Mississippi's Legislature took a little-noticed but very important step this session in amending the law to make it easier for our residents to get jobs. With the vision of an independent group headed by Federal District Judge Keith Starrett, and the hard work of Rep. Andy Gipson and Sen. Sean Tindell, the Legislature addressed a number of provisions in the state criminal code that have, over the years, prevented people from gaining or keeping jobs and prevented employers from hiring the people they need.
House Bill 1033 is a significant piece of legislation that helps individuals who have committed misdemeanors and other nonviolent crimes, as well as certain people leaving prison, reenter the workforce. The goal of HB 1033 is to remove barriers to employment that exist in the criminal code. Whenever possible, it's in the best interest of Mississippi for those who are incarcerated to become law-abiding, productive, taxpaying members of the workforce. The bill accomplishes these goals with several provisions.
First, it encourages recently released offenders to pay off the fees and fines they owe to the state. It reduces our reliance on incarceration for those who are unable to pay fees and fines, while providing judges the ability to establish payment plans and punish those who willfully choose not to pay. The bill promotes work by ensuring that inmates have opportunities to work off their debts while incarcerated.
Second, it moves more eligible individuals back into the workforce. The bill provides the state's Parole Board with additional discretion to grant parole to nonviolent offenders who are a low risk to public safety and good candidates for employment. The Parole Board, which is appointed by the governor, would maintain discretion about which individuals are good candidates, and monitor and supervise them as they return to the community. House Bill 1033 provides them additional tools to supervise individuals, with the goal of improving the quality of supervision and public safety. These provisions will also protect taxpayers by saving the state more than $20 million in incarceration costs, in addition to boosting tax revenue generated by increased employment.
Finally, the bill creates several avenues for research and reporting. All of the decisions about how to implement these reforms is guided by data and statistical evidence to support its effectiveness. This bill furthers those interests by gathering better information on sentencing and incarceration. This information will be vital to guide the state's criminal justice policies going forward.
The Legislature supported this bill overwhelmingly, and it passed both the House and the Senate unanimously. Gipson deserves enormous credit for his authorship of the bill and his leadership on this issue. House Bill 1033 is a step forward for public safety, accountability in state spending, and data-driven policymaking for the state of Mississippi. We urge Gov. Bryant to sign HB 1033 so that Mississippi can continue to lead the way in criminal justice reform and increase employment in our state.
By Mike Hurst
Recently, while most Mississippians were busy working, raising families and just trying to get by, the state of Mississippi held a little noticed hearing to consider imposing taxes on a significantly larger number of our residents. This occurred after the Mississippi Legislature had already left town, leaving no opportunity for our elected officials to publicly debate this important issue at the state Capitol or cast votes on it. Rather, as has unfortunately become a fact of life in our day and age, unelected bureaucrats in a state government agency, with little fanfare and even less explanation, began a process to expand regulations that will require many Mississippians to pay more taxes with minimal public input and even less accountability.
A few months ago, the Mississippi Department of Revenue filed a notice with the Secretary of State's Office, signaling that DOR would be amending several of its existing regulations. One of these revised regulations would expand the definition of hotels and motels to include rooms in people's homes, as listed on popular internet websites like Airbnb or VRBO. Another proposed DOR regulation expanded the application of local tourism taxes.
These regulatory changes proposed by DOR come on the heels of another recent attempt by DOR earlier this year to require out-of-state companies to collect taxes on sales made to Mississippians over the internet, despite the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court has clearly stated this is illegal and DOR's own commissioner has admitted that what DOR is doing is "probably unconstitutional."
State law requires DOR to timely notify the public of proposed rule changes. DOR did not do so. State law also requires DOR to issue a statement showing the impact of proposed rules on the economy. Again, DOR failed to do so. State agencies are required by law to prepare such economic impact statements when adopting significant amendments to existing regulations. However, in the 11 years since such statements have been required, DOR has never issued one!
