lived in Mississippi for only a few months now, I’ve come to learn that y’all are not very fond of people telling you what to do, especially not people in Washington, D.C. I admire that. That’s a conservative thing, too. That independence goes to the heart of the conservative movement. It was present at our founding. It was what compelled Bill Buckley to start National Review. It was what gave us Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. And if we harness it, conservatism will lead us to a prosperous Mississippi—a Mississippi where individual liberty, opportunity, and responsibility reign because government is limited.

The remaining Toys-R-Us stores closed last week ending an era of retail shopping in America. Many were saddened to see the large retailer collapse, but as long as we have had stores in this country, we have had stores that go out of business.

Before Toys-R-Us entered our malls and shopping centers, we had independent toy stores. They couldn’t compete with the large chain and today you see very few independent toy stores, outside of specialized stores in specific locations.

But the reaction to Toys-R-Us closing was a little different than we usually see for these types of announcements. Driven by nostalgia, we saw people shed tears- either real or virtual- about the news. We even saw someone set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise $1 billion.

GoFundMe and nostalgia simply weren’t enough to save the giraffe.

If people were that concerned about Toys-R-Us, there is one very important thing they should have been doing for a long time: shopping there. As happens in a free market economy, the markets change. Toys-R-Us did not adapt and they failed. No different than any other number of businesses.

But we always have to blame someone. That use to be Wal Mart. Today it is Amazon. They are the reason small towns are dying. Why shops downtown are boarded up. Why local governments aren’t receiving enough tax revenue to pave their roads or fund schools. The list could go on for days.

Blaming someone else is the easy thing to do. But the market always chooses the winners. American consumers are, and should be, free to shop for the best options available. In the end, Toys-R-Us missed on a number of key business trends in consumer shopping behavior.

They weren’t competitive with competitors, brick and mortar or online

A very basic rule to retail: you need to be competitive to survive. Toys-R-Us simply did not match their brick-and-mortar competitors like Wal Mart or Target on pricing. Add in the fact that you can also get groceries or household items at those stores and there was no real reason to visit multiple stores when you could complete your shopping in one location. Something that is especially appealing to mom’s with young children.

But Toys-R-Us, as well as Babies-R-Us, had a larger selection than their competitors in the store some might say. That was a bonus if you needed an item at that very moment. However, you can find those same items online either from Wal Mart and Target, or an online retailer like Amazon. And you can receive them in a day or two, with free shipping. Toys-R-Us didn’t seem to grasp the digital trend until it was too late. Again, they just weren’t competitive.

To truly understand how uncompetitive they were on pricing, you needed only to visit a Toys-R-Us or Babies-R-Us during their liquidation sales before closing. At 30 or 40 percent off, they were about on par with their competition.

They didn’t set themselves apart from their competition

The brick-and-mortar advantage is that people can touch and feel items before they buy. We certainly purchase tablets and computers online, but we also like to be able to go to a Best Buy and put our hands on a keyboard or our fingers on a screen- and maybe seek a sales adviser for some expert guidance.

Save for the joy of riding bikes down the aisles, there was nothing that set Toys-R-Us apart. The stores were often cluttered, the experience wasn’t enjoyable, and they certainly were not known for their customer service.

You need to be competitive in pricing, but you also need a niche. Simply selling toys is no longer a niche. Toys-R-Us didn’t do anything to set themselves apart. A joyful customer experience was not part a customer’s average visit to Toys-R-Us.

Kids are seeking digital options, rather than traditional toys

The other part of this story is that the market for toys has changed. As much as we may or may not like to hear it, kids today prefer digital options such as tablets or video games. If you are in the business of selling products for children, you need to adapt. Especially in an environment that is becoming more and more competitive each day.

Some might feel sad that Toys-R-Us closed. Some of us might think back to our childhood. But consumers voted with their feet. They chose convenience. They chose lower prices. They chose independent, niche toy stores. Unfortunately for Toys-R-Us, that means the market chose someone else.

