Most all older MS Republicans were former MS Democrats, if they’re still living. There were very few MS Republicans before the late 70s, early 80s.
OT - If I Get One More Mailer from Delbert
- Thread starter greenbean.sixpack
- Start date
- Status
The more they reduce state government, the more of their buddies they hire as "contractors" at many times the cost of a state employee.
Because between the two of them Mcdaniel and Hill, their agenda is to put the state back in the 1940's...or earlier
An honest, totally nonpolitical question for you, catvet…..why do you think giving the teachers raises was “blowing it”? Are you saying there are other state employees who need it more? Thanks for the discussion, friend.
What? You mean I'm supposed to be getting some services for those tax dollars I have been sending to Jackson,
Many jobs at the State level are hard to staff with competent employees due to the low pay. These people have families to take care of as well, but are rarely on the receiving end of raises. Because we made giving teachers a raise a political thing, then it is a rallying cry. Help the kids! Give teachers more and more. We have MHP busting their *** and putting their lives on the line everyday and they make significantly less. I'm not against paying State employees more, including teachers, but they have become the golden calf of worship above all others. It's simply time to pay others as well, and it's not political. It's practical.
This says average public teacher pay in Mississippi is 51st in the country
...so 50 gonna 51, I guess.
Educator Pay Data 2024 | NEA
NEA's 2024 review quantifies teacher salary, education support professional pay, and student spending in every state.
www.nea.org
I have no idea why teachers are the only ones getting raises. I also have no idea if your claim that teachers are the only ones getting raises is accurate.
But based on the link, it's not like teachers in Mississippi are swimming like Scrooge McDuck in gold coin.
A general alternative would be to raise taxes on high income earners and use that money, plus other funding, to improve pay elsewhere and also improve infrastructure so more development comes into the state.
Yes yes yes- that's a crazy idea and it's socialist, or communist, or whatever other inaccurate term you can think of.
Last edited:
We have millions over what we can legally put in the rainy day fund. Do you think any other profession is ranked hirer? They have gotten many raises when others received nothing. Sorry, by they aren't the only ones who need raises.This says average public teacher pay in Mississippi is 51st in the country
...so 50 gonna 51, I guess.
Educator Pay Data 2024 | NEA
NEA's 2024 review quantifies teacher salary, education support professional pay, and student spending in every state.
I have no idea why teachers are the only ones getting raises. I also have no idea if your claim that teachers are the only ones getting raises is accurate.
But based on the link, it's not like teachers in Mississippi are swimming like Scrooge McDuck in gold coin.
A general alternative would be to raise taxes on high income earners and use that money, plus other funding, to improve pay elsewhere and also improve infrastructure so more development comes into the state.
Yes yes yes- that's a crazy idea and it's socialist, or communist, or whatever other inaccurare term you can think of.
Based on the link below, as well as the teacher pay link in my other post, I am unsure if MHP average pay is less than average teacher pay.
And also not going to happen.
Increased income taxes is the third rail for the state GOP.
Mississippi’s Republican Powers That Be have long wanted no state income tax.
if they throw a bone to the Democrats and repeal the sales tax on groceries, they’d get it— if the money intake projections continue to be higher than expected (which I expect since the state’s forecasters are REALLY conservative in that regard).
I bet they aren't the only publicly paid profession that needs raises.
My post was meant to help show that even if there have been raises, it's not like teachers in Mississippi are raking in coin.
I posted a suggestion for how to help increase pay in other publicly paid professions because I recognize that teachers likely aren't the only ones needing a raise.
Yeah, I understand I creasing taxes on high income earners is a non-starter.
Doesn't mean it shouldn't be pointed out though.
This whole thing is like two people being stuck in a cave and one of them is cussing and kicking dirt because their phone is dead, while the other person continually says 'just turn around'. If they would just turn around, they would see that there is an opening behind them.
After some time, the one person just says '17 it' and leaves because they need to save themselves.
