After Hurricane Katrina made landfall along the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005, families, churches, private businesses, and nonprofit organizations from across the country and around the world immediately provided true compassion to the devastated communities on the Gulf Coast. These vital components of civil society worked tirelessly to minister not only to the physical needs of the people in these devastated communities but also to their unique emotional and spiritual needs, in a way that an impersonal, one-size-fits-all government could not.

There is no question that government has a legitimate role to play in addressing some problems. There are some things only government can do. For example, when the lives or property of citizens are in danger, or when individual rights are violated, government has the right and obligation to address the situation through a well-ordered legal system that treats all citizens with equal justice under the law. Reasonable steps toward public order (stop signs and traffic signals, for example) are appropriate, as are other functions, especially at the local level where the people have a more direct voice in governing. But the more it takes on, the less it is able to focus on its most important tasks. Even when there is a legitimate role for government, there is often a way to fulfill that role through contracts with private companies who compete with each other to offer the best service and value to the taxpayers.

Frequently when government is called upon to solve a problem, there is another entity that could address the problem more appropriately and effectively. “We need to do something!” Perhaps. But “we” doesn’t necessarily mean “the government.”  Government programs crowd out innovative non-governmental solutions from the public imagination because people think, “it’s the government’s job,” or, “the government is taking care of that; I don’t have to.”  Now, not only does the government voluntarily step up to try to solve all problems, the people expect and demand it, leaving the recipients under served and the potential givers unfulfilled.

In 1887, President Grover Cleveland vetoed a bill that would have provided financial aid to Texas farmers struggling through a drought, saying, “I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution; and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering, . . . The friendliness and charity of our fellow countrymen can always be relied on to relieve their fellow citizens in misfortune.”  Following that statement, people of all ages from every state sent their pennies, dimes, and quarters to Texas, providing ten times the amount that would have been provided in the bill he vetoed. Perhaps the greatest disservice of the welfare state is that it discourages the individual generosity seen in those days, or in the days after Hurricane Katrina—generosity that touches the heart as well as the pocketbook.

Our culture is moving rapidly toward the belief that the only source of help and hope in times of trouble is the government. Ryan Messmore, of the Heritage Foundation, contends that we are not asking the right question. He says, “Rather than asking who should take responsibility for an issue (whether family, neighborhood, government, religious congregation, etc.), the public debate too often blithely assumes that the answer is government and instead focuses on how it should address the problem.”

But government is not our savior.

The late Joe Overton put it this way: “When governing institutions establish programs that attempt to improve upon private intermediary institutions [churches, families, communities], three damaging things occur. First, there is a prevailing sense that the problem is being solved by government. Second, resources are taken from private individuals and organizations through taxes, which reduce their ability to provide assistance independent of the government. And third, government programs often generate numerous rules and regulations that prevent or hinder private organizations from dealing effectively with the problem.”

Sometimes, it is better for the government to do absolutely nothing. When government tries to solve problems, when the demand to "do something!" prevails, the "law of unintended consequences" becomes an unwritten amendment to every piece of legislation or bureaucratic plan. The result is often a permanent solution to a temporary problem, perhaps helping a little, but simultaneously creating new problems that will have to be dealt with by creating another new program or adding more regulations.

Private solutions, whether provided by for-profit or non-profit organizations, are more effective for a number of reasons. They can be implemented with lightening speed (within days of the hurricane, Southern Baptist relief teams were serving a half-million meals per day to victims and relief workers—at no cost to the recipients or the government), they are more likely to address the problem at its source, and they stay in place until the goal is accomplished. By the time the government gets around to doing something, it is massive, it misses the point, it discourages private innovation and initiative, and it stays past whatever usefulness it may have served. As Ronald Reagan said, “The closest thing to eternal life we’ll see on this earth is a government program.”

Johnny Ervin, who volunteered hundreds of hours coordinating relief efforts on the Gulf Coast through a Gulfport church, said, “When government is involved in solving a problem, it must use bureaucratic methods to deliver the solutions in order to meet all the demands that are placed on government functions. This always results in longer waiting times, more forms and red tape, less satisfied participants, and greater costs than other solutions provided by non-profits and free enterprise. Another way to say it is this: Government solutions to any problem should only be considered as a last resort, because by their nature they will always be the most bureaucratic, confusing, and expensive.”