When all is said and done, nostalgia or a catch phrase will only get you so far. The market always determines the winner…and the loser.

Mississippi has a recidivism problem that’s jeopardizing public safety and burdening taxpayers. As of 2013, the Magnolia State had the nation’s third-highest incarceration rate per capita. What’s more, research suggests that around 95 percent of Mississippi’s enormous prison population will eventually be freed. And, unfortunately, around three quarters of those released will likely reoffend within five years.

There are policies, however, that can be implemented to help reverse this trend. Researchers have demonstrated that the formerly incarcerated are more likely to return to crime if they cannot find stable employment upon release. But many employers will not hire or even interview someone with a criminal record regardless of their crime, which often leads to long-term unemployment for these individuals. In fact, surveys suggest that 60-75 percent of the formerly incarcerated are jobless up to a year after their release.

Consequently, several states have enacted “second chance” legislation to better these individuals’ odds of landing decent jobs. “Second chance” measures aim to address the unemployment issue by enabling the formerly incarcerated to expunge their records of petty, first-time offenses. Mississippi should similarly strive to remove barriers to employment for these individuals.

Mississippi already has a program that allows certain first-time offenders to petition the court to seal their criminal records. However, these individuals aren’t permitted to have their records expunged under this program if they have been convicted of a misdemeanor traffic offense, such as a DUI. Considering that at least 1 percent of drivers are arrested for DUIs each year, an inordinate number of people are struggling to find gainful employment due to a one-time DUI offense.

DUIs and similar low-level traffic offenses ought to be treated the same as other misdemeanors for the purposes of the first-offender program. Mississippi could follow Texas’ lead in this regard by allowing first-time DUI offenders who registered a 0.14 blood alcohol content or lower to petition for expungement.

Individuals are also ineligible for first-time offender-status — and therefore cannot have their criminal records sealed — if they have been convicted of specific, nonviolent felonies, including many drug crimes. Nationally, 16 percent of inmates are imprisoned due to drug-related crimes. While it isn’t entirely clear how many of these are first-time-offenders, this statistic shows that a large number of individuals could benefit from a fresh start. Mississippi should therefore append more non-violent drug crimes to the list of expungement-eligible offenses.

Also, in many cases, Mississippians who were over 21 years old at the time of their offense are precluded from having their records sealed. Like juveniles, adults over the age of 21 make mistakes and deserve a second chance after their first violation. As a result, Mississippi ought to include more of those who were over 21 years old at the time of their crime into its first-time-offender program.

Even when offenders actually qualify to have their records sealed, they can’t request an expungement until five years after they have completed their sentence. By that point, many of the formerly incarcerated have already been dealing with criminal background-related joblessness. Like Texas, Mississippi ought to avail the first-time-offender program to individuals immediately upon their completion of court requirements to enable them to quickly obtain work.

Mississippi’s occupational licensing system also impacts formerly-incarcerated individuals’ ability to find employment. Like most states, Mississippi requires state licenses for myriad jobs. While most licenses don’t have strict criminal background requirements, many boards can reject applications based on prior convictions, thereby preventing people from working. Rather than allowing this, the state ought to permit boards to only consider convictions directly related to their industry and allow prospective employers to decide whether they wish to hire someone with a record.

Finally, each of these reforms should be applied retroactively in order to provide past offenders the same second chance as present ones.

Mississippi’s current law is clearly fraught with limitations and desperately needs updating. These proposed measures should not be misinterpreted as being soft on crime. Rather, they are about giving first-time offenders an opportunity to become productive citizens after they’ve been prosecuted and punished for their crimes. These reforms are simply smart public policies. They can decrease the number of formerly-incarcerated people whom Mississippians financially support through various entitlement programs. Further, these reforms would reduce recidivism rates, benefiting the general public with a safer society and reduced tax burden.

Work gives people purpose and contributes to a stronger economy and civil society.

