News headlines the past couple weeks have tracked thusly:

• Mississippi tax cut plan would cut $1.1 billion in income.
• Mississippi’s Republican governor intent on income tax cut even if states receive less federal money.
• Mississippi’s Republican governor pushes income tax cut, says critics rely on ‘myths.’

But just eight years ago, headlines read:

• Gov. Bryant to cut budget for second time this year, pull from rainy day fund.
• On the chopping block: Mental health, universities.
• Health department closing two-thirds of regional offices.
• Agencies lower state’s credit rating, outlook.

Another great tax cut debate has begun in the Mississippi Legislature, a recurring theme in recent years with state coffers relatively flush and the economy cooking just below a boil.

The broad strokes of the debate, also a recurring theme, are Republican House leaders want to overhaul the entire state tax structure — eliminate the income tax, increase sales and gasoline taxes and provide a net huge tax cut, $1.1 billion when all in. Senate leaders urge more caution, to cut taxes again but take smaller, prudent steps and wait for the dust to settle on record tax cuts recently passed and still being phased in.

READ MORE: Mississippi House set to vote this week on income tax elimination-gas tax increase plan

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves is on the sidelines, appearing to cheer on the House income tax elimination plan, but leery of any tax “swap” increase in sales or gasoline taxes as offsets. He has in the past voiced strong opposition to any such increase even if the net is a cut for most Mississippians.

Those who urge caution in cutting or overhauling the tax structure mention past experience, and they don’t have to look back too far. Eight years ago, from a combination of dozens of tax cuts the Legislature approved and a slumping economy, the state saw a budget crisis that resulted in severely underfunded schools, state government layoffs, a near halt to building new roads and highways and problems maintaining the ones we have, too few state troopers on the highway and cuts to most major state services.

Lawmakers in a few years leading up to the slump had enacted more than 50 tax cuts, from large to small, including what was at the time the largest tax cut in state history to be phased in over years. But their spending had increased.

Then-Gov. Phil Bryant was forced to make emergency mid-year cuts to the state budget five times and to raid the state’s “rainy day” savings account from 2016-2017. Mississippi law requires the state to operate with a balanced budget, and when shortfalls top 2%, the governor is required to make cuts to true the budget.

Mississippi, it has been said, is often first in and last out when it comes to a recessionary economy.

But bad times, like good times, don’t last forever, and the last four years have seen record revenue for the state. And record spending. Since those economic slump days of 2016 and 2017, state general fund spending has risen from about $6 billion to more than $7 billion, with a hefty $1 billion surplus to boot.

House leaders say the time to enact a long-championed tax structure overhaul and elimination of the income tax is now — do it while we can.

“If you say, ‘How can we do that?’ I’d say look at the last four years,” said House Ways and Means Chairman Trey Lamar, author of the latest House tax overhaul plan. “We can do it because we’ve shown we can do it.”

Tax cuts, and structural changes, can have a stimulating effect on the economy.

But it would appear the current push to cut taxes or overhaul the structure does not include any major belt tightening with state government. And much, perhaps most, of the current largesse is a result of the federal government pumping trillions of dollars post-pandemic into the national economy and billions into Mississippi’s. That spigot will likely be turned off with a new administration in Washington. Will Mississippi’s good times continue to roll? House leaders appear to be betting on the come.

But Senate President Protem Dean Kirby, the longest serving Republican in the Legislature, has seen the other effects that ill timed or poorly thought out cuts can bring, especially coupled with a faltering economy.

“I’ve been here long enough I’ve seen the ups and downs,” Kirby said on Mississippi Today’s “The Other Side” podcast. “What goes up comes down. A majority of the people in the Legislature — now including, I hate to say it, the leadership — haven’t been here during the down periods … and right now we’re here in the beginning of a down period. We were, what, $116 million below (projections) last month … We need to be very, very careful that we don’t go through the same we have in the past where we would cut everyone’s budget and every state agency and schools.”

PODCAST: ‘Deja vu all over again’: Senate President Protem Dean Kirby outlines 2025 issues

Senate leaders including Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann say they, too, want tax cuts, just more modest ones. And they do not appear onboard with the swaps and shifts of increases in other taxes. Hosemann does support a cut to the tax on groceries, or unprepared food items.

In large part because the House plan includes a long called for steady stream of money for transportation infrastructure — a 5% sales tax on gasoline — and a cut in taxes on groceries, many House Democrats appear to be on board with the proposal. It’s unclear whether Senate Democrats would lean more towards a House or Senate approach.

The proposed 5% tax on gasoline — which would be about 13 cents a gallon with current average prices — along with a 1.5-cents-on-the dollar increase in the state’s 7% sales tax will perhaps be the toughest sell with Mississippi citizens. Particularly, retirees not paying income taxes now might view this as a net hike for them. And the House restructuring would make the state’s taxing more “regressive,” which would hit people with limited income and those of modest means the most.

It would appear some tax cuts are in the offing with the 2025 Legislature from its GOP supermajorities in both chambers.

The debate will not be on whether to cut, but how and by how much — a battle of moderation versus bold action.

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

This is my Mississippi, the land of my birth.