This is an excerpt from Governing By Principle, MCPP’s ten principles to guide public policy. 

Human nature is prone to look at the short-term, rather than plan for the long-term. We try to stop immediate pain without considering the pain we — or worse, our children — will face later.

This is perhaps the most challenging task for government officials who want to do what is right and best for their constituents, their state, and their country. It goes to the core of what it means to be a statesman—a steward of the foundation of freedom. So many ideas that sound good and will help people in the short run actually do harm in the long run.

One of the most devastating examples of unintended consequences is our welfare system. By “welfare” we mean any program in which the government takes money from one person (the taxpayer) and gives it to another person who has not earned it. This could be given to the recipient directly, by check or debit card, or indirectly, by having the government pay for products or services on their behalf.

There is no doubt that many people have had their immediate needs met by government welfare programs. The impetus for those programs was a genuine concern for those whose need for food and medical care were not being met. Families, neighbors, churches, and communities worked hard to help each other meet those needs, but still there were some people and some needs that fell through the cracks. As a result, there developed a prevailing notion that the government needed to step in to fill those cracks, or at least create a “safety net” underneath them. It all sounded so good, and there were real needs that were met.

However, the long-term negative impact of those programs is immense. By targeting financial assistance to low-income women with children, the programs contributed to the perception that husbands and fathers were no longer needed, at least financially. By devaluing marriage as the starting point for raising children, they helped launch an alarming escalation in the number of children born to unmarried mothers, resulting in single-parent families and, ultimately, entire neighborhoods where children would never see an intact marriage.

Because children in single-parent homes are highly likely to live in poverty, it’s clear that the very system designed to help the poverty-stricken has in many ways led to more poverty, not only financially but relationally. That system also helped create an atmosphere of “entitlement,” the idea that “merely by being alive one is owed costly things at other people’s expense,” as one writer put it.

The welfare mentality extends to people who would give to meet the needs of the poor, if they didn’t think the government was taking care of them. In other words, the more government steps in, the more private individuals and organizations step out. This results in new pressure for government to fill that new void, creating a perpetual cycle of more government provision and fewer relationships that would provide accountability, emotional support, and spiritual support. Before government programs were so widely available, that type of additional support accompanied personal assistance - because it was personal assistance from one person to another, not help from a bureaucracy. The problem with government programs (and now some non-government programs) is that they help people while they are in their poverty, when the real need is to lead them out of poverty.

This is an excerpt from Governing By Principle, MCPP’s ten principles to guide public policy. 

Every nine seconds a student in America drops out of school, often rendering that young adult unemployable and relegating him or her to a life with few opportunities and necessary skills. This has a real cost not just for one individual, but for his or her family and every taxpayer in the country.

Consider this: High school dropouts are nearly three times more likely to be unemployed than college graduates. Additionally, among those who are employed, they will earn, on average, about $8,000 a year less than high school graduates and $26,500 less than college graduates.

Additionally, two-thirds of the prison population in state, local, and federal prisons are made up of high school dropouts. The nation could save as much as $18.5 billion in annual crime-related costs if the high school male graduation rate increased by just five percent. If the number of dropouts was cut in half, the nation could save $7.3 billion annually in Medicaid savings, $12 billion in heart disease-related savings, $11.9 billion in obesity-related savings, $6.4 billion in alcoholism-related savings, and $8.9 billion in smoking-related savings.

On the other hand, increasing the graduation rate to 90 percent for one year would create more than 65,000 new jobs and boost the economy by nearly $11 billion. And the graduation rate has been increasing over the past several years. Both Mississippi and the United States saw record high four-year graduation rates for the 2014-2015 school year of 78 and 83 percent, respectively.

But what does this mean? More people are graduating from high school, but is the United States lowering the bar rather than improving academic performance? The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development recently reported that American students ranked 25th out of 72 countries when tested on topics in science. A Pew Research study found that American students ranked 38th out of 71 countries when tested in math, reading, and science.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, which bills itself as the nation’s report card, found that only 40 percent of fourth-graders, 33 percent of eighth-graders, and 25 percent of 12th-graders are “proficient” or “advanced” in math.

