Are you aware of the grassroots organization making waves in the political landscape, Americans for Prosperity (AFP)? We've got the inside scoop as we chat with AFP's Stone Clanton and Cade Yates about the influential work they're doing. Advocating for limited government, lower taxes, and free markets, this powerhouse team is taking citizen engagement to new heights. They're shaping the discourse on key policy areas like education and healthcare and using a bottom-up approach to drive change.
Stepping away from the traditional talk on policy, we take an unexpected culinary detour, celebrating Southern cuisine in all its glory. You'll be surprised to find out where Clanton and Yates recommend getting the best fried chicken in Mississippi! Then, we steer the ship back to crucial topics like government spending, education, and Medicaid expansion. We question the balance between government safety nets and community charity, the need for a long-term solution for affordable healthcare, and how education can become more flexible to cater to individual needs.
Finally, we jump into the hot topic of tax policy and AFP's vision of reducing taxes wherever possible. We dream about the possibility of eliminating income tax in Mississippi, the challenges that pose, and the need to cut government spending. Whether it's healthcare, taxes or education, the crux of our conversation always comes back to this - every citizen deserves quality, affordable services, and the freedom to choose what's best for them. Come join us on this enlightening journey with Stone Clanton and Cade Yates as we navigate these pressing issues and envision a future of prosperity.
Americans for Prosperity
Website: https://americansforprosperity.org/ and https://standtogether.org/about-us/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/afpmississippi/
X: @afp_ms
Facebook: @afpms
E-mail: sclanton@afphq.org
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Where's The County Line:
Website: https://www.countylinepodcast.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/countylinepodcast/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/countylinepodcastms
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thecountylinepodcast/about
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/countylinepodcast
Submit content, questions, and topics you would like to hear on The County Line to: countylinepodcast@gmail.com
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(00:04) Americans for Prosperity
(13:19) Government's Role and Love for Southern Cuisine
(21:27) Controlling Government Spending and Education
(32:56) The Progress of Human Progress
(36:25) Medicaid Expansion
(41:47) Medicaid Expansion Concerns and Challenges
(56:44) Repealing COIN and Medicaid Expansion
(1:02:30) Healthcare Options and Technology Advancements
(1:15:15) Healthcare System and Nurse Practitioners
(1:23:35) Tax Policy and State Budget Conversations
(1:28:27) Eliminating Taxes and Creative Revenue Solutions
(1:41:26) Educational Choice and Flexibility
Are you aware of the grassroots organization making waves in the political landscape, Americans for Prosperity (AFP)? We've got the inside scoop as we chat with AFP's Stone Clanton and Cade Yates about the influential work they're doing. Advocating for limited government, lower taxes, and free markets, this powerhouse team is taking citizen engagement to new heights. They're shaping the discourse on key policy areas like education and healthcare and using a bottom-up approach to drive change.
Stepping away from the traditional talk on policy, we take an unexpected culinary detour, celebrating Southern cuisine in all its glory. You'll be surprised to find out where Clanton and Yates recommend getting the best fried chicken in Mississippi! Then, we steer the ship back to crucial topics like government spending, education, and Medicaid expansion. We question the balance between government safety nets and community charity, the need for a long-term solution for affordable healthcare, and how education can become more flexible to cater to individual needs.
Finally, we jump into the hot topic of tax policy and AFP's vision of reducing taxes wherever possible. We dream about the possibility of eliminating income tax in Mississippi, the challenges that pose, and the need to cut government spending. Whether it's healthcare, taxes or education, the crux of our conversation always comes back to this - every citizen deserves quality, affordable services, and the freedom to choose what's best for them. Come join us on this enlightening journey with Stone Clanton and Cade Yates as we navigate these pressing issues and envision a future of prosperity.
Americans for Prosperity
Website: https://americansforprosperity.org/ and https://standtogether.org/about-us/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/afpmississippi/
X: @afp_ms
Facebook: @afpms
E-mail: sclanton@afphq.org
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Where's The County Line:
Website: https://www.countylinepodcast.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/countylinepodcast/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/countylinepodcastms
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thecountylinepodcast/about
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/countylinepodcast
Submit content, questions, and topics you would like to hear on The County Line to: countylinepodcast@gmail.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
(00:04) Americans for Prosperity
(13:19) Government's Role and Love for Southern Cuisine
(21:27) Controlling Government Spending and Education
(32:56) The Progress of Human Progress
(36:25) Medicaid Expansion
(41:47) Medicaid Expansion Concerns and Challenges
(56:44) Repealing COIN and Medicaid Expansion
(1:02:30) Healthcare Options and Technology Advancements
(1:15:15) Healthcare System and Nurse Practitioners
(1:23:35) Tax Policy and State Budget Conversations
(1:28:27) Eliminating Taxes and Creative Revenue Solutions
(1:41:26) Educational Choice and Flexibility
All right Countyline congregation. We are back and we have Americans for prosperity in the building. Today we have Mr Stone Clanton. I've been calling him by the wrong name leading up to this, this conversation, but I got it right there. I got Mr Cade Yates, both of which are with the Americans for Prosperity Organization and, without further ado, guys, I'll just let either of y'all kind of give y'all a spill on what AFP is and the roles that y'all play in that organization.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so like I said, afp, we've been around for a while. We are pretty much a. We are one of the leading grassroots organizations on the nation basis. We have thousands of actors across the US that engage in policy when it comes to ideas around free markets, better healthcare, better education, from a more, like I said, right-leaning perspective, and it's just based on a set of principles. And AFP Mississippi has been around for since 2015.
Speaker 2:And all of our stuff is based here in Mississippi. We've got an office in Ridgeline, we've got an office near the state capitol and we've got five folks on the team. We have Starla Brown, our state director, who is kind of the vision person. She's been with the organization for 10 years, not just in Mississippi, but she's been in Florida she actually is a Mississippi girl from Meridian and then myself as the deputy state director.
Speaker 2:So I'm more policy, I go to the legislature, I keep the communication lines of communication open and then also, you know, I'm a big like public speaker on healthcare and some issue like criminal justice, issues that we've worked on for years and that's kind of been my role. And then Stone and along with Nathan and Steven, nathan Moore and Steven Moore, we got two brothers that work for us North Mississippi and South Mississippi, and Stone cover Central Mississippi and I'll let Stone cover kind of what his job is, but grassroots engagement director. So we were a five five person team. We try to rely on each other's strengths and weaknesses to really build a team that is working towards the goal of a better society, one that is relying on individuals, being able to recognize their individual talents and abilities and keeping government out of the way when someone is trying to achieve the American dream.
Speaker 3:So, stone, if you want to touch on your role and kind of how that's working, yes, I'm a grassroots engagement director, along with Nathan, who is based out of start I mean out of Oxford, but he covers pretty much all that Northern Mississippi area from DeSoto County to below Oxford, start full and pretty much anywhere in between, and then his brother is on the coast and up to Hattiesburg. So they he that we've all pretty much got some some big areas. I cover pretty much everything from Vicksburg all the way over to Meridian. And as a grassroots engagement director, our job is to engage with citizen contact. Where Kate's job is to be a resource that's what it amounts to is we're a resource for knowledge on sound policy. He's a resource for the legislators. I'm a resource for their constituents to a degree. We get out there, we host events, are we where we engage those constituents on issues, whether it be education, healthcare, economic progress. We do days of action where we get out and do citizen contact. Where we're doing door to door work, we do phone calls and right now we're in a survey mode right now just non persuasive, just seeing where the people are on certain issues, and it's a very fulfilling job.
Speaker 3:I started out as a volunteer, kate, at the time, back when I was a junior at Mississippi College, which was about four years ago, I got kind of tired of playing the party politics stuff and I wanted to do something more. I wanted to actually make a difference in our state, not just take a picture with a politician, and I got engaged and started volunteering. After I graduated I was a grad intern with the Secretary of State's office in the elections division, moved over to a communications role for a little while, and then this job opened up and I fell in love with it and it is something that I really enjoy doing every day.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So it sounds to me like, excuse me, the mission of AFP is, as a nonprofit, to advocate for certain policy stances on a multitude of different issues, and those stances typically fall within the realm of the. Republican party or the right leaning conservative party? Do y'all associate with a party or do y'all just independently vow for what it is y'all are trying to teach?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're nonpartisan, we don't, we don't try to. You know, obviously, when you're interacting in politics, you're going to interact with the parties at some level. As far as like, hey, this person is Republican, we'll work with them, but also with Democrats. I mean, we've, we've talked with people in that. Again, that's why I say right leaning, because we believe in free markets, we believe in limited government, lower taxes, we believe that, like I said, once you get outside of the party structure you know it's no longer just like I have to adhere to these, these set ideas.
Speaker 3:And that's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh no, it's. It's a freeing thing because, like, we have principles that that are our guiding structure, so it's more flexible than just a platform or like a party resource, cause, like it's not, when you do principle based approach to a solution, you're not going well. Well, this just isn't going to sit well with with the party members on the state or county level. Uh no, no, we like we have to. When we say it's a principled approach, we're taking it from the top to the bottom. When it comes to we're not going to fall into these traps.
Speaker 3:A better way to say it, maybe from the bottom to the top.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we believe in bottom up solutions. We don't believe in, uh, we believe that when government comes in and has like this top down, heavy handed approach, um, you know it's never going to work out well because you have somebody far away from the problem trying to solve a problem. When I, I mean, we're both from Philadelphia, right? I don't think. I don't think many people understand Philadelphia unless you're from there. Uh, people don't understand, like when I'm, when I moved to Pizga, uh, in the eighth grade, nobody really understands living in a single wide trailer up in the North reservoir area, unless you've been there and said the problems.
Speaker 2:I think the problems are solved better from the people who are experiencing the problems and so that's why, kind of jettisoning ourselves outside of the party restraints and being nonpartisan, being principle based, we're able to find the best solutions while having honest conversations and not being just cause. A lot of times, when you're stuck in that party structure, people just don't want to talk to you and it's like we can have a conversation with anyone and anybody and we can state where we are and we can, but we can as, as the adage always says, you got two ears and one mouth, so you better be listening more than you're talking.