In a few months, I will reach my 92nd birthday. I am thankful for my life. And I am thankful for all of the challenges, hardships and sorrows that life has brought me.

Since 1963, the person who has been much on my heart and mind is my late husband, Medgar Evers, who empowered Black Mississippians to fight back against the Jim Crow system that tried to make them second-class citizens. He also spent his days and nights on the backroads, investigating the deaths of Emmett Till and so many others whose names have been forgotten.

But Medgar never forgot, and he kept on fighting. I remember white men would angrily call him, threatening to hurt or kill him. Even when they cursed him or called him the “N” word, he would never respond in anger. And sometimes the same ones who cursed would eventually listen to what he had to say.

I could not understand how he embraced goodwill and love over hatred. Once, after he received one of these calls, I told him, “I hate those people.”

He gave me a look I still remember. It was not pleasant. He told me to never stoop to their level, to never lose my humanity. I’ll never forget that.

That was one of the few times we didn’t talk to each other for a while because I was livid at him for telling me that.

My husband believed that Mississippi could be a wonderful place if we handled the problems of race, justice and inequality, and I agree with him.

When I first toured the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, I wept because I felt the blows. I felt the bullets. I felt the tears. As I saw the photographs of violence against activists, I heard their cries, but I also sensed their faith, and it filled me with hope — hope not only in Mississippi, not only in America, but across this world.

There is still so much work to be done, so much work to be done in the areas of justice and equality. Of building good communities. Of training our children about our history and the roles they should play.

Our hopes and our future lie in these young people. I hope they will heed the words of my grandmother, which I find myself saying — and I am a believer — “Here I am. Lord, send me.”

This is why my family and I started the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute — to carry on my husband’s vision for a better, more humane world. And we can do it if we all come together.

Yes, there are those who wish to keep it down. I hope, I trust, and I pray they are in a minority.

I want to thank all of you who have walked hand in hand with me through the stress, through the turmoil, through my period of hatred of my native state, of coming out of that dark veil into one of light and sunshine, warmth and belief that Mississippi is not all that people think it is. The truth is that Mississippi is better because of people like you.

On the same night I heard President Kennedy deliver his first civil rights speech on television, declaring that “the grandsons of slaves were still not free,” my husband was shot in the back as he arrived at our family home. He was carrying T-shirts that read, “Jim Crow Must Go.”

He had survived Nazi fire on the beaches of Normandy, only to become a casualty in the war against hate in Mississippi. When my children and I heard the gunfire, we rushed outside and saw him dying on the driveway.

Days later, thousands of young people marched after his funeral, yelling out, “After Medgar, no more fear!” That slogan inspired more protests, and the walls of Jim Crow began to crash down.

When my husband was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, Roy Wilkins, the head of the NAACP, remarked, “Medgar Evers believed in his country; it remains to be seen if his country believes in him.”

Like Medgar, I still believe in Mississippi, the land of my birth.

I still believe in understanding.

I still believe in empathy.

I still believe in love.

I still believe.

Myrlie Evers is the chairman emeritus of the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute. From 1995 to 1998, she chaired the national NAACP, helping rescue it from bankruptcy. She is the co-author of two books, “To Us, the Living” and “Watch Me Fly: What I Learned on the Way to Becoming the Woman I Was Meant to Be.” She served as editor on the book, “The Autobiography of Medgar Evers: A Hero’s Life and Legacy Revealed Through His Writings, Letters, and Speeches.”

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

The former leader of Mississippi’s public health insurance program for children, pregnant women, low income and disabled people has been tapped to run the overarching federal program, Politico reported Tuesday.

Drew Snyder is expected to assume leadership of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Medicaid division after President-elect Donald Trump is sworn into office Jan. 20.

Snyder left his helm at the Division of Medicaid in October after nearly seven years in the role, where he was one of the agency’s longest-serving directors. He served under two Republican governors who thwarted Medicaid expansion and staunched the flow of billions of federal dollars to provide health insurance to low-income Mississippians for over a decade. 

He then became the leader of a new health care collaborative housed within a powerful multi-state, Jackson-based lobbying firm that has donated thousands of dollars to Republican officials’ campaigns. The firm’s political action committee has contributed nearly $75,000 to Republic Gov. Tate Reeves since 2018. 

Snyder, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, will presumably leave his role weeks into the Mississippi legislative session and with just two months under his belt in the position.

Advocates for Medicaid fear that Trump’s return to the White House may mean drastic cuts for the federal program that provides health insurance coverage to over 79 million Americans. 

Trump made little mention of his plans for the program during his 2024 campaign. But during his first term, Trump encouraged work requirements and introduced waivers to cap funding for state programs in exchange for fewer federal regulations. No states adopted the waiver. 

Trump has nominated Dr. Memhet Oz, a former cardiothoracic surgeon and TV personality, to be administrator of the federal agency. Snyder will serve under Oz’s leadership if he is confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Oz has no experience running a government agency. 

Snyder left Mississippi Medicaid in what he described as “the best fiscal shape in its history,” at the Joint Legislative Budget Committee Hearing in September 2024, less than two weeks before he announced his resignation. The state’s appropriation will likely increase in coming years due to reduced federal public health emergency dollars and dwindling agency surplus funds.

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