Mississippi has seen some recent progress as it was the only state in the nation to show significant increases in both 4th grade math and reading in 2015 on the NAEP, which arguably offers the best apples-to-apples comparison for student performance across the country. However, Mississippi still generally falls among the bottom five states in all measures as the state performed significantly lower than the National public average in 4th and 8th grade math and science.

In fact, Education Week’s Quality Counts report rated Mississippi as having the worst education system in the country, ranking it 51st in educational quality in 2014; even putting Washington, D.C. ahead of the Magnolia State. It is clear that something is not working and dramatic improvements need to be made. Indeed, the United States has much work to do to catch up with the rest of the world, and Mississippi has much work to do to catch up with the United States.

Is Money The Issue?

When the debate about education woes arises, a large contingent is guaranteed to make one, popular argument: District schools need more money. Many claim that lack of funding is the root of all problems and if schools had more money the results would follow. Yet Mississippi and the United States have been throwing more money at the problem for more than four decades.

In Mississippi, more than 50 cents for every dollar collected in the state’s general fund is spent on public education. In 2015, the state spent over $9,700 per student when including state, local, and federal dollars. This is an uptick from around $8,000 just a few years prior and is part of a larger trend. Adjusted for inflation, spending on education in Mississippi has increased by 54 percent since 1992. This large increase occurred while student enrollment decreased by 3 percent and teacher salaries increased by only 2 percent.

Similar increases have occurred nationwide. Going back to 1970, inflation-adjusted spending on education has increased by 192 percent. However, the scores for 17-year-olds on the Long-Term Trend NAEP Assessments have remained flat. A 2016 report from the United States Department of Education showed that a School Improvement Grants (SIG) program over the past decade pumped $7 billion into education with zero impact on student achievement.

Designed to help failing schools, the SIG provided no academic gains for the students it was intended to help, and failing schools that received multi-year grants ended with results that were no better than similar schools that did not participate in the program. Only the federal government can spend $7 billion with nothing to show for their effort. The country is spending considerably more while showing little in the way of academic progress.

"Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom." It's easy in a political campaign or a legislative session to focus on issues of the moment. But a statesman — one who is worthy of being lauded by future generations — will guard the foundation of freedom we inherited from those before us. He will not succumb to emotion or pressure to compromise that foundation in the name of short-term political gain. He will take seriously his responsibility as a steward of the foundation, carefully monitoring its stability and measuring its vulnerability to the proposals that come before him.

Such a statesman will lead, not follow. He will listen to his constituents, to be sure, but when they ask for something that would compromise the foundation, he will vote according to his responsibility as a steward, and he will explain to his constituents the long-term negative effect of their request. Similarly, a statesman will listen to the chosen leaders within his own political body (a committee chairman, presiding officer, etc.), but if they ask or pressure him to compromise the foundation, he will resist them as well. To do otherwise is to be a follower who is blown and tossed by the political winds, whichever direction they may blow.

Mississippi is in desperate need of leaders who will govern by principle. We need them now, and we need to cultivate more of them for our future. That's not to say there are none currently in office; but those who are already in office need allies who will fight the good fight alongside them, encourage them, and infuse them with a renewed passion for freedom. Together, they can explore principled ways to improve our state and serve their constituents—and do so in a manner that preserves the integrity of the foundation.

Our nation's Founders knew that the only way to form and maintain a stable nation was to build it on principles of freedom and to entrust it to men and women who would protect those principles from eroding over time. In 1776, when Thomas Jefferson, John Witherspoon, and others set their pen to the parchment that declared America's independence from Great Britain, they stood on principles about the nature of man, civil society, and government passed down from such minds as John Locke and Edmund Burke, and influenced by the precepts of the Bible. The result was a Declaration of Independence that is unrivaled in its timeless ability to inspire those who yearn for freedom.