A prospering Mississippi requires putting as many individuals to work as possible. Let’s give the formerly incarcerated the chance to become employed, productive members of society.

This column appeared in the Clarion Ledger on June 24, 2018.

Much has been written lately about how sports gambling is going to lead to the downfall of man, the decay of society, and the loss of the integrity of sports. As the late Lewis Grizzard would say, “That’s a bunch of hogwash.”

What the Supreme Court did in voting 6-3 to overturn the federal ban on sports gambling was to give back to the states their constitutional powers.

In affirming federalism, they also gave people back their rights to choose how they want to live and whether they want to spend their own after-tax money on a sports bet, a municipal bond, or a ham sandwich. No matter how you personally feel about gambling on sports, it’s a mistake to take away a person’s individual liberty just because some people will be irresponsible.

Now that power to regulate gambling has been returned to all the states, there are more than a few organizations making spurious arguments about the need for all sorts of remedies to potential harms. The sports leagues have started to campaign for a “content fee” from each state. The argument is that their team and league intellectual property will be used by various sports gambling sites, apps, media, and other related entities. Ironically, such increased use of the “content” of the leagues’ and teams’ logos and trademarks is actually going to make the the leagues and teams more valuable, along with the rights to distribute their live programming. The states shouldn’t agree to pay a penny to a sports league.

The other specious claim is that sports gambling will seriously threaten the integrity of the games. You’ll hear this especially from the NFL and the NCAA. But rather than seeing legal sports betting as the enemy of sports competition, we should see it as an ally to protect sports. Using powerful algorithms, sports leagues (the NCAA included) can use sports wagering technology as an “early warning system” to uncover potential signs of corruption. Major data companies, including Google and Microsoft, have been developing technologies to aid in the operation of legal sports betting for years. Thanks to the free market, sophisticated software and innovative competitors will harness technology to improve the integrity of all the games.

The repeal of the federal prohibition on sports wagering is bringing a massive industry out of the shadows and into the sunlight. Despite the ban, which began with the passing Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in 1992, annual sports betting activity in the U.S. is estimated to be as high as $400 billion. Since the enactment of PASPA, which was largely driven by the NCAA as a way to prevent gambling on sports, the industry has grown by a factor of 10. Like most federal intrusions into state matters or consumer protection, the results of PAPSA were far different from the original intent.

Most of that betting was happening offshore or through the dark net — without transparency or consumer protection. According to the estimates from the American Gaming Association, 80 percent of the $10 billion bet on the NCAA tournament this past March and April was done illegally, essentially making anyone who participated in the bracket office pool a criminal.

For 26 years, we’ve been living under a dubious set of claims about sports wagering while Nevada and a few other states enjoyed a federal monopoly. In Mississippi, where I now live and work, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians is planning to have the first casino in the Magnolia State to offer sports betting. What’s more, they expect to be the first Native American tribe in the U.S. to offer sports wagering. Because the Choctaw tribe is not subject to state regulation, they are free to offer sports betting to customers immediately.

In Mississippi, and in other states in need of new revenue streams, the regulated casinos will not be far behind. That’s because Mississippi lawmakers had the foresight to approve new rules from the state’s Gaming Commission in anticipation of a repeal of PAPSA.

Why should Nevada and a few other states have all the fun (and all the tax revenue) associated with letting people legally pursue their interests and hobbies? The games will be fine, and individuals will have the personal liberty (and responsibility) that comes along with it.

This column appeared in the Washington Examiner on June 22, 2018. 

The Tupelo city council is considering regulating food trucks in the city but not for reasons you may suspect.

It is not because the food trucks are unclean. It is not because they are unsafe. There hasn’t been any report of a massive wave of citizens becoming ill after enjoying a meal from a local food truck.

And the food trucks aren’t operating illegally. They still go through the same health and safety regulations of a traditional restaurant.

According to a recent article in The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, city leaders are looking to regulate food trucks as part of an effort to protect brick-and-mortar restaurants within the city limits.