Speaker 3:So I think, to add onto that and from a citizenship perspective, we always use this Frederick Douglas quote that says I would unite when they knew what to do right and they want to do wrong. So if there's one issue that we can work on with with a legislator, we're going to do it. If there's one issue we can work on with with a coalition partner, we're going to do it, because they're striving for the same goals and at least that realm. We are in such a dangerous area, I think, as a country right now, with hyper partisanship. And if you know anything about and I know that it's like a meme right now, like talking about the Roman Empire, thinking about the Roman Empire every day but if you know anything about history, what led to the fall of the Roman Republic was hyper partisanship. And again, I'm not saying that's us, but we we're treading in dangerous waters when you get so entrenched in hating the other person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're there and I don't. I don't know if it's. I think we may be too far into it to to be able to come out of it quite honestly. I mean, you know, just looking at the governor's race this past week, it was a close race, right. But your traditionally democratic areas over in the Delta, you're 85, 15 Democrat. In George County, southeast Mississippi, you're 85, 15 Republican. And those are the extremes. But those are also microcosms of the problem at large. And so, as as an organization at AFP, someone who is nonpartisan, what is y'all's perspective on how the country can decrease the intensity of that hyper partisanship?
Speaker 2:That I will say that is such a hard issue because, believe me, over the past few years it's gotten. I've seen it get much worse, like you said, and for us, that's where our organization really strives to take a step back, have open, honest conversations, recognize number one human dignity. I'll put it in terms of like my, my raising at like Sandtown United Methodist Church and like going to like the bad fan of Baptist church where I went, you know, in those church terms. You know, god created us equally and he created us beautifully in his image. And I have to, when I have a conversation with someone, I have to remember that before I continue on, because if I don't treat that person like they would want, like I'd want them to treat me, we're never going to get anywhere.
Speaker 2:And, and I know it's feels hopeless right now, but like, the only way that we can actually make a difference is by saying like, hey, I know it feels hopeless, but we got to have an honest conversation.
Speaker 2:And once you're able to get down to that, that basic understanding, that basic understanding of who people are, because, like, I think I can identify well with people, no matter if they're from George County, Mitt County, over into the Delta, up in North Mississippi, south Mississippi. We're all Miss Sippians. We've been through a lot and I really truly believe like, if we're able to come together and have open and honest conversations, we can start to reverse some of this and, slowly but surely, come out on the other side. We won't be unharmed. There's going to be scars, there's going to be wounds that are going to take some time to heal, because, I mean, I've been called some nasty names, some rough things, by people who call me a racist, call me whatever Boy they've taken that word and just I mean it's like it has a totally different connotation now than it did even 20 years ago.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and it's just so easily thrown around and people, particularly that disagree with the far left, are deemed to be racist, regardless of what the situation actually is, and so that's one of those things, that's one of those insults that nobody wants to take on, nobody wants to be called racist because, number one, as Americans, we think about the Jim Crow South, we think about slavery, and it is such a negative and dark part of our country's history that nobody wants to be associated with it personally or have their behavior or character associated with it. So it's very effective it is. And the way that the Democrats, the far left people use it and you know, insulting people and making them feel less than or inferior, or what have you? I think, to touch on how we can decrease the intensity of the bipartisan or the partisan nature of our politics is our politicians are going to have to quit identifying and taking that money from those parties.
Speaker 2:I'm going to say that's going to be pretty tough.
Speaker 1:I know it is, but that's what I believe is going to have to happen. There's going to have to be a. You know, take a Donald Trump figure, but not associate with a party and be popular enough. I think JFK RFK Jr is on that track. You know, the way he's being forced to not identify with a party ironically is an example and somewhat of a blueprint on how our leaders can do it from the top and then do what y'all are doing at the grassroots level, and I think if those two can meet in the middle, then we'll start making some progress.
Speaker 2:And I will say one other piece that I think is crucial to any of this is I think right now there's a lot of Americans who just don't realize what's going on. There's an uneducated level of like, and it's not intentional. People are trying to survive. They're trying to, you know, do the travel ball. They're trying to make sure their kids are educated, make sure they got food on the table, make sure that they're able to have fun and do their and have their life.
Speaker 2:And when you start bringing up politics, man, it starts to get people like I don't want to talk, I don't mix religion and politics, I'm going to show up in my door and start talking about it. But I think the biggest thing is if you're able to actually and again, holding politicians accountable is such a it can be taken so negatively, but like holding politicians accountable is literally just saying like hey, I have, I have, I can go and have coffee with my local senator and just be like hey, what do you think about this, what do you think about this? You know, how can we have these conversations? And then also taking a few minutes, like out of your time a month, and just like what's going on, like what? Like how can I? Because I mean these issues really affect people.
Speaker 2:We talk about healthcare, education, um, regular regulations. I talk to my father-in-law who owns a business down in Purvis Great restaurant, love it. But, like man talking to him, he's like my tax are too high, I've got all these crazy. And it's not like regulations like food safety, it's like man, I have to have these certain things, these doing things. Like it's just like man, this guy's life is really affected by government.
Speaker 3:Go ahead and give him a plug.
Speaker 2:Oh well, actually I will say you, you asked for some of the best fried chicken. We're going to have to go down to Purvis and go to the stone house and eat some good fried chicken because like I can't go anywhere outside of Mississippi anymore and get outside of Purvis, really, and get like the best fried chicken I've ever had. So like I love Purvis, oh, it's great, I love.
Speaker 1:Purvis. I've been in Pikiune for some time Okay, right down the road from Purvis and went up there and I was teaching and coaching. So obviously we'd play ball up at Purvis and they'd come to us, so got to know them relatively well. You said it's the stone house. The stone house, yeah, just country cooking and country cooking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, southern cuisine, yeah, country buffet. You walk in, you get your plate and fix it right up and it's a great time, yeah, talking about the fried chicken.
Speaker 1:So for those of y'all that don't know that are listening, I put up a post this past I guess last week asking where the best fried chicken in Mississippi could be found, and the number one answer so far that's gotten mentioned the most times are gas stations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean it is tough to beat, it is. No, the funny thing is is we actually had a guy come in. So we have an organization that's a sister organization. I recall it's Concern Veterans for America. They work on veterans issues. It's all veterans working on veterans care.
Speaker 2:And when he came to Mississippi, he's a. He's a good old boy from like North Florida, served in the military. He's a. He's a. He's a little rough around the edges, but I like him. And Jimmy came here and he was like man, what's some of the like where, where's the southern food at? And I was like, well, I can take you to some restaurants and like, I did take him to the stone house and he enjoyed it. He loved it. The face of like the like it was there. But then I said, but also, we're going to have to take you to a gas station. He's like you're taking me to a gas station and I'm like, yeah, no, you, you find some of the best barbecue, fried chicken, catfish, desserts, whatever you find it at a gas station and it is. It's the way. It's the way that Mississippi is just like unique.
Speaker 1:I think that I've thought about why it's that way, and I think it just comes from people trying to make the most out of what they've got. So, instead of having a restaurant separate from a gas station, well, you've got a little bit of room over here on the end of the store, and I feel like that's probably where it started, yeah, and so, hey, we'll put a, we'll put a hot bar in there and throw some chicken behind the counter and do it that way it's how KFC started.
Speaker 3:Is that really? Yeah, I did not realize that. I did not realize that.
Speaker 2:This is the most. That's the best thing in the world to know that, like the most, one of the most famous chicken brands in the world started at a gas station. That just solidifies that, like you're right, it is like we went to was at the Shell station with the main street junction and I was like I just want some, I just want a biscuit, and you know, get a little something in me before we come on here and do a podcast. And it's just like you said, hot box, right there in the middle. You go sit at the table over on the side, you grab you a drink and you know whatever you need and you're set and it's. It is using exactly what you have to maximize whatever you can. Whatever you can provide value for a customer that's looking for it, and especially in some of these small towns, like that is.
Speaker 2:I remember some of the places I'm trying to remember. I lived in a is just a little bit north of here. I'm trying to remember, but I just remembered the gas station was Woodies. Woodies, yeah, with the pizza sticks, yeah, and it's like, yeah, and so that's that's for me, like I don't remember any other restaurant nearby, but you just go into Woodies and you get a pizza stick and a and a Coke and you're happy as a kid.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And I remember I went to Star Full this past weekend for the football game. Well, for the environment, I didn't go in the game, but I stopped at Woodies to get gas and I got me a pizza stick on the way through.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, it's, it's how it is.
Speaker 1:Where do y'all think the level of government that we have involved in our Mississippians lives is at this point? Is it too much? Is it too little?
Speaker 3:Always too much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I will say Mississippi is in a unique place where I am. I love Mississippi so much Like I, truly like I will never leave here. This is my home and I'm and I'm proud of us because I know how much we've achieved. But when you start talking about the amount of government on the federal, state and local levels, I mean, and I know some counties like I I'm not trying to give them a pass, but like when there's no industry in town and your only option is, you know, maybe maybe a few places, but the county government is is really the largest employer, the largest employer. And then on the the state level, I know that we have people that try to cut, you know, try to make us as lean as possible, but we're just not there yet. I mean, and again, there's there's just conversations of like, what is the proper role of government? And I think there's always going to be disagreement around that, because when you have people hurting, you don't want people to be hurting, like it. It's a natural human response to like, try to take care of people, but there is a certain level that is just. That is just not a you're not able to maintain. Like you, just if someone's not, can not, working towards their betterment, like if they and if they have the ability to, if they have the mental capacity and the ability to, and they've been given an opportunity and let's just say you know education field, or or they haven't been told their entire life, hey, you can't do anything. You can't do anything. You just need to be on a welfare program, like whenever you truly empower people. I think we can have a conversation of like how government can operate effectively, because I'm not I'm not anti-government. I think there is a place for government to uphold the rule of law, to have individuals. There is a place for safety nets, because there are going to be people out there who just cannot take care of themselves at some level and safety nets are, are a natural part of our society. But again, the size of government has just not, it's gotten out of control. And then on the federal side, this is a whole different issue. But I think the biggest problem I have is the amount of federal money that we are taking, the amount of federal money that they have a stranglehold over us, because, if you look at it, every time the federal government wants to institute a policy that is not popular.
Speaker 2:So back in the day. It was, you know, and some of these are are good and bad, you know. You know, certificate of need policy on the federal level we can get into that, but it was essentially the federal government saying, hey, to limit the supply of healthcare in communities so everybody can have access, but we're not providing too much care. So complicated thing, but we can get into it. But the way the government implemented this in each state was saying, hey, if, if you don't implement this, we're going to start pulling funding. They do it with seatbelts and smoking, age and whatever else, but that's how the government controls.