The most troubling aspect of all of these proposed regulations is that DOR's actions represent a trampling of the doctrine of separation of powers in our form of government. This unelected bureaucracy is unconstitutionally commandeering authority from our legislative branch to make laws, rather than simply implementing them.
Regarding DOR's proposed tax on people's homes, bills were introduced in both houses of the Legislature during the 2017 legislative session to change the definition of hotel and motel under the local tourism tax to include short-term rentals of residential properties.
None of these bills became law.
Despite our elected representatives choosing not to change the law, this unelected state agency is now attempting to legislate by regulation. The same thing happened with internet taxation, as the Legislature considered and rejected changes to state law to allow DOR to tax out-of-state sellers like Amazon. Again, notwithstanding our elected officials opting not to enact such a law, DOR is proceeding with regulations to do it anyway.
This silent and gradual encroachment into our lives by an unelected and unaccountable Fourth Branch of government is deeply troubling for our form of government and the future of liberty. This governing by regulation is not what our founders intended, not what was written into the Constitution, and not what our government was built upon. Our elected officials need to step up and put a stop to this regulatory tyranny. But we the people also need to let our voices be heard by getting more involved in the rule-making process and challenging bad rules in court.
The only way unaccountable agencies are going to change is if we make them do so.
By Dr. Jameson Taylor
Every year my aunt sends me $5 worth of lottery tickets for my birthday. One year I won $2; another year $1; this year, I won an additional ticket, which also proved a loser. The closest I have come to recouping my aunt's investment is the year I won $4. I was thrilled, but not as thrilled as I would have been had she sent me cash instead. I just don't have the heart to tell her that her birthday present is little more than a tax receipt printed on fancy, scratch-off paper.
A lottery is only good for one thing: concealing the creation of a new tax. We've all heard the stories of how much revenue a lottery could generate. Governments generate revenue in essentially three ways: taxes, fees and fines. According to the Tax Foundation, the legal definition of a tax is that its primary purpose is to raise revenue. A fee, on the other hand, is "a charge imposed for the primary purpose of recouping costs incurred in providing a service" while a fine is "imposed for the primary purpose of punishing behavior." Based on these distinctions, the Tax Foundation concludes, "The lottery is in part a tax ... the classic definition of a tax, upheld in nearly every federal and state court."
The North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries boasts that 27 cents of every $1 spent on lottery tickets goes back to the government. This payment is not to be confused with taxes generated from winnings. In other words, state-run lotteries impose a 27 percent tax on the mere act of purchasing a lottery ticket.
It is irrelevant that buying the ticket is voluntary. Taxes are imposed on all sorts of voluntary activities, ranging from using a phone to going to the movies. What is unique about a lottery is that it is a state-run monopoly on a nonessential service -- very different from natural monopolies, like water and electricity provision, with high startup costs. The purpose of the lottery monopoly is not to provide for a public need or to protect the public welfare, but to generate revenue. It's a tax.
Moreover, the lottery is a bad tax. It's inefficient, with much higher administrative costs than other forms of taxation, and it encourages nonproductive, if not downright destructive, behavior.
Let's look at a similar case: the ongoing debate over marijuana legalization. Economists believe marijuana legalization could generate billions of dollars in tax revenue. In 2016, Colorado collected $200 million in taxes on $1 billion in "legal" marijuana sales. That's a lot of money that could be used to fund roads and education. But at what cost? As with the lottery, some people would become addicts. As with the lottery, sales would drain money from other, likely somewhat more productive, purchases and activities. As with the lottery, lower-income, less educated users would consume a disproportionate share. In the case of marijuana legalization, the government would be condoning and profiting from a questionable activity. In the case of lottery legalization, the government would be initiating, advertising, promoting and bolstering a questionable activity.
