A group of state senators on Monday grappled with how much to slash state taxes or if they should cut them at all, portending a major policy debate at the Capitol for next year’s legislative session. 

The Senate Fiscal Policy Study Group solicited testimony from the state government’s leading experts on budget, economic and tax policies to prepare for an almost certain intense debate in January over how much they should trim state taxes while balancing the need to fund government services. 

Senate Finance Chairman Josh Harkins, a Republican from Flowood whose committee has jurisdiction over tax policy, told Mississippi Today that he wanted senators to have basic facts in front of them before they help decide next year if Mississippi should cut taxes.

“We’re getting a tax cut the next two years whether we do anything or not,” Harkins said. “I just want to make sure we have all the facts in front of people to understand we have a clear picture of how much revenue we’re bringing in.”  

Mississippi is already phasing in a major tax cut. After a raucous debate in 2022, lawmakers agreed to phase in an income tax cut. In two years it will leave Mississippi with a flat 4% tax on income over $10,000, one of the lowest rates in the nation.

However, the top two legislative leaders, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann who oversees the Senate and House Speaker Jason White, have both recently said they want legislators to consider new tax cut policies.  

Hosemann, the Republican leader of the Senate, has publicly said he would like to see the state’s grocery tax, the highest of its kind in the nation, reduced, though he hasn’t specified how much of a reduction or how long it would take for the cut to be implemented. 

White, a Republican from West, said last week that he would like to see the state’s 4% income tax phased out and have the state’s 7% grocery tax cut in half over time. 

“We are hoping to construct a tax system that, yes, prioritizes certain needs in our state, but it also protects and rewards taxpayers,” White said last week. 

But it’s difficult to collect accurate data on the state’s grocery tax, and state lawmakers must grapple with a laundry list of spending needs and obligations based on testimony from state agency leaders on Monday. 

Mississippi currently has a 7% sales tax, which is applied to groceries. The state collects the tax but remits 18.5% back to cities. For many municipalities, the sales tax is a significant source of revenue. 

If state lawmakers want to reduce the grocery tax without impacting cities, they could pass a new law to change the diversion amounts or appropriate enough money to make the municipalities whole.  

State Revenue Commissioner Chris Graham said the Mississippi Department of Revenue, the agency in charge of collecting state taxes, does not have a mechanism in place for accurately capturing how much money cities collect in grocery taxes. This is because the tax on groceries is the same as non-grocery items. 

However, Graham estimates that the state collects roughly $540 million in taxes from grocery items.

The other problem lawmakers would have in implementing significant tax cuts is a growing list of spending needs in Mississippi, a state with abject poverty, water and sewer and other infrastructure woes and some of the worst health metrics in the nation. 

Representatives from the Legislative Budget Office, the group that advises lawmakers on tax and spending policy, told senators that lawmakers will also be faced with rising costs in the public employee retirement system, the Medicaid budget, public education, state employee health insurance, and state infrastructure projects. 

READ MORE: As lawmakers look to cut taxes, Mississippi mayors and county leaders outline infrastructure needs

State agencies, including the employee retirement system, also requested $751 million more for the coming budget year.

“That’s the billion dollar question, I guess,” Senate Appropriations Chairman Briggs Hopson, a Republican from Vicksburg, said. “How we’re able to fund basic government services?” 

Harkins and Hopson said the committee would likely meet again before the Legislature convenes for its 2025 session on January 7.

A House committee on tax cuts has also been holding hearings, and White in September held a summit on tax policy.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippians will go to the polls on Tuesday, Nov. 5, to elect federal and state judicial posts and some local offices, such as for election commissioners and school board members.

Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday. To find your polling place, use the secretary of state’s locator, or call your local county circuit clerk.

READ MORE: View the Mississippi sample ballot.