Picking winners and losers

The food trucks are simply competition, and apparently the city of Tupelo is interested in favoring one type of industry over another.

We all agree that there are general standards than any business that is serving food must meet. That is already being done in Tupelo. No cities, however, should be in the business of saying you must be located a certain distance from an established restaurant. Or you can only have food trucks for certain special events or weekends.

City leaders should encourage food trucks. They should be proud that food trucks want to be in their city. A look around any growing or dynamic city across the country will show an emerging food truck sector. That should be celebrated, not overregulated.

This is about more than food trucks

We should be encouraging people to become entrepreneurs. To follow their passion. This extends beyond just food trucks and touches every area of our economy.

Too often government leaders just think about what already exists or what is already providing a tax revenue. And then we feel threatened if competition rises up. As anyone who has ever been part of the private sector will tell you, competition is a good thing. Businesses grow (or fail). And consumers win.

The reason taxis have fought Uber or Lyft is not because you or I can’t drive people to where they want to go. Picking someone up at the airport and driving them to a hotel is not some proprietary work that an untrained professional cannot do. Rather, it is monopoly one sector of an industry had. They lost that monopoly because, like all monopolies, innovation, risk taking, and customer service was absent from the taxi industry.

Rather than get better or more competitive, monopolies reach out to the government to protect them. We saw this when the ridesharing economy was born and expanded. We have seen it with the homesharing economy. We see it with food trucks. And I am certain we will see it in other areas of our economy in the future.

Unfortunately, as we have witnessed in almost every case, the government mindset has been to overregulate and protect what it is already there. To choose winners and losers.

That should not be the job of government. That should be the job of the individual citizens. Because if they don’t like what food trucks in Tupelo are providing, the market will decide who the winners and losers are. We don’t go to government websites to choose which restaurant or hotel we will visit. We go to peer review sites or apps.

Encouraging entrepreneurship and letting the market decide is the answer that Tupelo’s city council should be choosing. It works in cities all across America. And it will work in Tupelo if government leaders will just let the citizens decide for themselves.

Last week the U.S. Supreme Court issued perhaps its most important opinion of this term in a case called Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The ruling struck a blow for tolerance in America.

That last sentence will come as a surprise to my liberal friends.

A little background if you haven’t heard of the case: In Masterpiece, the plaintiff was Jack Phillips, an expert cake baker and devout Christian. For years Jack ran his store, Masterpiece Cakeshop, and made elaborate, beautiful cakes for weddings and other special occasions. His cakes are works of art. If you don’t believe me, visit his website, masterpiececakes.com, to see for yourself.

In 2012, two gay customers entered Jack’s store and asked Jack to design and bake a cake for their same-sex wedding. Jack said he would gladly bake a cake for the two of them for any other reason, but his religious convictions prevented him from baking a cake for a gay wedding. The couple then filed a discrimination complaint against Jack, claiming he violated a Colorado law which bans discrimination based on sexual orientation. Jack showed that he had happily served gay customers before, and that he did not refuse to serve people based on their sexual orientation, but instead simply refused to participate in a ceremony that conflicted with his faith.

The State of Colorado found Jack in violation of the statute. During the hearing on the matter, Colorado officials compared Jack’s arguments to arguments for slavery and the Holocaust. The government ruled Jack had to reverse his store’s policy, and store employees had to undergo reeducation about the harm they had allegedly caused.

Jack decided he would not be steamrolled, though. He took the matter to court, arguing that Colorado had taken away his First Amendment rights. He endured years of public criticism for standing up for himself and his store. His case eventually wound its way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in Jack’s favor, 7 to 2.

The Court said Colorado acted in a hostile way during Jack’s hearing. They said Colorado was inconsistent, too. Colorado allowed gay cake bakers, for instance, to deny service to customers who wanted a message on a cake that was hostile to same-sex marriage. But when it came to Jack, Colorado insisted that he make cakes for gay weddings.