Speaker 2:The federal government can really pull strings and force, uh, like individual states to do things that you might not agree with or the things that, like, I'm always afraid I saw guns before I, before I did this job I'm always afraid that something's going to happen. They're going to be like, well, if you don't implement red flag laws or these are that, and AFP doesn't work on gun gun laws. I'm just throwing this out there. But, uh, we're working on economics.
Speaker 2:But I really do think that the government's best way of controlling is by saying, hey, we're going to pull your funding, we're going to cripple you on an issue if you don't do what we say. And I think for me that's one of the greatest fears is when Mississippi, I think, is in tune to like 12, $12 billion from the feds. Um, like that we receive annually, whenever, that's the amount of stranglehold they have when they're, when they're implemented into the roads, the healthcare, the education, everything, every single piece of your life. If they say jump, mississippi's going to say how high and we, we do that because we're so poor.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Imagine if we, if they right now cut off every federal fund to the state, we would be a a big madness, oh my goodness.
Speaker 3:And before we get too too much into the weeds of the policy side, to understand our, our idea of the role of government, you have to understand that we believe there are four key institutions of society. They're not always brick and mortar, they can be but there's business, there's education, there's community and there's government. This is obviously business, the economy, education can look anything from a high school diploma to a GED to a PhD or anything in between, whatever a person can use to succeed in life, to prosper in life economically, because if you don't have a good education You're not gonna prosper economically. If you don't prosper economically you're not gonna have good health care, you're not gonna have good shelter, food, etc. Etc. Etc.
Speaker 3:And then finally, community, which can look like anything from a nonprofit to just a neighborhood of in a community, of to a church yeah, a church, a community believers. And then finally, government, and sometimes those things can overlap, but some, most of the time, those things do things best on their own. Yeah, and I think that's kind of our view of government, independent of the other three. They again, they can cross over and or, you know, it could be community, education or whatever it can be, it can be government and education, but it's just sometimes they work best on their own and that's kind of our view of government.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they can be layered on top of one another where where, like, the layers don't mix. But you know, I, growing up, you know I think when it comes to like welfare, you know that's always the biggest thing. I've always thought that and I think this has been the perspective. I've learned more and more is that welfare is not best done by, you know, the government, always when it's just some dude in Washington saying, oh, I think these people need X amount on a check, or this, this amount of food, or this, or that it is churches, communities going hey, I know what this guy really needs, I know what this, what is really needed in these communities.
Speaker 3:Bottom up stuff bottom up stuff.
Speaker 1:problem with that is there are people like that, don't get me wrong but the people who need in that capacity far outnumber those good souls that are willing to be charitable. So then you run into okay. Well, if we're going to just depend on community charity, then we're going to be in a situation where people are going to be ready to kill because they're starving, and so that's where we have to. We have to continue to try to find that, that happy medium, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And that's and that's really where, like I'm not saying it's going to be independent, like I said, safety nets from the government are always going to be part of our lives, I believe. But the problem is over the last 50, 60 years, we've slowly released a lot of the responsibility that communities business and educate, like the education they're numb to it now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of them say that's not my role anymore, with the government has taken that over and I think that's been the problem. Like I'm not saying you're wrong, I think you're spot spot on. Like the number of people is greatly exceeding what a local community church especially in somewhere like a rural Mississippi.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, but it has to be. You have to have business, education, government and community working together and independently doing what they're really good at and bearing that load together as a community and slowly but surely, creating opportunity for individuals to where there is less of it. Like I really do think there can be less poverty in Mississippi, I don't think we're going to always be the poorest of the poor. If we change our mindset, if we can actually make good policy changes, allow individuals to be, have the best education possible, recognize their individual talents, create a government that is working towards a good system. That is, like I said, not top down, empowering individuals and we're getting out of the way of businesses Building and operating and growing, creating more opportunity.
Speaker 2:Because, like a lot of people can can be kind of, they can kind of be harsh on business owners. Sometimes they're like, oh, he's just got the money, he's just got the money. No, no, that guy created a business that's putting food on your table because he took the risk. He went out and started this business and now you've got a job because of it and maybe you can take those skills and open up something else, do something else.
Speaker 1:So when you look at education and the way we currently have it structured, based on kids going to schools, based on the parameters of boundaries in which they live, is that AFP's intention at all to give the individuals, specifically the parents, more choice and where their kids go to school, whether it be in this school district, that school district, a public district, a private district? I talked with Douglas Carswell about this. The subject and he's for school choice, basically saying, I think, is the number was like $12,000 per pupil is basically what it cost to educate a child in Mississippi on an annual basis, and his suggestion was take that $12,000 and attach it to each pupil and then the guardian of that child can determine where that money is spent. What is, what is AFP's outlook on education, particularly secondary education for our children?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I will preface this by saying, like, our team is a little split up on like I mostly work on health care and our state director starless. She works on the education piece along with stone and some other folks. But our perspective is is each child is uniquely gifted to real like. We believe education needs to be really crafted to the individual child and I do believe that attaching money to the student is probably going to be the best way to individually allow each child to really seek the best education possible and allow parents who know their children way better than than any big government entity, than anybody yeah, than anybody and and so, at the end of the day, we do believe that there is a place and then I think the system will be better when you allow that child to have money attached to them and that money is used for like.
Speaker 3:We really do believe in like making the system really unique and it's not totally custom to the kid, because if they want to use that for tutoring, if they want to use that for maybe even an extra curriculum, even an extra curricular activity that can eventually be able to allow them to excel in college or something of that nature. It's all about the uniqueness and what this, this concept is called educational savings accounts is, is ESA, is that's kind of the the concept, but that's what it amounts to. Because, again, what I told you earlier, if you don't have a good education in the state, you're not going to prosper economically, and if you don't prosper economically you're not going to prosper anywhere else in life. I'm not saying that money makes the world go around, but it's a great resource to have it. Grease is the wheel that I know.
Speaker 1:I ain't no doubt about that, and I mean when I think about education and who's making decisions for the children. Who better to make an educational decision than the parent of that child? For many different reasons, on many different levels, but primarily because that parent has the most pride in that child in most cases, generally speaking. So that parent, that individual who is has that much pride in that human being, is going to look out for the best interest of that human being more than anybody else will. I think it's blasphemous that politicians and Jackson are determining where children go to school. I mean over over the parents. I mean I know that's probably that's based on how communities were being built back in the day, but we're not back in the day anymore.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is a different day and age. That's the thing is. A lot of times can't remember exactly that the date in the 1800s, as was, but a lot of this goes back to the man, reforms and the idea it was. I want to say, was it a Swedish style of school system? They were building Prussian, prussian Sorry, that's right, prussian. No, no offense to the Swedes, but but it was a Prussian style of just this factory mindset of let's, let's pump them in and pump them out. And I understand what they were going for. They were trying to go for an effective and efficiency model.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:However it turned out. It really wasn't the most effective and efficient model. It may have been at the time, but things have to progress. We have to progress the hockey stick of human progress that AFP and the stand together community talks about. A lot that happened when the industrial revolution. It was just a straight line for so many years from what the industrial revolution just shut up, and we have to continue to progress as a society. Sometimes that's kind of a dirty word, but there's good progress and there's bad progress, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1:Well, that's another word that's been tarnished as well.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 1:I mean you can't you can't say progressive without especially a misci, without somebody giving you the side.
Speaker 3:I'm like no, I'm not, you know. I'm not woke, yeah, so I think. I think that's the thing we have to continue to find new ways to do things better. It's it goes back to our principles of human progress, which I know we're using a lot of buzzwords and a lot of jargon, but it's. It's so easy for us who have been working here for for two plus years.
Speaker 2:Kate's been here for five years now Five in April, yeah.
Speaker 3:So it's easy for us to use this stuff, but we we see that the principles of human progress are dignity, you know, respecting your fellow man, openness, open and new ideas. People places things open to where you may be wrong about an idea, then you go over to the bottom up solutions and once people are able to find in the whoever has the best solution to the problem, there's some mutual benefit going on and finally people are able to self actualize and continue that. We actually talked about it a good bit over here. Self actualization is this concept that you're a lifelong learner and your self actualization isn't the end, it's only kind of the beginning, to be honest with you.
Speaker 1:That's a Freud, that's a Freudian concept.
Speaker 3:Yeah, is it a Freudian concept or is it Maslow? I don't know. I feel like it's been. It's been discussed by everybody.
Speaker 3:It's, it's something if you continue to do it it's. I know that a lot of people want to always call it like self transcendence, that's more like a religious thing, yeah, but in my, in my personal life, I see it as it is me continuing to mature in life. I mean, do you ever fully mature, your, your wise change? In five years, my wife is going to be different than my wife now. Right, you know, if I'm married, I'm single right now. My wife right now is you'll get on them, ladies. Well, I got a girlfriend.
Speaker 2:I got a girl. Single is not the best word to use.
Speaker 3:So, but we, it's something that you continue to do. You know, my wife right now is my career and fulfilling career, and to be financially stable. In five years, if I'm married, my wife is going to be taking care of me and my wife in 10 years Five kids, it'll be taking care of my family, and so on. You continue to look back five years and like why did I do that? Why did I say that? I thought about that, but it's okay, because you're continuing to progress in a good way.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely, and I think that's, in that scenario that you just just described is important in terms of I think it's important to write and go back and read what you've written over that course of time, because that'll help give you more perspective and context on why you did something five years ago. You know, you may not be able to understand it wholly, because even reading what you wrote, I mean, I'm a different person today than I was yesterday.
Speaker 3:Yes, of course, and that happens.
Speaker 1:You know, if that's not happening, then you're getting worse, you're getting better you know, and you'd rather be on the better side of that.
Speaker 3:I didn't mean to lose down that rabbit trail.
Speaker 2:No, no, no. I think that I think it's a good place to be. And I will say, just to back up a little bit, like I don't, when people dive into education and do the things that, like, we just don't maybe agree with, which is like one side of Spitzol model, where, like, each kid is just like, if you, just if you just get them to this point, maybe they'll survive, maybe they'll make it. I really do, I really do think that kids, when given the opportunity, when given it a customized education, you're going to see really great results. And I think and I think that is again, at the end of the day, my biggest thing is is when I went through school, I had great teachers I had, I had a great principal who really cared about me, but I feel like I could have had maybe a little bit of a different trajectory if I wouldn't have been placed in a class that was the sitting rows do the thing. I mean, it took me going to college and having a college professor go hey, dude, like your grammar is really bad, come by the office with me and just like, sitting off, like this is a professor making good money, having a great time, and he's just like come by my office and sit for an hour every week and I will work with you on basic grammar. That was the individual touch I needed.