The following is a list of the candidates for federal and judicial posts with brief bios:

President

• Kamala Harris, current vice president and Democratic nominee for president. Her running mate is Tim Walz.
• Donald Trump, former president and current Republican nominee. His running mate is J.D. Vance.
• Robert Kennedy Jr. remains on the ballot in Mississippi even though he has endorsed Trump. His running mate is Nicole Shanahan.
• Jill Stein is the Green Party candidate. Her running mate is Rudolph Ware.
• Five other candidates will be on the Mississippi ballot for president. For a complete list of presidential candidates, see the sample ballot.

U.S. Senate

• Ty Pinkins is the Democratic nominee. He is a Rolling Fork native and attorney, representing, among other clients, those alleging unfair working conditions. He served 21 years in the U.S. Army, including combat stints, other overseas deployment and posts in the White House,
• Roger Wicker is the Republican incumbent senator. He resides in Tupelo and has served in the U.S. Senate since late 2007 after first being appointed to fill a vacancy by then-Gov. Haley Barbour. He was elected to the post in 2008. He previously served in the U.S. House and as a state senator. He is an attorney and served in the United States Air Force.

House District 1

• Dianne Black is the Democratic nominee. She is a small business owner in Olive Branch in DeSoto County.
• Trent Kelly is the Republican incumbent. He was elected to the post in a special election in 2015. He previously served as a district attorney and before then as a prosecuting attorney for the city of Tupelo. He is a major general in the Mississippi Army National Guard.

House District 2

• Bennie Thompson is the Democratic incumbent. He was first elected to the post in 1993. Before then, he served as a Hinds County supervisor and as alderman and then as mayor of Bolton.
• Ronald Eller is the Republican nominee. He grew up in West Virginia and moved to central Mississippi after retiring from the military. He is a physician assistant and business owner.

House District 3

• Michael Guest is the Republican incumbent and is unopposed.

House District 4

• Mike Ezell is the Republican incumbent first being elected in 2022. He previously served as Jackson County sheriff.
• Craig Raybon is the Democratic nominee. Raybon is from Gulfport and began a nonprofit “focused on helping out the community as a whole.”

Central District Supreme Court

• Jenifer Branning currently serves as a member of the state Senate from Neshoba County.
• Byron Carter is a Hinds County attorney and previously served as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Armis Hawkins.
• James Kitchens is the incumbent. He has served on the state’s highest court since 2008.
• Ceola James previously served on the Court of Appeals.
• Abby Gale Robinson is a Jackson attorney. She previously was a commercial builder.

Southern District Supreme Court

• Dawn Beam is the incumbent, having been first appointed in 2016 by then-Gov. Phil Bryant and later winning election to the post. She is a former chancellor for the Hattiesburg area.
• David Sullivan is an attorney in Harrison County and has been a municipal judge in D’Iberville since 2019. His father, Michael, previously served on the state Supreme Court.

Northern District Supreme Court seats

• Robert Chamberlin of DeSoto County is unopposed.
• James Maxwell of Lafayette County is unopposed.

Court of Appeals 5^th District seat

• Ian Baker is an assistant district attorney in Harrison County.
• Jennifer Schloegel is a Chancery Court judge for Harrison, Hancock and Stone counties.
• Amy St. Pe is a Municipal Court judge in Gautier.

Court of Appeals District 2

• Incumbent Latrice Westbrooks is unopposed.

Court of Appeals District 3

• Incumbent Jack Wilson is unopposed.                                                      

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Nov. 4, 1750

Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, the “Father of Chicago,” was born. 

A man of African descent, he became the first known settler in the area that became the city of Chicago. He married a Potawatomi woman, Kitiwaha (Catherine), and they had two children. 

According to records, the property included a log cabin with two barns, a horse-drawn mill, a bakehouse, a poultry house, a dairy, a smokehouse, a fenced garden and an orchard. At his trading post, DuSable served Native Americans, British and French explorers and spoke a number of languages. 

“He was actually arrested by the British for being thought of as an American Patriot sympathizer,” Julius Jones, curator at the Chicago History Museum told WLS, but DuSable beat those charges. 

In Chicago today, a school, street, museum, harbor, park and bridge bear his name. The place where he settled near the mouth of the Chicago River is now a National Historic Landmark, part of the city’s Pioneer Court.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.