^ Plato had his Allegory of the Cave and now I have mine. Pretty accurately describes how many just refuse to see an alternative since what they want to do isn't working, and why many are saying '17 it' and leaving the state.
Last edited:
I get it since you’re looking at it from the outside.
Folks in Mississippi know it’s a non-starter and will not be a viable option for years given the climate in state government.
Hopefully they are not that stupid. Grocery taxes are probably some of our most efficient. Everybody needs groceries and the ones that can least afford it are generally going to be getting SNAP.
It would be nice to get rid of the income tax. It's inefficient and a 7% sales tax and 5% income tax is a pretty stiff burden. Certainly not the highest, but we're already dealing with brain drain and generally lower pay. We don't need to make ourselves less competitive by having more taxes than we need. That said, we still don't generate nearly enough tax revenue to cover our expenses because our income and spending isn't that high and a lot of what the state needs to pay for is priced in a national market or at least a regional one. We're just in a ****** position because it's hard to dig out of a hole in a couple of decades that was created by 100+ years of mismanagement.
I really didn't think there was anything anybody could say that would make me consider voting for McDaniel, but you're pretty close. Beyonce isn't my cup of tea, so I am probably still going to vote for Delbert, but McDaniel was half way there.
All the more reason why the tax on groceries should be fully exempted.
Or maybe do what Texas and Florida do and exclude candy and soda from the exemption (which I like better).
The problem with eliminating grocery tax is the sales tax the cities get, and in some towns, the sales tax from the grocery store is the "bread winner" for the town.
??? Why would that be a reason to exempt them? We do actually have to have tax revenue. For grocery taxes, everybody will pay a little. The neediest will be exempt to the extent of their SNAP spending. While you can't feasibly just avoid paying tax, you can have some control by choosing how to spend your money. I have trouble thinking of a tax that manages the tradeoffs better between being efficient while still somewhat progressive, and while giving everybody skin in the game.
Yeah, but I think that would promote food deserts.
Lots of small towns in the state don't have grocery stores to serve their citizens so giving the supermarkets a break makes good economic sense for them.
See my above answer to President Humphrey...
It's not unusual. 37 states have this exemption-- including Texas and Florida who many people want Mississippi to emulate.
Small towns that don't have grocery stores usually don't have them because they can't compete with nearby larger towns. Just not enough volume to be competitive on price, even with cheaper land costs. I don't think giving consumers a break on their sales tax (it's almost certainly not the supermarket bearing that tax incidence) is going to really change that dynamic when they get that break whether they shop at home or a nearby larger town.
It's not unusual because it's politically popular to pander to voters and sometimes (usually?) voters want things that don't make economic sense. People feel good about not having a grocery tax because they don't have to think about where they are making that tax up. If we get rid of the income tax, that is going to require us to collect a lot of sales tax. Exempting one of the most efficient things to tax is just going to make other sales tax more distortionary. For states doing well like Florida and Texas, that's pretty manageable. Mississippi has less margin for error and we use all of it and then some already.
My thought as well. For the poor peeps avoiding going on the dole and using SNAP, we're penalizing them by taxing them for it too? Hell, how about a tax credit for people who qualify for SNAP etc benefits but don't take them?
Stated issues-
- Others in the thread have said MS state government employees are woefully underpaid and complain that teachers have been 'taken care of', even though average teacher pay is 51st out of 50 states.
- MS state government jobs go unfilled because of low pay.
- A massive surplus exists and is being 'mis-spent'.
- Infrastructure and other gvt services have been consistently cut back/reduced/not funded for many years.
Your solution-
- Get rid of income tax because it is inefficient and 7% sales tax plus 5% income tax is too burdensome. This would not only ease the burden that everyone has to pay, but it would help make the state more competitive and counteract the brain drain issue.
Your stated admission-
- MS doesnt generate enough tax revenue to cover expenses.
