OT: Corruption in MS Updated

Maroon Eagle · Apr 20, 2022

Yeah, but Mississippi led the nation in separations percentage rate for the month of February which was announced earlier today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Total Separations
In February, total separations rates increased in 6 states and decreased in 1 state. The largest increases
occurred in Mississippi (+1.7 percentage points), Illinois (+0.8 point), and Kansas (+0.7 point). The total
separations rate decreased in Arizona (-1.0 percentage point). The national total separations rate was
little changed over the month. (See table C.)

The number of total separations increased in 6 states in February and decreased in 2 states. The largest
increases occurred in Illinois (+47,000), North Carolina (+24,000), and Mississippi (+20,000).
Decreases in the total separations level occurred in Arizona (-28,000) and Michigan (-22,000).
Nationally, the number of total separations was little changed. (See table C.)

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BLS News Release earlier today: Link.

mstateglfr · Apr 20, 2022

FreeDawg said:
People that don’t have jobs should get drug tested for free money. Lets not over complicate this with whatsboutisms. If you are on welfare, you should not be using that program to fund addiction. The flip-side of this is we also shouldn’t incentivize not working and I see that regularly as an employer. You have to limit some folks hours so they don’t losing housing or some other assistance. We should never have a system that doesn’t incentivize work.

1- You want to spend money and time testing a group that in the past, has resulted in more money spent for testing than money saved due to testing.
2- If you want to limit government money from being misused, then just set it up so that nobody can use any government money to fund addiction, regardless of what program or division that money came from. If someone is receiving government aid/assistance, then they should be tested. Covid check?- test em! Child tax credit?- test em! Benefitting from government subsidies?- test em! That isnt a whataboutism either. Thats pushing for consistency.

Whataboutism is different from hypocrisy. If I say 'I dont support the killing of animals for food' and you respond with 'what about when you grilled those 2 chickens for Sunday night dinner, why is that OK?' then you arent engaging in whataboutism. You are pushing for alignment of someone's views so they are more consistent.

Bill Shankly · Apr 20, 2022

Smoked Toag said:
The people who should be tried for crimes are on trial, throughout this whole deal.

The rest are just getting sent through the political ringer for lack of judgment (Bryant, Favre, etc.). I

It's all a big non-story as far as Mississippi, specifically. It happens everywhere.

If I had done what Farve did I would be on trial. The only reason he isn't is because of who he is.

Misfit · Apr 20, 2022

1. There was never any evidence that any significant percentage of people drawing TANF funds were drug addicts. In fact, to any rational person who actually knows anything about TANF and drug addiction, the notion that the $150 a month you might have been able to get from TANF before Phil decided the money would be better spent on volleyball courts and $10,000/month drug rehab for wrestling stars would support more than 1 day of a serious drug habit is absolutely laughable. You might be able to stretch it to 4 days if all you wanted to do was avoid really bad withdrawal sickness.
2. From what I have read, the states that adopted these drug test requirements all spent more on drug testing than they saved by denying TANF funds to those who tested positive.

But, by all means, lets not let the truth get in the way of your political viewpoint.

Misfit · Apr 20, 2022

I am always fascinated by the folks on this board who proclaim themselves to be unbiased, but attack everything written that casts the high and mighty from their chosen party in a negative light as biased. Maybe if you could inform me of the "other side of the story" that is not being told in this writer's articles, I wouldn't have to conclude you are just another one of those folks. Have you read all of the articles this woman has written where she has reprinted text messages sent by Phil Bryant on the cell phone issue to him by the taxpayers of the State of Mississippi, which overwhelming seem to prove his direct involvement in the greatest public fraud ever perpetrated in this state? If you have and still believe this story is one-sided, there is no help for you. If you have not read them. you have zero right to attack this writer in the way you have.