Unfortunately, in recent generations, the ideas conveyed in that document have been largely forgotten or ignored—or, in some cases, treacherously abandoned. The freedom for which our Founders pledged their "lives, fortunes, and sacred honor" is endangered by a growing misunderstanding of the proper role of government in the lives of its citizens—and the proper role of citizens in the exercise of governing. This loss of grounding in the citizenry is not only reflected in many of its elected officials, but in many cases, drives those officials to ignore timeless principles and follow the impulse to "do something—anything!" to solve a temporal problem. The result is further erosion of the freedom and the type of government our Founders sought for us.

It doesn't have to be this way. By returning to the principles that guided our Founders, we can restore their vision, even as we apply it in modern ways to our generation. That can happen only if we have leaders in our homes, communities, and elective offices who understand the principles and live by them. The goal of this primer is two-fold: first, to inspire leaders to govern by principle with integrity, honor, humility, and restraint; and second, to equip citizens with the tools they need to hold their elected officials accountable to these timeless principles.

This is an excerpt from Governing By Principle, MCPP's ten principles to guide public policy. 

When government tries to keep people from failing, it actually can encourage people to take risks they are not equipped to handle. A government safety net changes the way industries behave, just as it changes the way individuals behave. If government is likely to bail them out, there is less need for responsible, efficient operations, or decisions based on market demand.

Government-designed advantages, such as subsidies or tax preferences for one or a few businesses, is sometimes known as “corporate welfare,” and it can have just as detrimental an impact on the free market as government regulation. Some companies or individuals, or perhaps a particular industry might benefit, but competition is hindered, and the taxpayers are left footing the bill. History has shown that government usually does not do well in predicting successful ventures. More importantly, it should not use taxpayers’ money to speculate on business ventures.

It might be appropriate to provide roads, water and sewer systems, and other infrastructure for a project that shows promise, as measured (among other things) by the private capital which has been invested or committed to it.

But money should not be taken from taxpayers and given to a private company to subsidize its business. To do so forces a taxpayer to invest in a company involuntarily, which violates the foundation of a free market - a voluntary exchange. It also distorts the market, because economic investment is based on the power of government, not on the demand of the market. Competitors cannot compete fairly with government-subsidized companies.

The power of eminent domain should not be used by the government to take property from one individual or company and give it to another private entity. To do so violates the right to sell private property without coercion. This particular use of eminent domain has the effect of making government the ultimate owner of all property, as it can take a person's land simply because those in power want someone else to have it.

Abraham Lincoln said, “You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer…You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative and independence.”

Simply put, markets work better than mandates and corporate welfare. Government officials who realize the need to let the free market work will govern with humility and restraint.

This is an excerpt from Governing By Principle, MCPP's ten principles to guide public policy.

Individual initiative is an infinitely more powerful economic force than government action. Wealth is generated when individuals risk their own resources in hopes of meeting a need in the lives of other people or businesses, and do so in a manner that earns them a profit. That need might be a hammer or food, or it could be capital needed by a business to start or expand its operations.

The government doesn’t have anything to give that it didn’t take from someone else. In other words, government cannot create wealth; it can only take wealth from people and redistribute it to others. This redistribution of wealth might be to an individual through a welfare-type program, or to a business with which the government has a contract, or to government employees. That’s not to say people can’t get wealthy from government programs, but it is not new wealth; it is wealth that was generated by someone else, and the government took it from them. This is not a negativestatement, implying that it is never appropriate for government to tax the people; it is simply a statement of fact. How much wealth the government should take and how it uses that wealth are subject to debate, but the simple fact is that government does not create wealth.

In some ways, it is understandable that people would think first how the government would be a good source for building wealth in a community or state. It’s easier to grasp the concept of expanding a government service or agency than it is to comprehend how the private sector could piece together a cohesive economy. And yet, it’s that wonderful mystery of private sector initiative that has made ours the most productive and resilient economy the world has ever known!

With few exceptions, the areas of our state and country where government has spent trillions (yes, with a T) to “help” the poor by transferring wealth to them from other people, are still mired in poverty. For the good those programs might do in helping with short-term needs, they have helped create a pattern of generational poverty, where creativity is stifled and hopelessness prevails.

Instead of transferring wealth, government’s role in the economy should be to protect the freedom of individuals to generate wealth for themselves.