I am not trying to be a dick here, but Im sure itll come off that way. I genuinely dont understand how all the issues mentioned above and your solution can be true, and the end result be prosperous.
How will your mentioned income tax elimination be the solution when you say there currently isnt enough tax revenue to cover expenses, and others mention state jobs are unfilled due to low pay?
I am not some simpleton that just thinks the only solution to a government shortfall is to increase taxes. It is more complex than that, obviously. But when you have a state that is proudly low tax, has the lowest per capita income in the country, and has the lowest net worth per capita in the country, it seems that cutting taxes further will result in fewer jobs filled, fewer infrastructure projects funded, and less pay for state employees.
It definitely is a complex problem. Perhaps some of the issue is that the hold is being further dug by slashing and reducing taxes? Might be time to stop digging and try a different approach.
Let me translate. "Efficient" here means getting poor people paying as much tax as possible, and thus letting rich people pay less.
You're thinking in the 90s which I understand given that my family owned and operated a small town mom and pop store. We got out because we knew the days of independents had passed.
Nowadays, my friend, many stores in small towns are themselves chains (e.g., 40 Piggly Wigglys in Mississippi).
Look at it this way - it makes better sense to shop local and not spend extra money on gasoline to get groceries.
My hometown had been a food desert for over three years when a small chain closed its location.
Fortunately, town leaders were able to entice Piggly Wiggly.
Nah. I kind of understand here.
It's a traditional tax.
Mississippi was the first state to have sales tax.
All the GOP has to do is just call it another failed Democratic policy and take credit for making groceries more affordable for Mississippians.
I'm shocked Tater Tot never called a special session about that.
He could do that and then do this to Brandon Presley...
Efficient means generating relatively less dead weight loss. The grocery tax is nice because it's efficient and also reasonably progressive.
Why would a sales tax on groceries produce less dead weight loss than a sales tax on restaurants, or yachts?
Apologies for the laughter here but a tax that affects everyone equally would not be considered reasonably progressive because they take 7 percent from lower-income folks.
And Mississippi is the poorest state in the Union.
The restaurant tax does make sense because you can make the argument that it's disposable income.
Again, it's going to be a slow and hard process to get to prosperous after 100+ years of shooting ourselves in the foot. But we sure as hell can't tax and spend our way to prosperity. We are consistently putting together a bunch of singles in economic development. Hopefully that will eventually give us enough of a base that when we have native sons and daughters create triples and home runs, they won't leave the state to do so.
We can get by right now only because of all the federal money we get. We certainly could be smarter about how we spend money. We should probably significantly narrow the scope of our state government and spend more on core functions, but that's hard when you have federal mandates and also there is "free" federal money to do stuff.
We have only slowed down our digging in the past couple of decades. We had over 100 years of democrat rule with more or less big government, new deal style policies, with the oh so helpful adder of trying to make sure a significant portion of our population never prospered. It's unfortunately going to take more than a couple of decades to undo that damage. We'll probably be playing catch up for the next 100 years, and that's assuming that our $20B (and growing) of unfunded pension obligations don't derail us before then.
Because people are going to eat groceries regardless. They may adjust their spending some by spending less on prepared foods or buying less name brand or "luxury" foods, but they are going to impacted less by taxes than just about anything else you can think of. People will just eat out less if you add taxes to restaurant bills and obviously yachts and other luxury goods are relatively responsive to taxes, as a lot of unfortunate blue collar workers found out when the US implemented a luxury tax on boats.
It's reasonably progressive because SNAP recipients pay less and generally people with more money spend more on groceries. Progressiveness and efficiency are not quite mutually exclusive, but certainly they usually work at odds with each other. A grocery tax is very efficient while maintaining some progressivity with respect to taxes paid on groceries.
- Status
Latest posts
-
Mississippi needs to get on board- Latest: 11thEagleFan
-
-
Get unlimited access today.