by Taylor Vance, Michael Goldberg and Geoff Pender, Mississippi Today
March 20, 2025

This story will be updated.

In a stunning move, the House on Thursday morning voted 92-27 to agree with the Senate’s latest proposal to eliminate the state income tax and increase the gasoline tax, perhaps ending what could have been a raucous intraparty debate at the Capitol for the next two weeks.  

“Let’s end the tax on work once and for all in the state of Mississippi,” House Ways and Means Chairman Trey Lamar said.

If the measure is passed into law, then oddly, a handful of Senate Democrats would have been crucial in passage of the largest tax cut in state history, and a sea change towards more regressive taxation that puts more burden on the poor and those of modest means through increased consumption taxes.

The vote was a surprise. The House and Senate up until the vote had appeared to still be far apart on particulars of a tax overhaul. The bill approved Thursday was held on a motion to reconsider by the GOP House leadership, and Gov. Tate Reeves, House Speaker Jason White and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann all declined comment on the issue — bizarre for such monumental policy.

It’s unclear whether Reeves would sign the measure if it makes it to his desk.

Despite calling for elimination of the income tax, Gov. Reeves has in the past vehemently opposed “tax swap” increases in gasoline or sales taxes along with cuts, and has declined comment on whether he would support the House or Senate proposals with included tax increases. He has not offered any specific plan of his own.

Senate Finance Chair Josh Harkins said he and Lamar exchanged text messages Thursday morning, and Lamar indicated a motion to concur might be coming. Harkins sees the motion to reconsider as a procedural hurdle, and that the Senate bill wouldn’t change.

“I think they passed the negotiated version, I think that’s the final version that you’re going to see. That was a product our talks and discussion,” Harkins said. “I’m pleased that they concurred on the changes that we made and came up with through discussions. They’ve got one more hurdle to clear with tabling the motion to reconsider, and then it will be more final than it is right now.”

In  their conversation on Thursday, Harkins said Lamar was excited about getting a final product across the finish line: “I think he was relieved after a lot of work on this over the last several years,” Harkins said. “Their goal was elimination, and they got a plan to eliminate.”

Rep. Karl Oliver, a Republican from Winona who is part of House leadership, held the bill on a procedural motion, meaning lawmakers could still debate and work on the proposal before it goes to the governor’s office for consideration.

The proposal would decrease the 4% income tax rate by .25% each year from 2027 to 2030 and leaves it at 3% in 2030. After it reaches 3%, the income tax would be reduced with “growth triggers” or at a proportional rate depending on the difference between the state’s revenue and spending plans that year. 

The proposal also would reduce the sales tax on groceries from 7% to 5%, increases the 18.4-cents-a-gallon gasoline tax by 9 cents over three years and change benefits for government employees hired after March 2026 to a more austere retirement plan.

Gov. Reeves and Speaker White, a Republican from West, have forcefully pushed lawmakers to eliminate what they refer to as the “tax on work.” Hosemann and the Senate had been reluctant on full elimination of the tax, urging caution in uncertain economic times and calling for only a cut to the tax instead. However, the Senate this week had passed a counter offer, that would eliminate the income tax over many years, provided economic growth “triggers” are met along the way.

The plan the House voted to send to the governor — pending the holding motion — on Thursday would increase the tax on gasoline by a total of 9 cents a gallon over three years, then increase along with road construction prices thereafter. The House had at first proposed a 5% sales tax on gasoline, then countered with a 15 cents a gallon increase.

The Senate had refused to entertain the House’s proposal to include an increase in the state’s sales tax. The latest House offer would have increased sales taxes from 7% to 8%. It’s original proposal would have increased it to 8.5%/

Mississippi is perennially among the most federally dependent states, receiving nearly a 3-1 return for every dollar in federal taxes it pays. Some Democratic lawmakers have said that, given the uncertainty surrounding the federal spending cuts, now is not the time to drastically rework the state’s tax code. Others had warned that a shift from income taxes to higher sales and gasoline taxes would help the wealthy and hurt those of more modest means and retirees.

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

The mayoral candidates at the forum agreed: Poverty in Jackson is a reflection of how the government distributes its resources. 

Where they differed, however, was over where those resources should be targeted, if the city or state government is more responsible, and whether the current mayor, Chokwe Antar Lumumba, has been doing enough to create economic opportunity in the city. 

At the Mississippi Poor People’s Campaign forum on Wednesday night, poverty was the first of several topics discussed, including water, public safety, affordable housing and empowering the city’s youth. 

Six democratic mayoral candidates, who will face off in the April 1 primary against six others who did not attend, were asked about their specific plan to eradicate poverty in Jackson. They answered from left to right in the order in which they were seated, and their answers are listed here in that order. 

The first to go, Marcus Wallace, a former mayor of Edwards, focused on what the city of Jackson could be doing to invest its $334 million budget in local businesses. Owner of a local construction firm, Wallace said he has been contracting with the city for 27 years, and it hurts him to see out-of-town companies taking work that could be done by Jacksonians. 

“We should do a better job in the city of protecting and preserving our businesses,” he said. 

Likewise, businesses should be incentivized to create more jobs in Jackson, said candidate Tim Henderson, a retired air force lieutenant colonel and U.S. Space Force consultant. He also advocated for raising the city’s minimum wage to $20 an hour. 

“We’ve gotta create those economic opportunities in south Jackson, as well west Jackson and northwest Jackson to give people an opportunity to make their money at home and not spend all their money traveling to Madison, Flowood and the other surrounding areas,” Henderson said.