While lottery advocates claim "people from all walks of life play the lottery,” they often sidestep the question of who plays the lottery most frequently. (As I mentioned, even I "play the lottery" once a year on my birthday.) Research shows that those in the lowest income bracket play 2.5 times more than everyone else and that "increased levels of lottery play are linked with ... males, blacks, Native Americans, and those who live in disadvantaged neighborhoods." A recent 10-year analysis of the New Jersey lottery confirms the typical player has a below-average income and lacks a college degree.
Those who tend to play the lottery most often, it seems, are either poor or think of themselves as poor. In this respect, the lottery is a tax on false hope. And while it may not be the government's business to tell people what or who to hope in, government shouldn't be monopolizing and encouraging such deception.
We already have enough taxes in Mississippi, and we already have enough false hopes. Let's not add anymore with a lottery.
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Honor System for Welfare Not Working
Trust, but verify. Seems like commonsense. Unfortunately, government programs are often lacking in common sense. According to the Miss. Department of Human Services, self-verification is the method used to determine eligibility for Food Stamps, also called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The director of Fraud Investigation with the department acknowledges: “The application process for SNAP is based on an ‘honor system,’ trusting that applicants truthfully submit their income and number of dependents.” It should come as no surprise that some people aren’t telling the truth about their identity or residency or income when applying for welfare, whether it be Food Stamps or Medicaid. What is surprising, unbelievable really, is that the state is not really verifying who people are, where they live, and whether they are actually in need. The result is millions of taxpayer dollars lost to fraud, waste and abuse. This is savings that could be going to help the nearly 8,000 Mississippians with disabilities and other serious needs on a waiting list for Medicaid’s Home and Community Based Services. It is savings that could be going to patch holes in our Medicaid budget, or state budget.
A bill (HB 1090) moving through the state legislature would require Miss. welfare programs to use a verification service to check for things like identity and residency. Using databases easily accessible in the private sector, this service would discover whether a Social Security number is being fraudulently used. When Illinois ran a similar audit they found 14,000 dead people on their Medicaid rolls. The eligibility review would also check things like whether someone on Mississippi Medicaid is paying property taxes in another state – a likely sign the recipient is not a Mississippi resident. It would check incarceration status and death records and immigration status – all the things any reasonable voter assumes are already being verified to protect the integrity of our welfare programs.
HB 1090 also includes commonsense reforms like expecting SNAP enrollees to cooperate with a fraud investigation. The bill would track where welfare benefits are being accessed and spent. When Maine ran such a check, they found $3.5 million worth of transactions in Florida, including hundreds of thousands of dollars in withdrawals from ATMs near Walt Disney World. When the state of Florida ran such a check, they found 3,500 of their Food Stamp recipients were also receiving Food Stamps in at least one other nearby state, including Mississippi.
Those who claim welfare fraud is not a problem in Mississippi are mistaken. It is so much of a problem that in 2015 the Mississippi Department of Human Services (DHS) was awarded a $1.9 million federal grant to help eliminate fraud. It is so much of a problem that the state auditor has found millions in questionable TANF costs and warned that the “failure to maintain supporting documentation for eligibility as well as not monitoring and reducing benefits” as required could result in the state having to repay federal funds.
Similarly, we have seen recent arrests for welfare fraud in several counties. According to news reports, DHS has been “knocking, one door at a time, looking for people who’ve applied for food stamp benefits that aren’t entitled.” Instead of going door-to-door, we can harness the power of technology to catch a good bit of that fraud with the click of a button.
It is no accident that the states most committed to a robust social safety net are also rooting out fraud most aggressively. The first state to proactively verify its Medicaid rolls was Pennsylvania, which launched its own program in 2011. They identified 160,000 ineligible welfare recipients in the first 10 months and saved the state nearly $300 million. Illinois, Minnesota, and Massachusetts soon followed. Altogether, those four states are seeing a combined savings of $1.3 billion annually. We estimate Mississippi would save $40 million annually, based on a fraud rate of 10 percent.
If we want to protect our Medicaid and other welfare programs for those who are the poorest of the poor, the disabled, the elderly, we need to eliminate fraud and waste. We owe it to all Mississippians – including those who are truly eligible to receive these benefits – to be good stewards of these programs.