Speaker 2:And then I came to AFP and I mean I'm just again. I have to watch myself because sometimes I dog on myself and just be like I'm just a poor, dumb kid from Mississippi a group in a single wide trailer. But I will say, since I started with AFP and like my educational journey has kept going, I had my mentor for a stick pen, who started Mississippi Center for Public Policy, where Douglas is at, and then Trey Dellinger who's the chief of staff for Speaker Gunn. Now they would, they would just like give me back stuff and just be like it would be bloody, It'd be just like red ink everywhere, Just being like, hey, just rewrite this.
Speaker 2:Where'd you go to college? Oh, Whim Keri, Whim Keri University down in Hattiesburg. And I went to school to be a pastor. I was, it was. I could say that, yeah, Things turned out a little bit different, but the concept is still there, where I just really genuinely love people, I genuinely want to help out my community and I and in my heart I truly believe that when you stick to like how people are valued and you talk to people in a way that they want to be treated just like you want to be treated. Things are going to work out and and I and luckily, like when I was down there I got involved in politics and things changed up a little bit. I met my wife down there. We didn't get married in college. It took a few years of me self actualizing and coming AFP and get my life straight and and really just leaning into some really strong principles of like man you're not, you're not a dumb guy Like now.
Speaker 2:I've met with senators and representatives from federal and state level and and I'm just like I said, I'm just really happy to be able to do what I do.
Speaker 1:Talk to me a little bit about Medicaid expansion and how y'all view that at AFP.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Medicaid expansion and I told someone in the car I'm like, oh man, I know you had somebody on talking about it. I'm like I hope this doesn't evolve into like an hour long thing about Medicaid expansion. But first off, I am not a Medicaid expert guru Like I could probably throw out numbers and they're not like they're going to be relatively accurate, but I'm not going to be able to do just like great on it. I could give you names of like 15 other people that I sit with on a regular basis who can talk about a better, a better way. But our perspective on Medicaid expansion is number one. It's not going to fix the problem if we do expand Medicaid.
Speaker 2:What is the problem? Closing hospitals, affordable, accessible healthcare in all communities, not just rural, not just urban, and also a sustainable model. We're not in a sustainable model where people are getting a quality healthcare at a good price and it's fulfilling to their life. I mean people just avoid the healthcare system in general. So with Medicaid we don't believe. Like we've seen in Arkansas and Louisiana, hospitals continue to close even after you expand Medicaid. There's a deeper issue going on here. There's a deeper issue when it comes to how a hospital operates. What are we doing with, like, how clinics are set up? How, like, are we doing preventative care earlier on, Are we working on? There's a lot of stuff that goes into it, but I want to stick to Medicaid. So, like I said, number one, I don't think it addresses the problem and I think it's just a bandaid that is not going to lead to long-term success.
Speaker 3:Again, we're okay with safety net.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're okay with safety net, so I think it's going to be a part. And again, like right now, a large portion of our state is already on Medicaid. So adding another 300,000 people I don't think we'll be the solution that we need. Secondly, again going back to that federal money, people say we're leaving money on the table. That money, like we are already taking a lot of money, significantly more than other states, significantly more than other states. I mean blue states love just pounding on Mississippi saying they send in X amount of dollars into the federal system but they get three times, four times as much back than they send in. So we're hard.
Speaker 2:I mean I get the argument I hear it every day but like there's a certain point where we do have to say there's no more money, like I mean we're just. I mean there's a certain level that the money's $30 trillion in debt, like the debt clock is just keeping on going up. We're looking at, you know, war, we're looking at all these other things going on federal issues that are. I mean, when it comes down to it, we just don't have the money to do it and we have to find other solutions.
Speaker 2:Third point on it, like I said, we believe we have something called the personal option, which is personalizing healthcare again getting back to that doctor-patient relationship and we believe that Medicaid, at the end of the day, is offering sub like it's subpar healthcare just to just to give it to someone to make them feel a little bit like they've got they've got a better healthcare system. I think we can actually do better and like I'll take more questions on Medicaid, but, like I said, if you want to get into the personal option, this is kind of my wheelhouse. I really do think there are other things that we can do, but I just don't think we have the money and I think it's going to be subpar healthcare and, at the end of the day, it's not going to stop hospitals from closing.
Speaker 1:I hear you and I agree with a lot of those points that you're making, and then I continue to think about it further. And then I think about it how it actually looks right now for someone that would be one of those additional 300,000 Mississippians that would come in under Medicaid expansion to be covered, and I'm thinking to myself all right, I know what I think personally about how society should work, but what if I'm that person? Yeah, at what point, you know, at what point do we sacrifice our beliefs and our what we believe to be true to Ensure someone receives some health care? Yeah, absolutely, you know, that's that. That's where I get hung up.
Speaker 2:I get it and and I will tell you number one Transparency. Just because I'm gonna be that guy, I have family members, direct family members that are all that are either in that area the 300,000, or they were the ones in that are on Medicaid right now right. And and so like. Believe me, it is like there there are people that will directly benefit from this.
Speaker 1:How would how would it not? By the influx of federal dollars into the. So, in theory, what would happen would be we would start accepting whatever the amount of money that the federal government alights for For Medicaid, and so, under Medicaid expansion, some 300,000 Approximately people would now Theoretically be covered. So then the next step is okay, well, if they're covered and their health care can now be paid for, then you're gonna have more customers in the health care system overall. You're gonna have more people that can be have compensated care. So therefore there would be more cash flow, again Theoretically, under Medicaid expansion. So you mentioned Arkansas, louisiana, examples that are similar to us in nature, and they have opted to expand Medicaid, but the Hospitals are continuing to close. Is that what I'm hearing? So why is that?
Speaker 3:Won't you touch on and this isn't my will house either this hate, this is much more his will house. But touch on how the federal government kind of eases back. Yeah eventually just hands everything over to the state so.
Speaker 2:So the the way the Medicaid system works now is you sign up for the program, the feds cover the 90%, the, the hospitals have said you know, hey, we're gonna cover the 10% or whatever the amount is. And you know, maybe the, the numbers change, maybe the state has to cover some, maybe. But at the end of the day, the feds are realizing like they cannot sustain the reimbursement rates and and also will say, like, like hospitals are, like, I know they're pushing for this but it's only because they might get some money. But like, at the end of the day, every service paid for by Medicaid is not being compensated at the level that anybody, like anybody in the healthcare system wants. Like, there it, when it comes down to it, each patient you're bringing them into the system, mm-hmm, but it's like the, the reimbursement rate of each procedure is is below what a hospital's you know willing to take. If someone else, we're gonna pay it. They're just trying to get any money possible.
Speaker 1:One thing that Tate Reeves said. Sorry to cut you off. One thing that Tate Reeves said the other night. I was watching the debate and he made a very good point. He said when you bring in 300,000 people and you put them on government Insurance, you're taking not 300,000 people, but you're taking a lot of people that were on private insurance Out of the private market.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that's and that was another point that I want to make, and I and I appreciate him saying that because, again, a hundred thousand people would be taken out of that's a lot, that's a lot of people. And then also again and I know he mentioned this in the debate and a lot of people don't want to talk about it but like again back in the Obamacare days, like when he said like you can keep your doctor, you can do that. Like your, your healthcare when you go into a, like a Medicaid system is going to be sub par, like it's just not, it's not gonna be the best care Possible because it's gonna be restricted, it's gonna be restrictive. And I know there I will say there are other states that are working on ideas that like I don't think again, I don't think AFP is, is ever going to be, like okay, with the idea of like Medicaid expansion, yeah, just like outright or anything that. But like I think there are states that are trying to create a night like a opportunity for people to enter into like a Like a private insurance agreement and it pay for and then like those companies get reimbursed.
Speaker 2:Like I said, it's kind of a big it. Medicaid is such an it like crazy. It's a government program, it's wildly Inefficient. It's so crazy and, like the amount of people who like talk about it, I'm like I don't get how y'all spend hours and hours a day Trying to deep dive into Medicaid. But, like I said, I think I think the biggest thing is, like you said, the hundred thousand people coming off of private insurance, going on to a sub par you know Plan that's not gonna pay hospitals what they want and then also, once you expand, you never can claw it back like it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's decrease. Yeah, that's a. That's a common thread. I'd say 99. I have no idea what the numbers are, but every time there's a government policy implemented and the government starts paying for Whatever you name it, yeah, for the individual. Very, very few times, once that Policy is implemented, is there a sunset on that policy. It never goes away.
Speaker 2:It might have a sunset Sunset date, but it when that sunset date comes up, they're gonna renew it because they don't want to lose votes.
Speaker 1:That's why Democrats have been so successful for so long yeah because they have garnered the reputation through implementing policies to pay for shit that Get people hooked on it. Yeah, and so what we're really talking about is the, the human spirit, and incentivizing the psychology of incentives, exactly.
Speaker 3:I think that may be even a good segue to another healthcare piece, because back in the 70s the federal government implemented a policy called certificate of need policies, and Kate will get into that a little bit more. Yeah that is most definitely his will house. However, the the kicker is, and here's the segue the federal government Decided that it was not a good policy and actually Started repealing the idea. How often does a federal policy get repealed?
Speaker 2:Not very often. Not very often, and I will say, before we move on, I think I've started into the segue, but, like my mind, just it, it flows off. When I was talking about the reimbursement rates, they're like 90% of the government pays. They're talking about decreasing that Because they cannot sustain it. So we might enter into an agreement where they're saying they'll pay 90%. And again I'm throwing out numbers that are, you know, relatively close. But it could over time be like oh no, no, we're gonna have to go back to 80%, 85, 80%, 75%. And who's on the hook for that? Mississippi politicians in Mississippi and I don't fault them for this will not allow people to lose coverage once they're on it, because if they do, they're going to lose that seat like it's just no doubt it's just.
Speaker 2:It's the way politics works, no doubt. And so that's that's kind of there. But, like stone said on, when the federal government repeals a program because they, they it's that bad. You know it's a bad program. And so, like, like you mentioned, certificate and e-laws were implemented under the Ford administrator, gerald Ford, where it was essentially requiring any new medical facility to a to acquire Governmental approval to open up a hospital, open up a medical facility, use their own money, the investments of you know, investors, whoever, and you would have to go before a board and say like, hey, I'm moving into this community.