BoomBoom.sixpack · Apr 20, 2022

johnson86-1 said:
I would say the reason you have high implicit marginal tax rates (which disincentivizes work beyond just a wealth effect) is because we have a lot of disjointed programs that are not tied together on phaseouts, so not only do you have "professionals" making more money off welfare programs than people who actually are trying to become self sufficient, you also end up with a recipients that could significantly add to their income (by like 10 or even 20 thousand depending on family size) and net something like 10% of that increase after paying taxes and receiving reduced welfare benefits. Very few people will keep busting their *** if they know it doesn't make a big difference in the standard of living at the end of the day (or at least not for several years or even a decade).

The reason they are so disjointed is some combination of they were easy to get enacted piecemeal, there are a lot of people that make a living administering all the different programs, and a concern that if there is one program for administering government benefits, it will be easier to oversee that program and potentially cut benefits.

Um, and why do we have disjointed phaseouts on "welfare" programs? Is it not because of some dumb desire to "punish" or prevent someone who WAS eligible for benefits from not getting them when they start pulling themselves up? Who is it that wants to help these people pull themselves up? If someone did want that, why would they be so insistent on pulling the rug out from under them just as soon as they started to earn more?

Wouldn't it be better to say "hey congrats, we'll pare those bennies back over several years, but for now reap the rewards of generating income on top of your welfare". Isn't that how you would turn takers into makers, rather than yanking their benefits as soon as they earn income? Wouldn't the LATTER be what disincentivizes work?

Misfit · Apr 20, 2022

How many of those open positions are a realistic possibility for a grandmother who has no car and would have to pay for daycare for three kids she is raising?

She Mate Me · Apr 20, 2022

Misfit said:
I am always fascinated by the folks on this board who proclaim themselves to be unbiased, but attack everything written that casts the high and mighty from their chosen party in a negative light as biased. Maybe if you could inform me of the "other side of the story" that is not being told in this writer's articles, I wouldn't have to conclude you are just another one of those folks. Have you read all of the articles this woman has written where she has reprinted text messages sent by Phil Bryant on the cell phone issue to him by the taxpayers of the State of Mississippi, which overwhelming seem to prove his direct involvement in the greatest public fraud ever perpetrated in this state? If you have and still believe this story is one-sided, there is no help for you. If you have not read them. you have zero right to attack this writer in the way you have.

You have now twice characterized my two posts on this subject as an "attack" on the writer. My comments were clearly more about Mississippi Today in general and I praised her work on this particular subject in the post you apparently took as another attack.

Thou doth protest entirely too much. You seem very close to either the writer or the entity she works for.

ETA and if you think my criticism of Mississippi Today means that I'm a pro Phil Republican, you'd be very wrong.

Thought I made it pretty clear I don't trust any politicians unless given a very good reason to.

johnson86-1 · Apr 21, 2022

BoomBoom said:
Um, and why do we have disjointed phaseouts on "welfare" programs? Is it not because of some dumb desire to "punish" or prevent someone who WAS eligible for benefits from not getting them when they start pulling themselves up? Who is it that wants to help these people pull themselves up? If someone did want that, why would they be so insistent on pulling the rug out from under them just as soon as they started to earn more?

The phaseouts are ridiculously steep in part because they are disjointed and aren't looked at holistically. Any individual phaseout may be reasonable, but when you stack them on top of each other, you often get implicit marginal tax rates >90% if someone is utilizing all the programs they are eligible for, and sometimes over 100%. The phaseout will likely have to be somewhat steep just because that's the way the tradeoffs work. The more you focus it on people that need it, the steeper the phaseout will be. The more you focus on keeping the phaseout gradual, you will give those that need it most less and also give it to people that don't really need it. I don't know what phaseout is politically/mathematically possible. Ideally, I would say the implicit marginal tax rate should never exceed 50%. I think whenever you get less than half the benefits of working more/harder, that's a significant psychological threshold. But the math may not work on that. Somebody getting 20k of benefits between say SNAP, Section VIII, and EITC would have to phase it out over $47,619 of additional earnings if you assume they are only paying FICA. I would consider something like 75% to be a threshold to avoid crossing basically no matter what. That's already a pretty stiff disincentive to work more/harder. Anything more than that seems like you are baiting people into remaining poor.