Jameson Taylor, Ph.D.
Vice President for Policy, Miss. Center for Public Policy
By Forest Thigpen
To hear this commentary click here.
Governor Bryant is drawing some criticism for saying he was driven by his Christian faith to sign a particular law. Let's think about that.
All public officials have a reason for the position they take on a piece of legislation. In some cases, it's a desire to be re-elected; in other cases, they might want to reflect the majority of constituents they've heard from. But often, their votes are driven by a philosophy or ideology that reflects their understanding of the purpose of government.
The reality is that such a philosophy or ideology has been influenced by someone else. Maybe a professor in college, or a favorite philosopher or writer. Bernie Sanders, as a self-proclaimed socialist, presumably was influenced by the writings of Karl Marx.
The idea that being motivated by faith is a violation of the constitutional separation of church and state reflects a significant misunderstanding of that concept, which is a subject for another time. But today's question comes down to this: Why would it be constitutional to be influenced by Karl Marx but not by Jesus Christ?
For more on this and other principles of governing, go to GoverningByPrinciple.org.
Download the PDF of the Letter
October 27, 2016
Dr. Virginia Young, Superintendent
Newton Municipal School District
205 School Street
Newton, MS 39345
RE: Constitutional Right to Freedom of Religion
Dear Dr. Young:
My name is Mike Hurst and I am the Director of the Mississippi Justice Institute ("MJI"). We are a division of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, an independent, non-profit, public policy organization based in Jackson that works to promote and protect the concepts of free markets, limited government, and strong traditional families. MJI's mission is to represent
Mississippians whose state or federal Constitutional rights have been threatened or violated, and to defend the principles and ideals of MCPP within and throughout the courts.
I read with astonishment the October 13, 2016, letter addressed to you from an out-of-state group called the Freedom From Religion Foundation ("FFRF"), threatening legal consequences for the actions of a high school football coach baptizing one of his players.
The facts as they now stand: Newton High School football coach Ryan Smith engaged in private religious expression outside school hours, after his official duties as a coach had ended, on private property, not during a school-sponsored event, and with other individuals wishing to express their own privately-held religious beliefs. He did not request, encourage, or require anyone, including his players, to attend or participate in this private expression of his and others' religious beliefs. Under these specific circumstances, there was absolutely no constitutional violation by Coach Smith, as he, like all of us, have a First Amendment right under our Federal Constitution and a right under our Mississippi Constitution to freedom of religion.
The allegations by FFRF, taken to their logical conclusion, would prevent any school or government employee from being able to attend a church where a student also attends and prohibit that government employee from ever speaking to students or others at their church about their private religious beliefs. Such allegations are outrageous, ludicrous and in direct contravention of the religious freedoms upon which our country was founded!
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution forbids the government from "prohibiting the free exercise" of religion of private individuals. U.S. Const., Amend. I. This restriction applies to state and local governments through the Fourteenth Amendment. Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 303 (1940); Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U.S. 444, 450 (1938). In addition, the Mississippi Constitution states that "the free enjoyment of all religious sentiments and the different modes of worship shall be held sacred." Miss. Const., Art. III, Section 18 (1890). The United States Supreme Court has rejected the notion that public school employees relinquish First Amendment rights by virtue of their government employment. See Tinker v. DesMoines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 506 (1969) ("It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."); Pickering v. Bd. of Educ., 391 U.S. 563 (1968).
Government may not exclude or suppress the speech of private individuals for the singular reason that their speech is religious. See Good News Club v. Milford Cent. Sch., 533 U.S. 98 (2001); Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of the Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819 (1995); Capitol Square Review & Advisory Bd. v. Pinette, 515 U.S. 753 (1995); Lamb’s Chapel v. Ctr. Moriches Union Free Sch. Dist., 508 U.S. 384 (1993); Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263 (1981). As the Supreme Court explained in Pinette:
[P]rivate religious speech, far from being a First Amendment orphan, is as fully protected under the Free Speech Clause as secular private expression. ... Indeed, in Anglo-American history, at least, government suppression of speech has so commonly been directed precisely at religious speech that a free-speech clause without religion would be Hamlet without the prince.