Speaker 2:Is there, is there a reason why I can't? Is there, is there a need enough in this community for me to have this medical facility? And Unfortunately, the way these like good, good intention program. But the problem was is the other hospitals in the area go Whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't want to compete. I don't want to have any competition in my area where I might have to lower my prices or improve my efficiency model or, you know, work on a different work on different avenues to improve my system. Instead, strong arm through the government says you cannot do this legally, you cannot open up this new facility because this other folks, they, they, they can't compete with you, so so certificate need laws we're impending on national level and forced on to every state except for Louisiana, because Louisiana was like screw this, I'm not gonna do it.
Speaker 1:And so they were basically sticking their hand in the private market of health care correct, correct.
Speaker 2:They were trying to control the supply. That was, and again, I always try to implement that or say this. I don't think politicians always are just evil people trying to do evil things. I think they were intentionally like trying to be good and trying to like take this idea of like Government getting involved in health care and saying it's a good thing. It's not a good thing, but I get what they were trying to do.
Speaker 3:A sick example of the road to hell. Yeah, I've with good intentions exactly.
Speaker 2:And so over. I believe it was 10 years. They saw that CON laws, certificate of need laws, decrease the supply of health care dramatically. But the problem was it was widespread across the US. So luckily, president Reagan repealed certificate of need laws on a national level and did not make a requirement again. Like I said they were, they held federal funds over people's heads and said you will not receive these federal funds unless you implement certificate of need laws. So all the states did it. Now, after the federal government, remove certificate of need laws. Now it was up to the states. So over the years I'm trying to remember the exact number, I didn't bring in notes or anything but Several states have started to repeal certificate of need laws on their own. So, like Florida's repealed theirs, texas is repealed theirs, arkansas is working on it. Tennessee's done a good job of repealing them. The biggest example recently was South Carolina. South Carolina went from like and these certificate of need laws. I know I might not be doing a good job because they're all individual to.
Speaker 2:They're all individual so these cover individual areas of health care. So in Mississippi they cover Mental health facilities. So if you want to open up a mental health facility you got to go before a board. That sounds tragic. It sounds like an imagine addiction.
Speaker 3:It's like chaos.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's all going before a government board where you have to spend Thousands of dollars in legal fees. So you're taking money out of your pot that you have for health care services and you're having to pay for all these lawyers to prove to a government board that you need to exist hundreds of thousands.
Speaker 3:I mean it was depends on it depends on the.
Speaker 1:The facility was the purpose of this idea in the first place it was.
Speaker 2:They thought that too many facilities were opening up. They thought the supply was too high. Base thoughts of supply was too high, so they started to try to restrict the supply trying to treat health care like to do the oil business? Exactly yeah, and it just doesn't work, I think.
Speaker 3:I think a lot of the idea was you know if you, if you just bought this new MRI machine, you got to pay it off. So let's start prescribing a little bit the way that I like to explain it to a lot of my activists that are not Government officials, are not politicians, are not bureaucrats and stuff like that, or in the health care corporate world. Let's say Philadelphia had a pizza hut, a Papa John's and a Domino's and and let's say, little seizures wanted to come in. Well, little seizures would have to apply with the city of Philadelphia and for a Permit to open up a new little seizures place, well then they would Get together with the board of pizzerias. Well, who sits on that board? Every pizzeria already in the county. It's protectionism. They don't want competition. Do you think they're gonna actually want a little seizures coming into Philadelphia?
Speaker 1:And that's even more More obvious in a small town setting, yeah, where you've had families that control businesses for generations, yes, and also sit in political offices, and you really prevent the nature of business from Running its course naturally and organically. And once you start doing things like that, well then, when people recognize and if we're, you know, talking on a local level or even a state level if you get the reputation for making it hard to start a business and expensive to start a business, then you won't have business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, people from out of state who I mean I. It was funny I, a member of our national team, was talking to us and they said, yeah, no, my husband is trying to open up a clinic and I can't remember the style of clinic or what it was in Mississippi and he's like and she goes. I think he's just gonna quit because, like the process he could go to, he could go to Texas, he can go to any other place and open up these clinics and it be a lot easier when there's none of these restrictions. And again I want to emphasize these are not restrictions based off of health Safety, like it's not because they're not being denied, because they're. They're just like a terrible facility who's gonna come in and offer subpar healthcare. They are like there's, there's already protections in place through the Department of Health on like standards in a medical clinic Of what that should look like.
Speaker 2:This is purely based on if a community, if they think a community needs and again, mental health service, addiction services, dialysis clinics, mri machines, pet scans, ambulatory surgical centers those are one of my favorites because you can ambulatory surgical centers these are clinics that are. These are facilities that some places it's like cash based services so you can get like a knee replacement for like $20,000 less than what it would cost if you're paying insurance or it's a traditional insurance based system. But I mean, there's there's 19 different areas covered by certificate need loss and so if you enter into an agreement where you want to come into the state and open up, like I said, mental health facility, that exists that current Exists exists right now, right now as we speak, if, if I want to, open up.
Speaker 1:So why aren't we one of those states that repeals that?
Speaker 2:Because you have a lot of hospitals going. If you, if you try to, to bring in new businesses, we're going to fail, we're gonna shut down, and I'm like, but but can't, can't you learn other Opportunities? Can't that be an opportunity for you to look at your own business model?
Speaker 1:people don't want to put in the work it takes to compete. Yeah, the I.
Speaker 3:Think I've never. I don't and you might have met somebody. I've never met an individual, besides a politician or a healthcare Someone to gain from it. Yeah, so many game for all special interests. I've never met someone that was opposed to the idea of getting rid of CO and accept those people that either have self, there's some sort of self-interest, or they don't understand simple supply and demand.
Speaker 2:And so, and I will say I mean I've talked to folks in the healthcare industry who, like they benefit from it but, like, at the end of the day it doesn't Our current hospitals, our current healthcare system still has to go through a CO in process. It's just easier because they already have a supply of money coming in and so they can guarantee, like, oh, I, like I know the board members, I've done this before I can go through it. But like even current hospitals, current healthcare systems in Mississippi Don't like the CO in system because it's still a barrier for them. They still have to go through this and they might actually have to compete with other hospitals if they're moving into a new area.
Speaker 1:So if co in were to be repealed, do you think that of those 300,000 that would be estimated to be brought in by Medicaid, expansion would have more accessible, affordable healthcare?
Speaker 2:I believe so I'm not it to. I mean, I think that's the general idea is, if you come in and you set up new Clinics, new facilities, you allow flexibility and again, I will not say this will solve every problem.
Speaker 3:There's no silver bullet.
Speaker 2:This is. This is one brick, a very large brick. This is like a cornerstone. What if you did both? That I will say that is been the talk of some folks is, you know, maybe you do both and for us, you know again, I think for us Medicaid is never going to be the answer that we want, but again, it might happen eventually. It might you never know.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think you would make business definitely make business more efficient and more true. You get a truer reflection of price. If you took away the co in and then if you brought in the Medicaid expansion, yeah, I Think with those two you could bring the most amount of people to more affordable and accessible healthcare without totally Making 300,000 more people solely dependent on the government.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I I get it like I really do hear you on that because, like Again, that's the, that's kind of the things that have been put in front of me is how do you, how do you kind of deal with both sides? How do you maybe like, maybe, make a deal on it? And I'm like, hold on, let's just back up Again. For us, principle based solutions, principle based approach, we don't think Medicaid will ever be the option. But the best part is I there's a doctor, gray boys, who worked at Mercatus Center, one of the best. Like just he's. It's such an amazing mind when it comes to healthcare policy.
Speaker 2:Honestly, half the time when I come in to talk to folks, I don't talk about Medicaid, like Medicaid comes up when it has to come up, but, like for me, my, my main thing is it's providing the most supply options possible and there is a money side. So, like again, I mentioned the personal option earlier. One of the pieces to the personal option is come something called HSAs and FSAs, health savings accounts and flexible savings accounts, and those are. You take pre-tax money. So my paycheck I divert $300 or no, not $300, lord, I think it's like $90 or something per paycheck to this account to the optional optional, optional, and then once that money's in that account, it's exclusively used for healthcare.
Speaker 2:And there's actually a bill on the federal side where it's actually raising them out. Because I think you can only have like $3,000 in a health savings account and and I don't mean to get in the weeds here but HSAs, like they roll over year to year. Fsas, flexible savings accounts expire at the end of the year. So I've got like $700 a month so I'm gonna go buy like first aid supplies, medications, maybe a new pair of glasses, and it's all used on like medical expenses. So if you're, that's one way you can actually increase the amount of money that people are getting, like those, the working folks of Mississippi. The federal bill would increase that amount to $10,000. Why is a bill needed to do that? Because the federal government limited the amount of money that could be in that savings account Because they were trying to watch how much tax money you would get back in these.
Speaker 1:But from a oh, so there's their tax Implications. If you are to, yeah, I mean you're using say, or if essay, you're using your tax dollars.
Speaker 2:You're using some of your or pre-tax dollars. So it would pay in anyway. Yeah, so you're. So your paycheck, your pre-tax amount, that's, that's the amount of money that you get to pull from. I say you don't pull from it post-tax. So it is helpful, I think, to raise that to $10,000.
Speaker 1:And there's another piece where Wouldn't most people just say, okay, I'm not giving, I'm giving all my giving, all my tax dollars to my HSA?
Speaker 2:That's some people would do that, like I Can't afford to do that. Where I can't, like I don't, I don't do the like $3,000 max because, again, my FSA expires at the end of the year but through this year on my FSA I have not paid outside like that money set aside already. So like I've got $700 left and I've been to the doctor probably like once a month. They're like my wife goes to the doctor, her, her medications are covered, my medications are covered. Like it covers a Significant amount of money that I have to pay to my health care bills. And I broke a rib a few years ago on a slip-and-slide because I was a moron and so like $300 for a for an x-ray. Like I use that money for that. I mean it. It's really that's the best, that's the best way to have individual like an individual plan that works for you on top of my insurance. So it's like insurance on top of that. And and another piece that I hope that we can get passed on the federal level is there's something called direct primary care.