BoomBoom said:
Wouldn't it be better to say "hey congrats, we'll pare those bennies back over several years, but for now reap the rewards of generating income on top of your welfare". Isn't that how you would turn takers into makers, rather than yanking their benefits as soon as they earn income? Wouldn't the LATTER be what disincentivizes work?

That would be an awful idea. You'd have people basically wanting to go onto welfare before working to get a few years of benefits/income on top of their earned income.

I think they should wrap everything into the tax code and try to make the tax rate as level as possible (or even declining) as people move from basically no income to whatever number. Maybe $65k for a family of four? The other thing that is challenging is that by looking at it on a family basis, you often discourage second earners. Not sure how to think about that and whether fixing implicit marginal tax rates takes care of that. Generally not a bad thing to have a second parent in the home, so maybe it's not a problem. But it may not be in their best long term interest to be out of work for an extended time and you also don't want two earner families to feel like suckers.

BoomBoom.sixpack · Apr 21, 2022

johnson86-1 said:
The phaseouts are ridiculously steep in part because they are disjointed and aren't looked at holistically. Any individual phaseout may be reasonable, but when you stack them on top of each other, you often get implicit marginal tax rates >90% if someone is utilizing all the programs they are eligible for, and sometimes over 100%. The phaseout will likely have to be somewhat steep just because that's the way the tradeoffs work. The more you focus it on people that need it, the steeper the phaseout will be. The more you focus on keeping the phaseout gradual, you will give those that need it most less and also give it to people that don't really need it. I don't know what phaseout is politically/mathematically possible. Ideally, I would say the implicit marginal tax rate should never exceed 50%. I think whenever you get less than half the benefits of working more/harder, that's a significant psychological threshold. But the math may not work on that. Somebody getting 20k of benefits between say SNAP, Section VIII, and EITC would have to phase it out over $47,619 of additional earnings if you assume they are only paying FICA. I would consider something like 75% to be a threshold to avoid crossing basically no matter what. That's already a pretty stiff disincentive to work more/harder. Anything more than that seems like you are baiting people into remaining poor.

That would be an awful idea. You'd have people basically wanting to go onto welfare before working to get a few years of benefits/income on top of their earned income.

I think they should wrap everything into the tax code and try to make the tax rate as level as possible (or even declining) as people move from basically no income to whatever number. Maybe $65k for a family of four? The other thing that is challenging is that by looking at it on a family basis, you often discourage second earners. Not sure how to think about that and whether fixing implicit marginal tax rates takes care of that. Generally not a bad thing to have a second parent in the home, so maybe it's not a problem. But it may not be in their best long term interest to be out of work for an extended time and you also don't want two earner families to feel like suckers.

See, there it is. Can't have "those people" getting benefits and the value of work. Can't have that, they might actually get ahead in life and move into my neighborhood! You'd have people getting a few years of welfare then working for life, nope you'd rather them be on welfare for life.

ColoradoDawg · Apr 21, 2022

Drug tests politicians!

johnson86-1 · Apr 21, 2022

BoomBoom said:
See, there it is. Can't have "those people" getting benefits and the value of work. Can't have that, they might actually get ahead in life and move into my neighborhood! You'd have people getting a few years of welfare then working for life, nope you'd rather them be on welfare for life.

WTF??? Who are those people?

And it's not about not wanting people that don't work to have the benefits and value of work. I am perfectly happy for whomever to have whatever. It's just that if you give them to people that don't work, you convince other people that hard work is a bad bet. Think about working the same job as somebody and both making $35k a year, but they also get an extra $10k a year in benefits for three years because they were receiving welfare from certain programs first. It won't take long before people are trying to max out their benefits first so they can get that boost for three years.