Pinette, 515 U.S. at 760. While the First Amendment forbids religious activity that is established by the government, it also protects religious activity that is initiated by individuals acting privately. As the Court explained in numerous cases, "there is a crucial difference between government speech endorsing religion, which the Establishment Clause forbids, and private speech endorsing religion, which the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses protect." Bd. of Educ. v. Mergens, 496 U.S. 226, 250 (1990) (plurality op.).
These assaults on our religious freedoms by those with an agenda to dismantle our Constitution and our founding principles are the exact types of cases MJI was created to litigate. Thank you for your courage in the face of such threats to protect everyone's right to express their religious beliefs privately in accordance with our federal and state constitutions.
No one likes a bully, and we will not stand by while some out-of-state group threatens our fellow citizens with legal actions for doing nothing more than exercising one's constitutional rights. The Mississippi Justice Institute stands ready, willing and able to defend the actions of those like you who seek to protect such rights as well as others who simply want to exert their unalienable rights privately, which our state and federal Constitutions were intended to secure.
Sincerely,
Mike Hurst, Director
Mississippi Justice Institute
Mississippi Center for Public Policy
Telemedicine: High-Quality, Affordable Care for Mississippi Families
Hearing on Telemedicine
Testimony before the Miss. State Senate, Public Health & Welfare Committee
October 18, 2016
(Unabridged version)
I am Dr. Jameson Taylor, vice president for policy with the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.
This is what we believe about telemedicine: Telemed needs to be allowed to flourish and grow and respond to consumer needs. Burdensome regulations will hinder this growth and reduce access to high-quality care. To repeat: We believe telemedicine needs to be allowed to flourish and grow and respond to consumer needs. Burdensome regulations will hinder this growth and reduce access to high-quality care.
You might say we believe in a free market for healthcare. What this really means is that we believe that a light regulatory touch will promote the supply side of healthcare and solve the problem of access by increasing quality and lowering cost. In other words, if government stays out of the way, healthcare innovation will massively increase the supply of affordable, high-quality care. This strategy has worked for computers and cell phones. Why not healthcare?
But I am here today, not as a healthcare policy analyst, but to share my own telemed story with you.
I am married and have two children. Over the past few years, our family has paired telemed with a High Deductible Health Plan. Our family deductible is typically $5,000 a year. What this means is that my insurance company does not cover a dime of my healthcare until I spend $5,000 out of pocket. In this respect, my family is not different from many others in Mississippi. For instance, if we look at the health insurance policies on the ACA exchange, we see deductibles ranging from $4,000 to $13,000.
Just yesterday, I pulled up a plan for a family of four in Hinds County. One option was a bronze plan from Magnolia Health at a cost of $800 a month and a deductible of $13,600 a year.
I guarantee that if you have a deductible of $13,000 a year, you are going to act like an informed consumer for healthcare because you are going to be paying cash, almost exclusively, for your care. That, at least is how my family and I shop for healthcare. We approach healthcare as consumers and believe that a free market for healthcare is the best way to attain high-quality care at a fair price.
When we consider taking our kids to the doctor for the usual problems: sniffles, an ear infection, a stomach ache, we have a choice between using telemed at $40 a visit or going to our pediatric specialist for $165 or going to MEA for around $120. Depending on the situation, we choose the option we think is best for our family. Sometimes it is telemed, sometimes it is an in-office visit, sometimes it is MEA.
Let me walk you through a typical telemed visit for us. Our usual provider, by the way, is connected with Blue Cross Blue Shield and is called Doctor on Demand.