Speaker 2:Yeah, direct primary care is like it's the old school system. It's like a doctor. You pay him $50 a month as a subscription based service and you can go to that doctor, like once a month, twice a month, how, whatever the agreement says, and that doctor has Prescription capability. He has the ability to some of them have their own pharmacies, their own lab work. There's actually a doctor in Florida who, like, operates with the hospital. That's a whole different situation.
Speaker 1:If I were a doctor, that I have zero idea of how to run a doctor's office, none, but here, in that model, you know, subscription based model, which I mean are all of our technologies on subscription based models exactly, and I mean I think that would be a whole lot easier from a billing standpoint to Manage and control doctors literally like that run these clinics.
Speaker 2:They it's literally like they might have someone that does their appointment Keeping, but they don't deal with insurance. They don't deal with insurance at all.
Speaker 3:They like give you a list of like. It's like you walk into a fast-food restaurant and it's like x-ray this is how much it costs.
Speaker 2:It's a perfect system and the reason I brought that up is because on the federal level it is legally not allowed to use health savings accounts and flexible savings accounts. You're like healthcare money to pay for those subscriptions. That's ridiculous to me, that like I can't take healthcare money that I put aside and Pay for this service, that is my healthcare.
Speaker 1:But most doctors are not going to turn away insurance patient, medicare, patients, because there's too much money being left on the table like those, those, those dollars, those people that have those dollars. They're gonna just go somewhere else and so like, if I'm not taking those, if I'm not dealing with insurance, if I'm not taking whether it be private or public then Ultimately, at the end of the day, they're gonna, they're gonna lose out on money and, to my understanding, I don't think there's a requirement for direct primary care doctors To like not not taking not take insurance again.
Speaker 2:I might be completely wrong but to my understanding I don't think there's like an exclusive agreement where they can't, but it is a lot of doctors in that system have gotten tired of the medical system as itself.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm sure you have to hire and that's the reason I brought up the doctor in Florida like this guy.
Speaker 2:He partnered with the hospital and Again, con laws were a big factor in this and a lot of other things. But this hospital literally does all their health care, health care services through this guy and everything internal. Those employees of that hospital pay zero dollar or like five dollars a month or something for health care and they've reduced their overall cost of being a health care system because they're not having to do the same paperwork, the same crazy system of insurance on the internal system that has cost them so much money over the years. So, like I said, it's the personal option. The brick laying that we are doing with health care is it's CON repealing CON to allow flexibility within the system Health savings accounts so people can have more of their money to spend on health care, and flexible savings accounts making sure direct primary care can receive dollars from those health savings accounts but, also not be squished by government, because sometimes government could come in and try to squish licensed doctors from doing their job, which is ridiculous to me.
Speaker 2:But then also you have the technology side. You have telehealth. I mean telehealth these days is doing incredible things, not only in like mental health. It's so nice.
Speaker 1:I do it, I do it, it's great. I talked to my therapist via FaceTime. Yeah, and she's in Denver, colorado. I met her. I found her when I was in New Orleans we were seeing face to face and she moved to Denver and I was like and it works, let's do this. You know, let's just keep doing it like it is, and it's so nice not having to go, you know to, for here it would be to Meridian or Jackson.
Speaker 1:You know that's a, that's a whole day, that is, whereas now you know, if I've got an hour session with her at 11 o'clock in the morning, I can take lunch, do the meeting online, facetime, and then I've still got all that time before 11 o'clock that morning Exactly, and then got my whole afternoon. So it's. It allows for a whole lot more flexibility and efficiency in one schedule when you can just hop on the damn phone or computer or whatever and carry out your appointment that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean Dr Gray voice again. He told a story about the. I think it saved his life. It was either him or a family member of his where, like, his son was on FaceTime with him his son's a doctor and he said, dad, you don't look good, take out your phone. And he had a device that he installed on his phone to read his, his heart and he just put it on there and he was having like a heart attack at the moment. And so his son was like, get to the hospital now. And it was again. That might not be always the case, but it was because, like when you have a medical professional on the other end of the phone with a device that's paired to your phone that you can monitor, like that's just one tiny, tiny example At one point.
Speaker 1:at some point it's going to turn into. They won't even have to be able to see us Exactly Well, we're going to have something in our body and they're going to be, able to monitor it from remotely.
Speaker 2:I don't think you might believe they're going to be like no, we're not going to put anything, but I will say, I mean the phone already is there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it pretty much. It's just not inside, but I mean without the phone, like I mean, businesses are listening to us, Governments listening to us. Everybody knows what everybody's doing on some level.
Speaker 2:On some level, but yeah, I think the technology is growing so immensely, so fastly, and and like there's like UMMC, I know that they have like an entire wing developed for telehealth. So I mean telehealth is becoming a big issue and we want to make sure that individuals can access telehealth. And then I'm missing anything else. I'm trying to remember, but like there's a lot there's just like if you go to the personaloptioncom like.
Speaker 2:If listeners want to learn more, there's a personaloptioncom that like gives them the whole list. Oh, another thing we want to go back to doctor on hospitals, like not not requiring that, but like right now doctors can own hospitals for some reason. Like I'm, like I didn't even realize this was a thing and and so, like now we want to go back to like so who owns the show of the general, for example? So I know you brought that up the other day and I should have looked it up, but I mean, I still haven't found the answer, I think.
Speaker 2:I think it's probably like a county board that set it up, because I mean it is a count I believe it's County on hospital.
Speaker 1:So, like you say that, but basically private doctors came on hospitals. To my understanding that is like an Okshner or a Rush. And there I mean there are. I mean, those are all big corporations, corporate hospitals that are owned or at least corporate run entity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, and we really do believe that, like, health care should be more personalized, because right now and again, the health insurance business is a huge thing and, and I don't want to, you know, disrespect them because, like, they offer the service and people pay for the service, but, like, because of the incentive model that it is like, just push people through, like you only get this amount of time to diagnose this. You, when you come in, you have to, you have to have a stated purpose of coming in. All the referrals, all the craziness, it's just like it's we've done.
Speaker 2:We've done the research where, like 70% of Americans believe the health care system is broken, 80% believe that they don't receive personalized health care. They don't believe that they are receiving the health care that they enjoy. Um, and I mean, I have a great doctor that I like and I enjoy going to see him, but like the help, the actual, like health insurance side, and all the billing and the paperwork and all the you never know what's covered like price transparency and they just asked too many questions with, like man I was, this is going to get.
Speaker 3:This thing will get nasty. Maybe it is, but I was being stupid again and last year I was running barefoot playing football outside and I put all my running weight on one big toe and I did not break my toe. I don't think I did. But eventually not just a few months ago my toenail finally come off and I heard it so badly I couldn't do it myself at first, like I was going to need somebody to help me. So I got on the phone. I was emerydian and it was just. I was in the hotel room and I stumped my toe and I called. I called uh, there was a there's a few different podiatrist over there and they just started to ask me all these questions. I didn't have my insurance card on me. I usually always carry it, but I didn't have it. I just hung up on them and done it myself.
Speaker 2:That's, that's not what we need to hear. That's. That's the did you break out your Leatherman and just not just country boy man.
Speaker 1:Well, once you get to a certain I've had that happen multiple times. I've had multiple toenails fall off throughout my life on either foot multiple toes on each foot and it can get to a point where it just falls off on its own yeah, like if it gets so rotten and nasty Like you have the other toenail growing up behind it. It was like that, not but it but it.
Speaker 3:But it wasn't ready to come off and I had stumped it real bad and it was a bloody mess, but that's too much. But I had to say that because we're it's. They asked me too many questions Like why do you need to know everything about my life? Can I just come in and pay with a card for somebody to take my like maybe like numb it up and well, yeah, I'm like do do what the podiatrist does.
Speaker 3:I don't know, that's just that. I don't know, that's just that. It's a racket, it's a racket and a ruckus, it is yeah.
Speaker 1:You know they, they know that at its core, I believe people who have implemented these policies and these ways of doing things recognize that everybody, on a certain levels, got to have health care yeah, got to have health care services. And so I believe they figured out particularly the insurance companies how to make the most money off of it.
Speaker 2:And you know, it's the mafia dude, no, no, it is. Well, I will say this like for me, the biggest problem I have is the fact that, like hospitals and insurance companies, both like know how to run the system. No doubt, and I, and I get it, though like, I get that like making money is a requirement in this. Like, you're not doing this out of the kind Like, okay, you might have, like, you have compassion, but to like build a building, have the materials to do it safely, you have to make a profit at least to sustain the model Like like that's why we're against single payer systems, because because over over time, you start to see governments and and healthcare systems start to decide who lives and dies when in a single payer system, and so they like.
Speaker 2:That's why we fight against. This is because we see the wait times in Canada. We see the wait times and like the like the subpar healthcare in parts of the world that you're like no, this cannot work if you don't have a system that's based off the marketplace and innovations and and when you look at it, I mean there was a. There was a fight last year between like UMMC and Blue Cross, Blue Shield yeah, I remember that. And it's like the hospital doesn't like they want to charge this, but the insurance companies don't want to pay this because at other places they're they're paying less and it's like, yeah, insurance in general is a necessity, Like if you are going to consider yourself financially secure.
Speaker 1:it is a requirement. However, at its core, it is a shiesty ass business.
Speaker 2:It is Well and the thing. But also the thing is is sometimes we've seen the hospitals jack up the price because they know they can pay it. They know they know the insurance company will not push back when you say, hey, I need to charge it. And that's why, like the MRI, like the equipment piece to see when it's so important to me because, like in Mississippi, an MRI costs X amount of dollars, I can go to Louisiana, I can go to Tennessee, I can go to other places and get an MRI for significantly less because they're just everywhere Every like. There was a doctor in Virginia that fought Virginia the CON laws for years, years and years and years just to have an MRI machine in his, in his clinic to offer a better service to his patients, and they would not give it to him.
Speaker 3:And asked you sitting there right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, yeah, I mean he's. Is that? Are you referring to that video that?
Speaker 3:we show Maybe yeah.
Speaker 2:But I mean the thing is is the system is broken right now and people know it.
Speaker 2:People know that there's and, like again, I will never say that any of our policy solutions are the silver bullet, the, the one, the be all end all to solve poverty, world peace and give everybody healthcare.