Lumumba said that every city talks about incentivizing business, but he questioned whether businesses have the same care for the city, referencing the departure of Walmart-owned wholesale chain Sam’s Club.

“When Sam’s was in Jackson, they did very well,” he said. “The unfortunate thing was that they didn’t have value in our community, and they assumed when they moved to Madison that you would follow.” 

The city can also use revolving loan programs to invest in areas that banks won’t, he added. 

“The Fondrens, Belhavens and downtowns of the city of Jackson are considered ‘investor ready,’” he said. “It’s our communities that are often left in the fray.” 

Candidate Socrates Garrett, a longtime city and state contractor, spoke from experience when he said it is hard to build a business as an African American in the poorest city in the poorest state in the nation, even though a majority of Jacksonians are African American.

“If I was in Seattle, or if I was in Maryland, the whole opportunity would be tremendously different,” he said. “But in Jackson, Mississippi, it is twice as difficult, even though we are the majority in this city, and we’ve got to figure out why that is.” 

(Jackson is not the poorest city in the state by every metric, but its median household income of about $42,000 – which falls under a living wage – is lower than that of the state’s at $54,000.) 

“We don’t have an economy of Jackson, that’s the problem,” Garrett said. 

But the mayor can work to fix that, Garrett continued, by using his power to award city contracts to local minority-owned businesses. And Lumumba, he said, was not doing that enough. 

“Any contract under $50,000, this city has the ability to pick up the telephone and call three businesses of their choice,” Garrett said. “Without a bid, without anything other than just pick up the phone and call, and yet I don’t see no minority businesses.” 

The city can fund minority businesses even with a request-for-proposal process, he added. 

“It’s a puny contest. You choose who you want to do that work, and the mayor let folks get in his ears, started giving away the power of that office when he started going through his blind process,” Garrett said, referencing the city’s practice of scoring contract proposals without the names of the vendors attached. “We need a mayor that has his foot on what’s going on in Jackson and make sure that our people are working and that these contracts are benefitting them. Under my leadership, we will build and create our own economy with the dollars that we have.” 

In fact, much of Lumumba’s second term has been dominated by a battle with the city council over replacing the white-owned corporate behemoth Waste Management, who had long held the city’s garbage collection contract, with Richard’s Disposal, the Louisiana-based, minority-owned firm Lumumba’s staff selected. 

The mayor eventually prevailed with Richard’s Disposal receiving a 6-year, $64 million contract in 2024, Clarion Ledger reported.

Delano Funches, a personal injury attorney, talked about the power the federal government has to address poverty when he said Jackson should work with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to create more affordable housing.

In contrast, David Archie, former Hinds County supervisor, mostly focused on the role of the state. He asked if everyone in the room understood that while Jackson is a Democratic city, the state is run by Republicans.

“With the biggest bank of free money that goes all over this state other than to Jackson, Mississippi,” he said. “That’s the first thing that you got to understand.” 

Number two, Archie said, is that the jobs are in Jackson, but the congestion on I-55 in the mornings and evenings is proof that Jackson’s jobs are not going to Jacksonians. 

“They come to Jackson to drain us every day like a vacuum cleaner, and nobody is saying anything about it,” he said.

On rebuttal, Lumumba got a chance to respond to Garrett. He reminded the audience that the biggest contract in this city does, in fact, go to a minority business — Richard’s Disposal. 

But Richard’s Disposal winning the contract was not about enriching individuals, he said. 

“I don’t have anything against a minority business that wants to do well, but my goal isn’t to make you rich, my goal is to make wealth generate in the community, right, and those are the things that we have to stand on,” he said. 

Timing of the years-long garbage conflict, in which Lumumba made bribery allegations against council members, seems to coincide with the FBI’s corruption investigation and undercover sting operation in Jackson that ensnared former Ward 2 Councilwoman Angelique Lee, who pleaded guilty, as well as outgoing Ward 6 Councilman Aaron Banks and Lumumba, both of whom pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial. 

“The reason we had to do a blind bidding process is people are more loyal to their political connections,” Lumumba said, “than to a process that gave legitimate opportunity.” 

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

by Jerry Mitchell, Mississippi Today
March 20, 2025

March 20, 1957

Award-winning filmmaker Spike Lee was born in Atlanta. 

His first film, “She’s Gotta Have It,” with a budget of only $175,000, helped pioneer the independent film movement of the 1980s and changed how Black characters were depicted in film. The film that cemented his reputation as a premier filmmaker, “Do the Right Thing,” took a searing look at racism in America through a hot summer day in Brooklyn. Movie critics Ebert & Siskel picked it as the best film of the year, but the Academy Awards failed to even nominate the movie for Best Picture, giving the award instead to “Driving Miss Daisy.” 

Ebert described Lee’s “Malcolm X” as “one of the great screen biographies” and called it the best film of 1992. Denzel Washington, who portrayed the civil rights leader, received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, but lost, drawing Lee’s ire. 

His 1997 documentary about the KKK’s 1963 bombing of a Birmingham church that killed four girls received an Oscar nomination, but again didn’t win. In 2015, he received an honorary Academy Award for his work, and the Library of Congress selected several of his films for preservation in the National Film Registry. In 2019, he finally won an Academy Award, albeit for Best Adapted Screenplay for “BlacKkKlansman.” 

“I think it’s very important that films make people look at what’s forgotten,” he said.

He won an Emmy and Peabody for his documentary on Hurricane Katrina’s devastation in New Orleans, “When the Levees Broke,” and later received the prestigious Gish Award: “We honor Spike Lee for his brilliance and unwavering courage in using film to challenge conventional thinking, and for the passion for justice he feels in his soul.”

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