While organizing some files last week, I found a full-page ad in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger sponsored by Communities For A Clean Bill of Health and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. The date was March 28, 2006 (nearly 20 years ago). It featured pictures of six state senators, Albritton, Chaney, Horhn, Lee, Simmons, and Walley. Only one of them is still in the legislature, John Horhn, who represents Madison and Hinds Counties. The bold-faced headline below their names and pictures read: “Will These Senators stand with Mississippi Families or Big Tobacco?”
Seems then-Governor Barbour had just vetoed bills that would have reduced the grocery tax and increased the tobacco tax. The text below the headline, still in a robust font read: “Mississippi has the highest grocery tax in America, so families need relief. But Big Tobacco wants these Senators to protect its profits instead. So, Senators, who will it be: Mississippi’s families or Big Tobacco?”
Big Tobacco won. Three years later, the Legislature got around to raising the cigarette tax to 68 cents per pack, where it remains today and ranks 40th highest in the nation. And the grocery tax? It remains the number one highest in the nation at 7 percent.
Why do Mississippians fail to act in their own best interests? Year after year? Twenty years on, we still have the highest grocery tax in the country, and our tobacco tax is 11th from the bottom, some $4.67 less per pack than the New York state tax.
The research (from the American Cancer Society) continues to show that higher tobacco taxes reduce the number of tobacco users, especially among the young. So they are healthier. As for groceries, they aren’t exactly luxuries. People must eat. And the 7 percent tax hits the poor the hardest. They already spend a larger percentage of their meager income on food than those with disposable income, those who have money left over after necessities, left over for, say, vacations or education or really nice housing.
It's not just in an old, yellowing newspaper clipping from 2006. Look at this year’s Legislative action. Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t all bad. Many Hattiesburg area projects were funded. And the passage of House Bill 539 permits pregnant women whose household income is less than $30,000.00 to begin receiving prenatal care while their Medicaid application is under consideration. But when it comes to helping those we might call “the poor,” too many legislators choke on the big stuff.
A few examples come to mind. One is MTAG, the state’s college tuition assistance grant that awards up to $1000.00 per year to students who meet certain standards. One of those standards is that they cannot also be a recipient of a federal Pell Grant. To qualify for a Pell Grant, a student’s family cannot make more than approximately $32,000.00. So those who need the money most don’t qualify for MTAG! Meanwhile, bill to increase the amount of the MTAG grant and remove the Pell Grant exclusion failed in the state Senate this year.
Second is the Senate’s failure to go along with the House’s overwhelming support for expanding Medicaid. I’ve already said my piece on that in the May 9th issue of this paper. In her Sunday sermon last week, my pastor quoted Dorothy Day, crusader for the urban poor in the first half of the twentieth century: “The Gospel takes away our right forever, to discriminate between the deserving and the underserving poor.” I agree. But the Senate did not.
Third, the State Public Service Commission voted 2-1 to end subsidies to low-income residents for installation of solar panels. The two commissioners who voted to terminate this benefit alleged that removing a power customer from the grid would cost their neighbors more money. They need to “show their work” on that one. I just don’t see it.
We need to have some long and difficult conversations about what is in the public interest. What public benefits are actually good for all of us? I can name a few: quality healthcare, quality education, a future freed from the threat of global warming, and a robust safety net for those at the bottom of the economic ladder.
In our own Constitution, promoting “the general welfare” was one of the reasons the framers put forward for creating this republic. Mississippi has been missing that opportunity in significant ways at least since 2006 and that full page ad urging Senators to vote to reduce the grocery tax and increase the tobacco tax. When will we learn? When will we ever learn?
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Dr. Conville is a professor of communication studies (ret.) and a long-time resident of Hattiesburg. He can be reached at rlconville@yahoo.com.