Speaker 2:But I really do think if you remove CON laws, if you up the HSA, if you allow doctors more opportunities and also nurse practitioners and this is where this, where doctors get a little antsy, like I get it, but like I truly believe that nurse practitioners and physicians assistants should have ability to practice to the full scope of their ability and full practice authority.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you're familiar with this, but it's essentially like the restrictions have been reduced over the years, but used to, when you were a nurse practitioner, you would have to set up an agreement with a doctor to where you'd pay this doctor like $5,000 a month. You would set up your own clinic and the doctor reviews maybe a certain amount of patients every year to make sure, every month. So you're not like doing anything ridiculously harmful and with that also you could not be outside of a mile radius. I can't remember what the mile radius is now, but it's like 70, at one time it was like 75 miles. You can't be away from that doctor, even though in today's world you know nurse practitioners could operate in California and a doctor in New York could, could evaluate the patients and it would be perfectly fine, because the doctors are not coming in and looking at the patients you know directly, one-on-one, like trying to figure out what's wrong with this patient.
Speaker 1:So, with the nurse chart, the nurse practitioner profession, was it created to alleviate the demand, the high demand, off of actual doctors, I believe.
Speaker 2:so I mean it's. I mean I mean anytime you're going to have someone in a in a healthcare system that is doing that, like you said, relieving some of the pressure. Again, a doctor there's only limited amount of doctors it takes because you can't make, just like the standards so low for doctors, but just because we have more, the best way to do it is to have specialized nurses, physicians, assistants attain a higher level without having to go through the whole doctorate program to alleviate some of those. Now, again, there's the pushback from the doctors where people say it's dangerous. People say that they don't, they don't trust nurse practitioners. I'll tell you, I think that rural communities really do need nurse practitioners.
Speaker 2:Because, again, these doctors agreements of like the $5,000, I've seen a lot of nurse practitioners. I've seen, like I've talked to several, like a lot of nurse practitioners, not just like 10 or 15. Like we're talking hundreds of nurse practitioners about like hey, what does your agreement look like? Well, you know, the doctor looks at like one chart or three charts or 10 charts every month, and then that's kind of it and I really don't hear anything from them outside of that. But those doctors get the five grand you pay your agreement, but that's to be legal, because if you don't do that you're not legal, so you can't operate. So you have to have that system.
Speaker 1:So do you think that requirement should be eliminated?
Speaker 2:I think the it should at least be alleviated.
Speaker 2:I think I think the the definitely the requirement of the distance to be alleviated, but also there's a certain piece of this that like there are federal and state requirements that don't allow nurse practitioners to practice their full training.
Speaker 2:So if you're trained to do something and and like I don't think they're a label to like cut people, yeah, like I think that's like the big line is, like like there is no cutting people.
Speaker 2:And once you, once you get to that line, anything below that line, anything below like a reasonable standard of training, like if you're trained to do something, you should be able to, if you're approved to be proficient, if we trust you enough to put you know, inject people with something or give people medications. I mean, nurse practitioners have a full, have a lot of already authority already, but if they're trained to do something, we should be able to give them that. And then also we should alleviate, maybe after a few years, maybe after time this has been thrown out as well that like sometimes if you allow a nurse practitioner to be under that agreement for like five years or a certain amount of hours, where that doctor observes them like a training issue, like in a training period. After that they can open a clinic wherever they go. So because again it is going to be more cost efficient for rural communities to have a nurse practitioner rather than a doctor, try to come in and pay off all their student loans in a rural community.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter how big their heart is, like like there's just some communities that won't have a doctor in them but a nurse practitioner, setting up a clinic might be the best solution.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I've lived in a couple of different rural communities throughout Mississippi and I've seen evidence of those nurse practitioners being present and I think they do a great service. I think they serve a great role. Where does Americans for prosperity? Is it Americans or America Americans?
Speaker 2:for prosperity.
Speaker 1:Americans for prosperity. Where does the policy? What's the policy temperature on taxes?
Speaker 2:So this is going to be an area where it's going to be a little rough and we'll make it through it. So our biggest thing is we believe that taxes should be reduced when it's possible and we believe in the hierarchy of taxes. So like income tax is the most egregious, because you're taxing someone on their work, like you're really just putting the screws to somebody that's going out there and really working hard, and then under that you have property taxes because you own an item and you continue to pay. You know there's taxes on, there's certain taxes on businesses that I'm trying to remember the inventory tax. So like you have an inventory, that you have something that sits in your inventory for a year yes, bullshit. You have to keep paying and we're like I literally have a guy that has a desk that his great-great-grandfather bought in like 1901, that he's paid taxes on.
Speaker 3:It's ridiculous and we're like no, that's ridiculous.
Speaker 2:And then you keep going down to use tax where, like that's where we think our tax structure is like the most efficient is when it's a broad tax base. That is, you know, sales tax. You know sales tax is perfectly fair to help fund a system. Because, again, we're not anti-government. We do believe money has to come in to pay for government at some level, and it doesn't, you can't just print it out of nowhere, so there has to be money coming in. So, again, our the most fair taxes are use tax, because it is again there's sales tax every year equals to a very small amount compared to, like, how much you pay into feds or into the state on income tax. But I will say a caveat to all this is in Mississippi right now, like I want to see the income tax eliminated. I think that will be best for Mississippi to see the income tax fully eliminated, because it can. It puts us on a better level to compete with places like Tennessee.
Speaker 3:Oh, and really we would be the first state to fully eliminate income tax. Yeah, that did not have, like Florida, texas, they never, they've never had one. Yeah, exactly, tennessee is it's only for, is it, individuals over a certain age, something like.
Speaker 2:I can't remember, they don't say they haven't they?
Speaker 3:they like to. Maybe it's a dig at Tory Vennable on them, but just as a joke, but yeah they still have an income tax of some sort, yes, of some sort.
Speaker 1:So so, like I said, so what's the hang up here? Well, why can't we get it done here?
Speaker 2:This is where the amount of money that's in our state budget. Like when you cut taxes, you have to reduce government somewhere, right? So right now, our three biggest pieces that are kind of the the three biggest areas that are consuming the most money in Mississippi are Medicaid, education, education and Lord stone. What am I? What am I missing?
Speaker 1:infrastructure yeah right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's an infrastructure.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I think we've been on this catch a little bit. This is um, but yeah, those are like the three main areas that take up the predominant amount of money. So, like, do you cut? Like, where do you cut? Do you cut on roads? No, like, like people already say, our roads are not good enough, so you kind of keep going, you could increase taxes elsewhere. That and that. That is where the conversation is being held of. And again, these are conversations not in AFP, but conversations on a general level. Sure, sure.
Speaker 2:Where do you, do you raise sales tax? Do you go to like a 9% sales tax? Well, people don't really like that.
Speaker 3:Especially people who have, who are no longer paying in income tax. Yes or yeah?
Speaker 2:yeah or or no. Yeah, no longer paying certain taxes. Yeah, and so, like you're at a point where, like, you have to broaden the base. Generally, no policies perfect yeah. Yeah, you're always gonna negatively impact somebody's lives when it comes to no doubt.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, that's inevitable and and also when you do have like. Again, I'm a big fan of eliminating the. The tax on on a Inventory, like inventory, is a big thing for me. I'm like that. That's a big thing for companies to look at when they're moving into Mississippi. Do they have to pay inventory every year? Some people want to eliminate the grocery tax but at the end of the day, when you eliminate all these taxes, you have to either make cuts or find the money somewhere else and and at the end of the day, like if we're gonna eliminate Inventory tax or not inventory income tax, we either have to broaden the base and and add taxes on to, like sales tax, or we have to cut, and I don't think anybody Anybody's willing to do either right now.
Speaker 1:Well, I know every county in the state that's currently dry Could go wet and increase their sales tax without having to increase taxes anywhere. Yeah, you know, I mean there are creative ways that people, that we can do this, yeah, but I think often what happens is, in that case, particular somebody's front for religion and how they're viewed in the community. Is it trumps Doing what would make the most money, even though it you know somebody If you? It's so odd to me that in the counties Primarily, yeah, the places that are dry, it's outside the city limits, yeah, of the city in that county it's like the county is holier than thou or some shit.
Speaker 3:I don't get it. Well man, Mississippi's a quote-unquote red state. It's, I think it's a social issues. Everything else is up for debate, unfortunately, yeah you know, but that that plays into it a lot, I think yeah and I, yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2:I think there's other ways of being creative when it comes to increasing revenue. And the other side of this is, if you do the math, if you look at the math and I think the governor, the, the current speaker, speaker gone, have both mentioned this but, like if we would have eliminated income tax 10 years ago, mm-hmm. On like a step down method where, literally, because when you eliminate income tax, you're going to see the economy growth for sure, and and so if you slowly eliminate over time, while increasing revenue From businesses coming in, individuals coming back, individuals staying here, mm-hmm. If you created an incentive model, that's better again 10 years ago, well, I guess it was 12 years ago now when they were doing this because this was the original income tax fight. If we would have eliminated 12 years ago the income tax, we, like, we would have eliminated income tax and still had a surplus, like we would have still been in a good place financially. But they didn't do it because they were afraid to really put themselves out there.
Speaker 2:But I get it, because when you have perrs, the, the public, employees, retirement system, mm-hmm. When you have, you know, medicaid, the talks of Medicaid expansion, there will be money. That's that has to come out of the state budget. When it comes to that, when you talk about Fully funding public education, when you talk about roads, again, mississippi has to find creative ways, and that's why this business piece to us is very important eliminate regulations, try to get to a better business environment, create a better education system that's not just like hey, kids sitting a row, we're gonna give you exactly enough to make it through life and if you get a few accelerated classes, great.
Speaker 1:So what would that model look like? It's not the factory or prison model as some people call it, so it is. Would be some, some approaches or Structures that y'all AFP would consider, or tout for implementing so.
Speaker 2:So there's opportunities of micro schooling, so you're getting smaller classroom sizes and each individual student can get very specialized. You know, care in those intentional, in those intentional schooling systems where decreasing the student to teacher ratio, yeah, and so you have like for me, my like my teacher would have seen in me I have a place in public policy. I have an interest in Mathematics in the business world, not in the geometry world, not in engineering, but in like I would look I could do, probably not accounting, but I could do like business math pretty well. And then also there's some other areas of like philosophy and literature that I would have found very interesting, that I think would have done better. And so there's micro schooling, there's home schooling, which I Know.