Last year, our daughter had the typical crud that turned into a fever. We had a family event coming up, and my wife wanted to make sure we did all we could to get our daughter feeling better. That said, it wasn't a very serious illness. At $40 a visit, we chose to use telemed. The alternative would have been an in-office visit at $165. Under those circumstances, we would not have gone to the doctor.
I want to make this point very clear: This is not an apples to apples scenario. If you hinder access to telemed, you are not necessarily generating new business for brick-and-mortar doctors. You are, for some people - the single mom with no cash to spare, a family on vacation down in Biloxi, a truck driver on the road -eliminating that doctor's visit altogether.
Money and time are not infinite resources - at least not in my world and not for the hardworking people of Mississippi. If we did not have the option of using telemed in this case, we would not have gone to the doctor at all. We would have waited things out and hoped our daughter recovered.
Again, our situation is not unusual. We all know access to healthcare is a problem in Mississippi. One-third of our population is underserved because we do not have enough primary care physicians and rural doctors.
This problem will not be resolved by giving everyone an insurance card - whether it be private insurance or government-sponsored insurance, like Medicaid.
According to a recent study by researchers at the Social Science Research Center at Miss. State:
- "32% of adults covered by private insurance (ages 50-64) reported difficulties in obtaining an appointment when seeking an initial appointment with a primary care physician";
- "35% of Medicare-insured adults (ages 65 and older) reported problems when seeking a new appointment"; and
- "Up to half of primary care physicians' offices in Mississippi are not accepting new Medicaid patients."
All of these people have insurance, but they are having trouble obtaining primary care.
I believe we are making a fatal mistake in approaching healthcare in Mississippi from an attitude of scarcity and protectionism. We have an abundance of healthcare needs. We have so much need we can't handle it all. Why regulate a telemed market that is clearly working to address some of these needs?
The study from Mississippi State also notes the following:
"Even with health insurance, access to care may be limited by several factors, including whether one can contact doctors' offices by telephone during office hours, whether one can receive a scheduled appointment within a reasonable amount of time, lengthy waits in doctors' waiting rooms, restrictive clinic hours, and patient access to transportation."
Telemed can help with all of these access problems.
In our case, we usually use telemed early in the morning or late at night, when we are trying to figure out just how sick we are and whether we need to take a sick day from school or work.
Likewise, the wait for a telemed appointment is usually 10 minutes or less. In our case, we are able to pull up a screen full of doctors - all of them licensed in Mississippi - and choose the doctor we want. Usually, we choose the same doctor. Her primary practice is in California.
As far as waiting rooms go, I also want to add that, frankly, as a parent, the last thing you want to do is expose your child and yourself to other sick patients in the waiting room. The last time my wife took our kids in for a routine checkup, our doctor informed her that she was seeing a lot of children with hand-foot-and-mouth disease. That is not a comforting thought when you are in a crowded waiting room trying to keep your toddler from chewing on and handling everything he can reach.
Indeed, in my research on this issue, I found several medical sources that suggested simply avoiding the waiting room altogether. Advises Dr. Hansa Bhargava, medical editor for WebMD:
"As a doctor, here are some guidelines I use for myself:
"Stay home if you can. Ask yourself: are you sick enough to need to go in? Granted, this can be a hard decision. ...
"If you are not sure whether you need to come in, try calling your doctor's office. This way, you may be able to save yourself a visit."
Telemed delivers the best of both worlds. It allows you to stay home and see your doctor. My family and I value the convenience and, if you will, additional safety, telemedicine provides. For me, a quick telemed visit may mean the difference between missing a morning of work or not. For my kids, it means the same when it comes to school. For my wife, it means access to high-quality care at the touch of a button. Imagine that, at the touch of a button. ... But isn't that the kind of service we expect today?
You can order all manner of life-saving products online - for instance, that last-minute wedding anniversary gift ... at the touch of a button.
You can book a dream vacation - instead of going to a travel agent - at the touch of a button.
You can sit in on courses at MIT and radically change the direction of your entire life - at the touch of a button.
Why is healthcare so radically different that we are going to deny consumers this same choice?
