Commonsense needed to move Mississippi forward

• Shad White argues that Mississippi must address challenges like fatherlessness and the threat of DEI programs to move forward.

Millions of taxpayer dollars going to illegal immigrants every year. Universities more focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and indoctrinating students than creating the next generation of doctors, engineers, and accountants. Entitlement programs wasting our money. Over half of all children born to unwed mothers. 

Unfortunately, each of these sentences describes Mississippi. I grew up in a small town of 700 people in rural South Mississippi, was raised here, am raising my family here, and will be buried here. I love my state, and we have made so much progress over the course of the last few years. But if we’re going to conquer our next set of challenges, we have to tackle these big issues.

First, let’s start with the good. Mississippi has made great progress attracting large economic development projects under Gov. Tate Reeves. Over half of our state was in poverty in the 1950s but today that number has fallen to 20%. And thanks to Gov. Reeves, the state income tax burden on hard-working people has been dramatically reduced.

But we are now at a critical moment. The future of the economy is unclear. Our population growth seems stagnant. We’re still last in poverty rankings, with a new generation of kids in fatherless homes on the road to being dependent on government for the rest of their lives.

To move our state forward, we must now take a chainsaw to the fat in state government. My team in the State Auditor’s office has identified hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of recurring waste—everything from money for healthcare for dead people and illegal immigrants to cell phones for state employees that are never even turned on.

Next we need to get that money going to the stuff that matters for our economy. That means more tax cuts that help working families, more police on the street, better roads and bridges, less money for education bureaucrats in Jackson and more for teachers.

To give a specific example of cutting waste and getting money to something that matters, let’s think about our universities. We’re still using taxpayer funding to pay for majors where kids take classes called “gender and zombies” (seriously) and sessions where they learn about the evils of “whiteness” (which is just plain racist). All the while, we’re desperate for nurses and civil engineers. We should eliminate taxpayer money for DEI and put it into expanding degree fields that will power our economy.  

Or take immigration. Our state spends about $1.7 million per year imprisoning illegal immigrants. Before those folks ever have the chance to commit a crime in Mississippi they need to be shipped straight to Martha’s Vineyard or Kamala Harris’s doorstep. We should not be incurring a cost related to them.

Bottom line: we need government to start making common sense decisions that benefit taxpayers. And I can promise you this, no one will be more aggressive than me in working to point out when the money is wasted and where it should be going. I’ve taken some criticism in my time as Auditor, but I’ve never been accused of being a go-along-to-get-along kind of guy.   

That probably comes from my dad and grandfather, two oilfield pumpers. Or perhaps from my time serving in the military, where you cannot make excuses and must get the job done. Or maybe just my belief that I have a duty, placed on me by God, to make our beautiful state better for my three kids. I don’t have all the answers, but I know we’ll have to fight to get things done.

And I know that if we get this right, Mississippi has more potential than any other state in the country. We’re the state of Elvis and BB King, of Faulkner and Tennessee Williams. We’re the most generous, patriotic people in the country. And we deserve a state government that works well for us.