Numerous examples throughout history can be cited of nations that attempted to force equality of wealth through government efforts. The former Soviet Union is one of the most notable, a nation with vast resources, an enormous population, yet a failed economy because it was directed by the government. Current-day Russia has experienced economic problems, not because it moved to a supposedly “free” market system, but primarily because it did not provide the property rights protections necessary for a truly free market. This kept the power in the hands of officials with strong connections to the government, allowing them to take advantage of the people just as they had under Communist rule. (Related to that, the Russian people were not sufficiently informed how a free market system is supposed to work and how they could apply their new-found freedom.)

In contrast, the former Soviet bloc nations that have been most successful economically since the fall of the Soviet Union are those that have provided a dependable system of justice, a low (usually flat) tax on its citizens, and a limited regulatory system. This allows entrepreneurs to know the rules of the game and explore their opportunities with relative certainty that their rights will be
protected, and that they will have few unnecessary burdens placed on them by the government.

Financially speaking, free people are not equal, and equal people are not free. If 100 people were made equally wealthy today, they would no longer be equal by tomorrow. Some would spend, some would give, and some would save, making their wealth “unequal” once again.

The greatness of the free-enterprise system is found in the equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. Why should anyone strive for excellence when there is no incentive to produce a better product or offer a better service? Economic opportunity—the chance to make a profit and build wealth—encourages innovation and competition. This, in turn, benefits the whole economy, not just the entrepreneur, because it results in improved products and services. As one entrepreneur gains success, others might be drawn to compete, resulting in even better products and services, or equal quality at a lower price. In the end, consumers benefit from a healthy, competitive free-market system—where true wealth is created.

Government officials who understand that government cannot create wealth but can clear the way entrepreneurs to do so will govern with humility and restraint.

Competition is the essential element in improving the price and quality of goods and services. It’s surprising how many business leaders believe this principle until the topic turns to education. For some reason, they treat this one service sector as if it were immune to the benefits of competition. They defend the current system rather than embrace an approach that would allow schools to improve by having to compete with each other.

If competition in education were allowed, schools would have to do as other service providers do—attract and keep customers, in this case students and their parents, by constantly improving their services. If they didn’t improve, they would risk losing those students to other providers. That is a healthy incentive to improve.

Knowing someone else could draw away our customers is discomforting, but it’s that very discomfort that drives us to pay attention to our customers—and to find better or more efficient ways to do what we do. It is naive to think the education service sector is any different. The result would be better service for the students and better value for taxpayers.

What about children whose parents "don't care enough about their children" to send them to a better school? We believe only a small fraction of parents would fit that category. The problem is that they have never had that chance! In the relatively few places in America where parents are allowed to choose, there has been much greater demand than expected. For example, numerous public charter schools in other states have had far more applicants than vacancies. An organization in Jackson, Mississippi that offers privately-funded scholarships for low-income children expected 100-200 applicants for the first year of the program. Instead, they received almost 6,000!

A program in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has become wildly popular among low-income parents. Since 1990, through one of the few publicly-funded voucher programs in the country, these parents have been able to choose any public or private school, including religious schools, for their children. Longtime Democratic Mayor John Norquist said the parents were tired of waiting for public schools alone to find the right methods, especially when the parents had no choice. He said, "Parents don't want to be a part of some social experiment. They want their kids to be able to read and write." Some find that in public schools, some in private schools.

This is not an attack on public schools in general. Even Nobel Laureate economist Milton Friedman, the father of the "voucher" concept, said he never presumed that private schools would be better than public schools. He simply believed there should be competition, and parents should be able to choose the school that best meets their children's needs. Even within the public system—and without vouchers—there are opportunities to allow parents to act on their responsibility to ensure their children are educated.

When government officials recognize that parents are responsible for educating and raising their own children, and that publicly funded schools should not undermine the parents, they will govern with humility and restraint.

This is an excerpt from Governing By Principle, MCPP’s ten principles to guide public policy. 

When parents exercise their responsibility to orchestrate their children's education, some choose to educate their children at home, but most parents "hire" professional educators. They might hire private tutors, but usually they "hire" public or private schools. In either case, these educators are to assist with the child's education, and the parents should have the ability to choose a school that will accomplish that purpose without undermining their authority. And, if parents see that their children are not learning well, they should be able to choose a different school.