To get back to our routine telemed visit, during the last three visits, we have been offered a prescription twice. In my limited research, this is on par with the national average for in-office visits.
And, let me be honest, if you are going to pay $165 for a doctor's visit, you kind of expect to walk out of the office with some kind of vindication that you were right to go to the doctor - a prescription. Many patients want that antibiotic, even if it's just for a bad cold. When you pay $40 for a visit and you hear that all you really need is some sleep and orange juice, you feel a lot better about the hit to your pocketbook.
Before I end, one thing I want to mention is that we prefer to connect with our telemed doctor over the phone, as opposed to video feed. I live in Jackson. I have a decent internet connection. Many Mississippians do not. Just like any technology, you want multiple options: both phone only and video.
I suspect, too, that my wife prefers the phone consult because, then, she doesn't feel like she has to do her hair and make the kids picture perfect before seeing our doctor.
In any event, the phone consult has worked well for us. Indeed, I imagine nearly every person here has been on one end or another of a phone-only consult with their brick-and-mortar doctor.
Of course, most doctors doing telemed ARE brick-and-mortar doctors. As I mentioned, they are also licensed by the state of Mississippi.
And that is, really, what all this comes down to. If the state is going to license doctors, it needs to trust these doctors to serve their patients in whatever setting they choose.
Whether it's in a telemed setting or an office setting, we have to trust the doctors to make the best decisions for their patients. Otherwise, the state shouldn't license doctors to begin with. We also have to trust families like mine to make the best healthcare decisions we can for our children. ... Because I guarantee that I care a lot more about my kid's safety and health and my own health than any other person in this room.
Finally, I want to end with a quick story about Billy Durant. Durant co-founded General Motors. But before he founded GM, he worked for a carriage maker. As a carriage maker, he vehemently spoke out about how dangerous automobiles were. He called the new technology "smelly, noisy, and dangerous." He even refused to let his daughter ride in a car. Less than four years later, Durant co-founded GM.
Like the automobile revolution during Durant's day, the healthcare revolution has already begun. We can use our smartphones to monitor blood sugar levels and measure heart rates. Patients increasingly want to text and web chat their doctors. Soon, we are going to see nanotechnologies that can be implanted in patients, perhaps making routine doctor visits a thing of the past. Government cannot regulate all of these innovations. And Mississippi shouldn't let bureaucracy be the reason we don't share in this progress. Take a cue from Billy Durant and join the winning side - the side that promises to expand the supply of high-quality, low-cost care for the people of Mississippi.
Thank you.
Statement of Forest Thigpen on the Lawsuit to Kill Charter Schools in Mississippi
(JACKSON) --
Jackson, MS, July 12, 2016 - Forest Thigpen, president of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, issued the following statement regarding the lawsuit filed yesterday by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The suit alleges that charter school funding violates the Mississippi constitution, in part because the plaintiffs say charter schools are not "free" schools:
Charter schools are public schools, and since they charge no tuition, any rational person would conclude that they are "free" schools as referenced by the state constitution.
Parents are responsible for their children's education. It is immoral for the government to force parents to send their children to schools that do not meet their academic and related needs, especially when other public options are available, including charter schools.
Parents who have enough money to move to a better district or to send their children to private schools already have options. Charter schools, as demonstrated by the student population at the two schools that opened this year, primarily serve families who cannot afford either of those options.
Improving educational outcomes is one of the most important ways to lift children out of poverty, and charter schools offer that hope to parents who want a better future for their children. By pursuing this lawsuit, it appears as though the Southern Poverty Law Center wants to perpetuate, not alleviate, southern poverty.
The Mississippi Center for Public Policy is an independent, non-profit organization based in Jackson. It works to advance the ideals of free markets, limited government, and strong traditional families. Its work, including the Mississippi Justice Institute, is supported by voluntary, tax-deductible contributions. It receives no funds from government agencies for its operations. To learn more about MCPP, visit www.mspolicy.org.