So yes, ignoring math, costs, and human nature, not phasing out welfare looks good. But if you are designing policy where math, costs, and human nature are coming into play, it's an awful idea.

Smoked Toag · Apr 21, 2022

Bill Shankly said:
If I had done what Farve did I would be on trial. The only reason he isn't is because of who he is.

Nah. He just needs to pay back the money. He hasn't really committed a crime. He's just dumb.

BoomBoom.sixpack · Apr 21, 2022

johnson86-1 said:
WTF??? Who are those people?

And it's not about not wanting people that don't work to have the benefits and value of work. I am perfectly happy for whomever to have whatever. It's just that if you give them to people that don't work, you convince other people that hard work is a bad bet. Think about working the same job as somebody and both making $35k a year, but they also get an extra $10k a year in benefits for three years because they were receiving welfare from certain programs first. It won't take long before people are trying to max out their benefits first so they can get that boost for three years.

So yes, ignoring math, costs, and human nature, not phasing out welfare looks good. But if you are designing policy where math, costs, and human nature are coming into play, it's an awful idea.

Are you saying there are a significant number of people who qualify for welfare but aren't taking it, but will now sign up so they get benefits while they work in the future? How does this make any sense to you?

johnson86-1 · Apr 21, 2022

BoomBoom said:
Are you saying there are a significant number of people who qualify for welfare but aren't taking it, but will now sign up so they get benefits while they work in the future? How does this make any sense to you?

No, I am saying that if you put $10k on the table for three years, low earners will go out of their way to qualify for welfare so they can get that boost for three years.

BoomBoom.sixpack · Apr 21, 2022

johnson86-1 said:
No, I am saying that if you put $10k on the table for three years, low earners will go out of their way to qualify for welfare so they can get that boost for three years.

I still don't see how that makes any sense. They weren't already going out of their way for the money before. Are you saying people will quit their jobs, get on welfare, then get back a job? OK, put a short limit on those people then, they aren't the people we're trying to get off welfare dude.

archdog · Apr 21, 2022

WalkTheDawg said:
if that’s it… that’s an incredible reach. How do these same people get to medical appointments? Grocery stores? Relatives homes? If people are that destitute… why is the columnist not apoplectic about current prices and how it is killing the poor?

And why is drug testing not commonly seen as a barrier to employment? If that’s it it’s a reach.

Well like it or not, that legislation makes it terribly hard for someone to get welfare funds, which is exactly what the author said. And then to go beyond the rules and use that money for rehab for his own family members...... hell man, the poor guy that can't qualify because he likes the weed (which is 17ing legal all over the damn place) can't get money to help his family buy the Governor's directly breaking the law on behalf of his 17 up great nephew??

Seriously, I have less an issue with the author's liberties taken because they are 100% true.

archdog · Apr 21, 2022

johnson86-1 said:
WTF??? Who are those people?

And it's not about not wanting people that don't work to have the benefits and value of work. I am perfectly happy for whomever to have whatever. It's just that if you give them to people that don't work, you convince other people that hard work is a bad bet. Think about working the same job as somebody and both making $35k a year, but they also get an extra $10k a year in benefits for three years because they were receiving welfare from certain programs first. It won't take long before people are trying to max out their benefits first so they can get that boost for three years.

So yes, ignoring math, costs, and human nature, not phasing out welfare looks good. But if you are designing policy where math, costs, and human nature are coming into play, it's an awful idea.

No one is getting rich off of welfare. No one is seeing welfare as an alternative to hard work. People will work for a fair wage. If the wages cannot exceed welfare that is due to them, that is a business decision. Just like paying someone to little.

archdog · Apr 21, 2022

johnson86-1 said:
No, I am saying that if you put $10k on the table for three years, low earners will go out of their way to qualify for welfare so they can get that boost for three years.