For parents who have enough money, this option already exists. If they are unhappy with the public school to which their child has been assigned, they can send their child to a private school, or they can move to a school district or attendance zone that will serve their children better.

But parents who don’t have enough money are often stuck with the school to which the government has assigned them, regardless of the quality of the school. Even under federal guidelines that require perennially poor schools to offer parents an option to transfer their children to another school within the district, it is not uncommon for the other schools to be just as poor as the ones the children would be leaving.

Most public education reform proposals deal with systemic changes, and there is no doubt the system needs to be changed. But the success or failure of systemic changes can only be determined after years of implementation and evaluation. When these attempts fail to produce more successful students (which has been the consistent record over the past forty years), new systemic changes are proposed which will take yet more years to implement and evaluate. And, of course, each new experiment demands more money from taxpayers than the ones before.

Why do we continue to sacrifice generations of students to these social experiments, hoping the next change will be the silver bullet for all children?

The losers are the children who cannot regain the years lost to these failed experiments. The communities where these children live also suffer, as do parents who are trapped in a system that won't allow them to choose better options for their children.

Our state long ago determined that there should be public schools funded by the taxpayers; we're not debating that here. We do, however, believe parents should have a considerable amount of control over how those tax funds are spent on their own children.

The solution is to allow more freedom for parents to choose—or even start—schools that best meet their children's needs. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways which will maintain (enhance, actually) the opportunities for all students, even in the public school realm.

This is an excerpt from Governing By Principle, MCPP’s ten principles to guide public policy. 

Nothing in life is free. “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” When we get a product or service at no cost to us, it simply means that someone else paid for it. Everything costs somebody something.

Often we think of government programs and benefits as “free”, but the only way government can give something is to take it from someone else. Even when the government pays for administrative items its employees use, it can only do so with money it took from someone else. If it earns income from land or other property it owns, it can only do so because it first took the land or property from someone.

Few people enjoy paying taxes. As one comedian says, “Taxation with representation ain’t so hot either.” The fourth Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, John Marshall, wrote, “...the power to tax involves the power to destroy; the power to destroy may defeat and render useless the power to create.” Taxes in themselves are not destructive; excessive taxation, however, breaks the entrepreneurial spirit, resulting in less economic activity and fewer jobs for the citizens.

Obviously, government needs money to pay its legitimate expenses, so this is not a diatribe against all taxes. However, as Milton Friedman reminded us, nobody spends someone else’s money as carefully as he spends his own. When we spend our own money we seek the best price and the most appropriate product or service. When it is “someone else’s” money, it’s easy to splurge and be extravagant.

A common blind spot for state legislators and other state officials is the fact that money appropriated by the federal government is still money taken from taxpayers—including taxpayers who live in Mississippi.

In the first episode of The Beverly Hillbillies, Jed Clampett’s sister asks how much the oil company is going to pay him for the oil on his property. Jed said, “Twelve dollars.” His worldly-wise sister was shocked: “Only twelve dollars?!” To which Jed replied, “Yeah, but it’s some new kind of dollar. I’ve heard of paper dollars, and I’ve heard of silver dollars, but these are called mill-ee-yun’ dollars.” Most politicians at the state level seem to think Washington invented a new kind of dollar that doesn’t really cost anybody anything. They call them “fed-er-al” dollars.

These dollars are highly addictive, even leading to the development of creative schemes to "maximize" them. This simply means, "I don't care what I have to do to get more of those 'fed-er-al' dollars; I want all I can get."

Many who were once considered conservative now treat government as the savior, as long as "federal dollars" are the currency of that salvation. But taxpayers beware: when state lawmakers "maximize federal dollars," it just means they are taking more of your money without taking direct responsibility for doing so.

By financing current spending with borrowed funds, our government is obligating future generations to pay for our whims long after the money has been given to someone else.

Those who serve in office must remember that the ability of government to give to one means taking from another. Those who recognize this stewardship principle will govern with humility and restraint.

This is an excerpt from Governing By Principle, MCPP’s ten principles to guide public policy.