The Court made the right call when it ruled in Jack’s favor. The Court prevented a world where a black wedding photographer could be forced to take photos at the wedding of a white supremacist, or a Jewish cake baker could be forced to work for an anti-Semite. Artists shouldn’t be forced to speak messages that conflict with their views.

The case has a long list of other consequences, too, and some of them are local. Mississippi passed a bill not long ago called HB 1523, which protects the religious liberty rights of Mississippians who oppose same-sex marriage. HB 1523 already led to one lawsuit, which was thrown out, and I predict it will generate more litigation. While the Court in Masterpiece did not speak directly to a statute like ours, its statement that “religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views” could help the state defend HB 1523.

The far more important consequence, though, is the signal this ruling sends to society. To be sure, Masterpiece involves an emotional issue for many. America is still a nation divided on the question of gay marriage. I have many close friends and even family who disagree with my views on the matter. Those disagreements have taken on an ugly form in the last few years. People of faith who have a particular understanding of marriage are called bigots and publicly shamed.

This volatile disagreement is just as much a product of a cultural divide as it is an ideological one. People feel that entertainers, media personalities, giant corporations (Bud Light even tells me to believe in gay marriage now), and others located in a few, elite zip codes enforce a code of beliefs, and if you violate the code on this issue, you may as well be a defender of Jim Crow. In short, people feel bulldozed over what they believe.

It can be hard to be a person of faith in such an environment. We must show others that a person can believe in traditional marriage and also believe all human beings have dignity and worth. But if you cannot convince them of that, you have to be willing to fight for your views.

For those of us willing to fight, we found help from an unexpected source this week: nine lawyers in robes in Washington, DC.

This column appeared in the Clarion Ledger on June 12, 2018. 

Memo to activist CEOs: Dust off your notes, open your textbooks, and reread the basics of corporate finance taught at every credible university. The fiduciary responsibility of a CEO is to safeguard the company’s assets and acknowledge this overriding principle: “It’s not our money but that of the shareholders.”

In today’s heated political climate, some executives have rejected the fundamentals in favor of short-term publicity for themselves and their corporations. When several CEOs quickly resigned over the past few days from the now-disbanded White House Council on Manufacturing, they cited personal views or political disagreement as their reason for leaving. Those may be truthful reasons, but are they in the best interests of the companies they represent? Wouldn’t shareholders be better off with their interests represented in this powerful group of government officials who control regulatory policy?

Some might call Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier’s decision to resign from the council brave, but his company would have gained a significant competitive advantage from retaining its seat on the council. Shareholders may have legitimate questions about the risk of Mr. Frazier’s bravery. And if high-profile CEOs have the authority to take such risks, should they bear responsibility for any long-term damage to shareholder value? We say yes.

Target Corp. shareholders have watched helplessly since last year as another case of political posturing played out in North Carolina, where we work and live. Target’s activist CEO, Brian Cornell, responded to the state’s contentious House Bill 2, also known as the bathroom law, by announcing a new “inclusive” bathroom policy in April 2016. What were the results? Plummeting sales due to a widespread boycott, an erosion of market share and, most important, a 40% drop in Target’s stock price between April 2016 and July 2017. That devastation equated to a $20 billion loss of shareholder value while the market rose 15% in that same period.

For the owners of the company—the thousands of small shareholders and the millions of Americans whose pension plans own Target stock—this performance did not affect their annual incomes, but it affected their life savings and retirement. They got sucker-punched. They should punch back.

When shareholders suffer damages at the hands of corporate management, they can pursue one of two legal remedies: class-action suits, in which multiple plaintiffs belonging to a defined “class” join a suit seeking compensation, or shareholder derivative lawsuits, in which company managers are sued on behalf of all shareholders. Take your pick, Target shareholders. Willful and controversial CEO activism shouldn’t be viewed any differently from malfeasance or bad policies. They all reek of leadership malpractice.