That is the issue with welfare policies. The welfare system should slowly fade off until the earning potential of the person receieving welfare can overcome the system. There are specific trip wires in the system as it is today, that discourages hard work, discourages a person to make more money. Because at some point, they do not qualify for the welfare funds, yet they do not make enough money to live. So it is a trap that is very hard to overcome.

That is why I need to run for office. A simple solution to this is to have the funds taper off slowly as your income increases. No sudden cliffs to fall off. Hell, maybe even give a year after your income is increased to adjust the welfare they receive. This incentivizes people to make more money and it would be a bonus to them to keep their higher welfare for 12 months more. To work to the adjustment. Heck I would even propose to make it a 50% reduction year to year until they are free of welfare altogether. Talk about an incentive to earn more money, there it is.

Poppy IV · Apr 21, 2022

1. Anna Wolfe’s articles are and have been vetted pretty close by all sides.
2. How did they get, and who let them have the text messages?
3. Why did Phil agree to the interview? He apparently thought appearing open and honest would help his case. How many on his staff said don’t do it?
4. Many of Phil’s I DONT KNOW answers are incredulous for someone who was governor, Lt Governor, and State Auditor.
5. Mississippi Today will never report a negative thing about Democrats, and will only report positive things about Republicans when they accomplish something that Democrats support.

garddog · Apr 21, 2022

Corruption happens in all towns, cities, counties, states, and nations. All levels of politics are horrible.

There are no simple solutions to most of these issues, but there are a few things that would help.

Term Limits for all levels of politics. No more than 12 years nationally and 16 max state and local.

A national sales tax instead of income tax. Right now, the US is bleeding money because of cash workers. Take the payroll taxes away and almost no one gets paid cash. This also eliminates most illegal immigration issues, because they are paying in.

Welfare should be in the job training business. We as a country are understaffed in the shipping industry by 40% right now.

Anna has reported well on this issue but she definitely has far left demagoguery in her stories.

mstateglfr · Apr 21, 2022

garddog said:
A national sales tax instead of income tax. Right now, the US is bleeding money because of cash workers. Take the payroll taxes away and almost no one gets paid cash. This also eliminates most illegal immigration issues, because they are paying in.

Yeah, it's those pesky low wage cash earners who are making Americ bleed money!***
What a 17ing joke.

I am not fundamentally opposed to a consumption tax, if it is handled properly and accounts for the inherent regressiveness.
Buy I highly doubt we would agree on details since you would be coming into this front the perspective that the very people who would be most negatively impacted by a regressive consumption tax are 'the problem'.

garddog · Apr 22, 2022

mstateglfr said:
Yeah, it's those pesky low wage cash earners who are making Americ bleed money!***
What a 17ing joke.

I am not fundamentally opposed to a consumption tax, if it is handled properly and accounts for the inherent regressiveness.
Buy I highly doubt we would agree on details since you would be coming into this front the perspective that the very people who would be most negatively impacted by a regressive consumption tax are 'the problem'.

Why are you such a condescending ***. You presume to know what people think without them stating anything. If you understood a damn thing about the national sales tax movement you would know that high earners despise it. The government hates it also. The people it helps are middle and lower income. Stop being a radical and pushing your agenda off on folks.

horshack.sixpack · Apr 22, 2022

One example of “far left demagoguery” from the story?

johnson86-1 · Apr 22, 2022

BoomBoom said:
I still don't see how that makes any sense. They weren't already going out of their way for the money before. Are you saying people will quit their jobs, get on welfare, then get back a job?

They're not going to go out of their way for welfare money if it means making less money. But if they can make less money for a little while, and then get SNAP, Section VIII, EITC, and even TANF for three years regardless of how much money they are making, then yes, they will get qualified if they are a low earner and/or early in their career.

BoomBoom said:
OK, put a short limit on those people then, they aren't the people we're trying to get off welfare dude.

How are you going to distinguish between those people? It's not like somebody can sit in an office and say, oh, those people could be working but aren't, those people are actually struggling. If we could do taht, we wouldn't have all the disability abuse we have.