In the landmark 1919 case Dodge v. Ford, the Michigan Supreme Court laid out the ruling that has guided corporate America ever since. Ford Motor Co. must make decisions in the interests of its shareholders, the court ruled, rather than in a charitable manner. The case is often cited as affirming the principle of “shareholder primacy.” The ruling affirmed a wide latitude in running a company, but also noted “a corporation should have as its objective the conduct of business activities with a view to enhancing corporate profit and shareholder gain.”

Did Mr. Cornell really see a rational link between shareholder gain and Target’s inclusive bathroom policy? When Howard Schultz of Starbucks decides to take away Christmas cups or hire refugees as a challenge to President Trump, and the stock fares miserably compared with its competition, do the coffee chain’s 24,000 small shareholders have the right to sue? Again, we say yes.

Justin Danhof, general counsel for the National Center for Public Policy Research, travels the country to attend shareholder meetings of public corporations. According to Mr. Danhof, “activism is driven by the CEOs’ belief that progressive ideas are popular among media and that good public relations follows those who espouse those views.” This might explain why 127 companies signed on to oppose Mr. Trump’s immigration executive order or why 68 companies opposed North Carolina’s HB2—even before enough information was available to understand either.

Our message to small shareholders of companies like Starbucks, Merck and Target: You can sue when a CEO decides to institute a corporate social-responsibility program that has no benefit to the business. If you want to ensure shareholder primacy is protected, keep your legal options open.

This column appeared in the Wall Street Journal on August 18, 2017.

After watching "The Masters" recently, I realized how much professional golf is like the free market.

Think about it. Golfers compete in one of the only major sports that does not use a socialistic design to ensure outcomes. There are no salaries, just winnings. You cannot guarantee outcomes in golf, only opportunities. The pay in pro golf is in direct proportion to a player's willingness to practice, prepare, and compete. Win or make cuts and you earn; miss cuts and you find a new profession or become a teaching pro. A golfer can decide not to play in a particular tournament or to play in every one, but the decision and consequence belongs to the golfer. No team plane takes golfers to tournaments; no team hotel rooms and meals are arranged and paid for; no team trainer wakes the golfer up and tells him where to be and when.

Golf is the ultimate in personal responsibility. And you can probably already tell golfers are my favorite athletes.

Many people believe pro golfers were born with a silver spoon and have not really "worked" to earn their economic status. They just walk around and hit a ball, they say. And they had to be rich to learn the sport in the first place.

The critics are wrong, though. It’s kind of the way many on the Left believe most high-earners and achievers somehow found their success on the backs of others rather than through schooling, dedication, sacrifice, discipline, talent, and time.

If you want proof the Left is wrong on golf, look at Arnie and Tiger. They’re arguably two of the best players in the history of the game. They’re certainly two of the biggest earners. Both were raised in working class families, not posh neighborhoods. They took advantage of their opportunities. They proved that, in this country, you have the opportunity to do and be just about anything if you are willing to put in the work and take the risk.

You know what else? Pro golfers, The Masters, the PGA, and other professional golf organizations are the biggest contributors to charity in all of professional sports. It isn't even close. More evidence that private enterprise and private citizens can do valuable and measurable things without government assistance.

If only we could govern the nation in such a limited way.

Golf is a beautiful example of an efficient, free-market system. The players respect the game, they respect the players who came before them, and they respect the amateurs and fans who keep the sport healthy. They wear their shirts tucked in, their hats on straight, and they shake hands with their competitors at the conclusion of the match—win, lose, or draw. America's children (and more than a few adults) could learn a lot from the game of golf.

Jon L. Pritchett (@tobaccoroadguy) is president and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, the state’s non-partisan, free-market think tank. Prior to joining MCPP, Jon was senior vice president of the John Locke Foundation. He also worked as an investment banker, executive, and entrepreneur over a 28-year career in private business. His opinions have been published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Washington Examiner, The Federalist, the Foundation for Economic Education, and many local newspapers.