SheltonChoked · Apr 22, 2022

FreeDawg said:
People that don’t have jobs should get drug tested for free money. Lets not over complicate this with whatsboutisms. If you are on welfare, you should not be using that program to fund addiction. The flip-side of this is we also shouldn’t incentivize not working and I see that regularly as an employer. You have to limit some folks hours so they don’t losing housing or some other assistance. We should never have a system that doesn’t incentivize work.

Does that include testing for THC? If so, the the testing is invalid. THC drug tests cannot distinguish between federally and locally legal Delta8 vs federally illegal delta9.

At least that's what the people that do the drug tests say: https://www.questdrugmonitoring.com...a-8 is less potent,Liaison, Jack Kain, PharmD.

So, if you "fail" a test for illegal drugs, but you are taking a legal drug....

And one that is non addictive, that seems like an "unreasonable barrier".

SheltonChoked · Apr 22, 2022

johnson86-1 said:
No, I am saying that if you put $10k on the table for three years, low earners will go out of their way to qualify for welfare so they can get that boost for three years.

Why is this a bad thing....

The child tax credit given last year shows that if given money, they spend it to get out of poverty. Which, is the whole point, is it not?

When asked what parents intended to do with the credit, the most common responses were:
▪ save for emergencies (74.8%)▪ apply the money towards housing, food, and utilities (66.6%)
▪ purchase clothing or other essentials for their child(ren) (58.1%)
▪ purchase more or better quality foods for their family (49.0%)
▪ contribute to a college fund for their child(ren) (41.9%)
● 21.3% of respondents either owned a small business or intended to launch one in the next 12months. This indicates that these parents may be receiving support for their family expenses asthey're trying to get their business of the ground

Cites:
https://www.npr.org/2022/01/27/1075...ly-slashed-child-poverty-heres-what-else-it-d
https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/sites...es/2021/09/Wave-1-executive-summary_FINAL.pdf

BoomBoom.sixpack · Apr 22, 2022

johnson86-1 said:
They're not going to go out of their way for welfare money if it means making less money. But if they can make less money for a little while, and then get SNAP, Section VIII, EITC, and even TANF for three years regardless of how much money they are making, then yes, they will get qualified if they are a low earner and/or early in their career.

How are you going to distinguish between those people? It's not like somebody can sit in an office and say, oh, those people could be working but aren't, those people are actually struggling. If we could do taht, we wouldn't have all the disability abuse we have.

The cutoffs for EITC and TANF or SNAP are so far apart that I cannot take this post seriously.

Distinguish by seeing how long they were out of work. The shorter the joblessness, the shorter the leash. That part ain't hard.

The more I look at this, the more I realize how strong the overlap here is. Take young adults that have been on welfare their whole life as kids, who get a job shortly into adulthood. Maybe they would have gotten a job anyway, so extending their benefits for a bit could be excessive.....but this is the cohort we want to incentivize work for!

Very revealing to see the cons, who say they hate the disincentive to work of welfare, being against this. Pretty clear the actual motivation is about who the money is going to.

dudehead · Apr 22, 2022

BoomBoom said:
The cutoffs for EITC and TANF or SNAP are so far apart that I cannot take this post seriously.

Distinguish by seeing how long they were out of work. The shorter the joblessness, the shorter the leash. That part ain't hard.

The more I look at this, the more I realize how strong the overlap here is. Take young adults that have been on welfare their whole life as kids, who get a job shortly into adulthood. Maybe they would have gotten a job anyway, so extending their benefits for a bit could be excessive.....but this is the cohort we want to incentivize work for!

Very revealing to see the cons, who say they hate the disincentive to work of welfare, being against this. Pretty clear the actual motivation is about who the money is going to.

Your last comment reminded of Lee Atwater's Willie Horton strategy in Bush's campaign.

thatsbaseball · Apr 22, 2022

Why not "pause" this thread and reopen it when Bryant is actually charged with something

OT: Corruption in MS Updated

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