Speaker 2:There's some, you know, issues of like the homeschool community, like people don't think they socialize. I have some amazing people who live in Philadelphia who their kids are some of the brightest, most socialized amazing kids when I get to see them, because I don't get to see them that much, but like there's so many amazing kids that are coming out of the homeschool system that are getting a higher education Earlier on because they're just getting that individualized care. But also, like stone mentioned, you have online schooling, so there's there's areas where you might not get a Physics teacher in a local community, but if you did like a Tele-session or a tele-class, like a online class for a community college for physics for someone in like night 11th or 12th grade, you can actually find that online and use that money to pay for a student to receive that if they're interested in physics. Again, these are all like just random examples. Yeah, one of the.
Speaker 2:One of the ways we can cut down the cost of college is Continuing to provide more higher level College courses to kids when they're in high school and I will say we actually pushed for that a couple years ago to have a More efficient system when it comes to dual enrollment, because dual enrollment is really dependent on what county you're in right now, like there's not access.
Speaker 2:Yeah, access, but we have the largest community college system in Like I believe in the nation, in the nation and and so when you're dealing with that, it's like man, why can't every student access this? There are students in Virginia. We talked to them. Starla actually has. Our state director has a family member that received his associate degree the same day that he graduated high school. Yeah, and I'm like holy cat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like that can be done.
Speaker 2:It can be done here and it's and it's just because, like the system, like we have to use Policy to implement programs that allow for a system to be statewide, to make sure that each individual child can receive that, and Also but there's some concessions you have to make with community college, and that's where policy gets messy is you know, you have to take into account the players in each system and try to bring them together.
Speaker 2:Yeah and have a conversation, and so that was, that was like my first year working under the dome, or maybe it was the year before I started working on the dome and it was like it. I mean, it's just crazy how many players like I missed out on a lot of conversations around it. But, like, I really do think there are places where dual enrollment, a robust education system, but also breaking that model of like the idea that every student has to sit in a classroom X amount of hours a day to make it work I don't think that's the case. I think home schoolers, micro schools, private schools you know some charter schools that have tried unique things Magnet schools, their schools in Florida and some other places that are specifically designed for when a student reaches a certain level in their education and they won't and they know they're going into, like, I think, warren Central does it too.
Speaker 3:Oh, is it like a River School? I can't. They have like different tracks, like if somebody's like really interested in math and building the engineering, they have some there like social science. I have some that are more arctic.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's, it's all there are some schools that are in like, like I mentioned in Florida, that are like Naval schools, so like not Navy, but like schools that are dealing with shipbuilding, navigation, all the things you need. They start that really early because those kids already know like, hey, I'm passionate about being on the sea, I'm passionate about working in the naval or in that like In the seafaring trades, and I can go ahead and do that. There's there's conversations around, like you know, nasa, engineering, all those. I think there's a place. And also, again, I went to Pisgah when I know there were kids that like, honestly, more training in that FFA, more training in the, in the, the shop classes getting kids to a welding career. I mean I know it's been pushed a lot more where like people like I think everybody should just get more plumbing and welding degrees, yeah, but like it's overused these days, but it is, it still has a place.
Speaker 1:It's still very relevant and, yeah, having having spent some time in the industrial sector, it's a need. Yeah, anytime you find the highest performing company that gives the highest quality service. They have certified, qualified plumbers, electricians, craftsmen, so forth and so on. The ones that don't perform at the very high level, they don't. You know they're. They're people, just aren't as good. So my point being that if you put yourself in a situation to where you are one of those skilled craftsmen, skilled workers, there is a huge demand for that. Yeah, and good companies are willing to pay a premium to have those people on their team and provide incentive packages to attract and keep those people. As it pertains to education, it's way outdated. It's way outdated. We've given it. It looks like we've given it zero thought in in terms of how can we modernize our educational system. The state testing is yeah, it's stupid.
Speaker 2:Okay, I scored it advanced on my on my English exam and, as you and I mentioned very open, I had to take grammar remediation for my college.
Speaker 1:Well, all it was. It was, it was a deluded. It's a glorified reading test. If you could read and comprehend, you could pass the history. You could pass the English, you can pass the. Well, I guess there is a reading tested in there in actual reading test.
Speaker 1:So I mean we need to look at not not every, I mean the the spectrum of ability, yes, and in a school across kids, is wild. Yes, it's wild. So the fact that we're gonna give each kid this one structure To they all have to take this one test to prove that they can go on to the next phase of life, like I think it. I think it limits critical thinking. I think it limits one pursuing one, being able to pursue what they're interested in. And Y'all know just as well as I do, testing Gives kids extreme anxiety. Yeah, because they are scared to fail. We're all scared to fail, but I don't think putting that much emphasis on one test is the answer to having a well old education system. Exact, at the end of the day, we have to give the number one. We have to give the power to the parents, yeah, and ensure that those parents are engaged, exactly and, I think, the way to get them engaged is give them that power exactly and individual responsibilities Always gonna be a huge piece.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I will say, another factor to all this in the education piece is environment, not just at the home level, but, like I have a good friend of mine. He's an amazing guy, went to Ole Miss law and is now doing a very successful career. But he tells me if I would have had to stay in the school environment that he was placed in because of his county and thank God he had a Family friend who took guardianship of him and moved him to a better school how sad is that. Like he was gonna be in a school where he's gonna be bullied, where he was gonna, where he couldn't, he was in survival mode. He had no time, no place to really dig in and I think he ended up being valedictorian at that school. He pissed off some some girl probably.
Speaker 2:You know, or the girl that was there. That was gonna be back to Torian but I Hope he didn't get mad at me sharing part of his story. But, like I said, I I think the environment is one piece, because we've seen parents in other states Literally risk going to jail. Hmm, one lady actually did get, you know, get taken to jail because she moved her kids into a different district because her kids were gonna be bullied and be in a harmful environment and Even if it's not gonna be a harmful environment.
Speaker 2:I'll give you the right one.
Speaker 1:I'll give you a perfect example of what you're talking about. Right across from street from here is Philadelphia high school. That's where I went to school. Out for about, I say, mile and a half from here, maybe two miles, isn't the show the central? Okay, a rated school, top five rated school district in the state, across Classifications. As of last month, this school over here has been steadily declining, much like city schools throughout Mississippi have done since the inception of integration. That school is a C rated school. If you live in the city limits, technically you can't go to the show the central. That's only two miles away. Yeah, that's wrong. Just because a kid does not live inside an imaginary line does not mean he should be deprived of a higher quality education At a school that's only two miles from where it lives.
Speaker 3:I think that's the thing. A lot of times we like we refer to these schools as public schools For the public use of Mississippi. I can go to any M dot in the state and get my license renewed. Very good point, I can go to any. This is a federal thing, but I can go to any post office. I can get a post office right here in Philadelphia but I'm gonna San Antonio, texas, and mail the same type of letter. We don't have public schools, we have government run schools.
Speaker 2:You're right strict regulations and it is to keep the system going, to keep the system Like to I don't know how to say it properly right now but like there has to be protectionism like this is there's. That's the reason why these lines are formed, that's why these forms are enforced by law, because, at the end of the day, if you allowed parents choice, a lot of parents would not keep their cut kids and f and d rated school Just maybe not even see right and you an attrition would occur and it would make the system more efficient, in my opinion, exactly.
Speaker 2:I think that is the case. But right now there are specifically the big teachers unions, the, the groups that want to just say, hey, we can't, we can't allow people to have competition, because if there's competition, then then all the bad schools or all the bad places people just leave, and I'm like and I'm like I would love to live in some of the areas that have wide open land, a lot more space. I'd be willing to live there, but I don't want to keep put my kids in that school district.
Speaker 1:Look at what's happening with the 16 schools closing in Jackson.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's exactly what's happening. It's not de jure, yeah, you know it's it's de facto. I don't know if you won't even call it segregation, but people are leaving because the schools suck. You, the population is decreasing because the schools suck and so now they don't have a need for 16 elementary schools or whatever it is. They're closing in Jackson and those kids being consolidated into you know more efficient systems, which is better for the kid because theoretically you can put them in environments that are already higher performing in most cases. I don't know what the numbers are on those schools in Jackson, but I do know in many, many, many cases in throughout Mississippi that your city school is Blacker and lower performing. That doesn't mean that those kids in that school should not be able to change their circumstances.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and and also, at the end of the day, like our whole goal is not to like. Like I said, I've been caught a racist, I've been, you know, you know they, they say whatever they want to say it. Oh yeah, us that are for educational freedom, because I don't call it school choice.
Speaker 3:I thought we get it. I mean, we get flack from the left and the right.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, but but at the end of the day, like, our whole goal is to allow the system to be optimized and Free for people to. Because, again, if you just went strictly school choice where, like, all the kids can go to this school or that school, they're all government ran schools or whatever moment, it's not gonna be. It's not gonna be as Efficient as as we would want to. That's why we talk about micro schools, home schools, private school, charter school, whatever at home or like online tutoring for sure in sure, in person tutoring, whatever. Yeah, um.
Speaker 1:I think there should be a buffet of options. Exactly, there should be a. The parents should have a buffet of choices. It doesn't have to be public education.
Speaker 2:Exactly, I think you, I think you nailed it right there. I mean it is. You know, we all love our buffet down here. I mean because, because some of us don't like certain things on the buffet.
Speaker 2:That's right, you got more control Exactly and for me and like my faith and my family, like when I have kids. You know, I just recently got married this year and so it's like when I have kids. I want my kids to be in an environment that I Particularly agree with, not not because I want my kids to be in a bubble, but because I kind of don't my kids around some of the stuff that I'm seeing going on in public schools these days, yeah, or or some private schools or some like I don't think I would take my kids to some schools in California and just drop them off and be okay with it. I really do think that I would want an education it's tailored, like I know what I would want. I know what other parents won't. They want a tailored education that's safe, aligning with their values, and one that's gonna create the most value for their child to get them to a successful place in life, like that's the ultimate goal is to get them a successful place.
Speaker 1:What happens so often in education is that the kids on both ends of the spectrum become alienated. Yes, the kids on the bottom don't get enough individualized attention to make up for, you know, whether it's a developmental disability or an educational disability. Whatever the case is, a lower performing student does not get the attention here she needs, nor does that child that's very, very gifted on the other end of the spectrum and what they end up in the middle. Well, they just, they're just there, they're just there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's. It's a never-ending cycle, yeah, and it breeds bad stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think you know I don't want to say that, I don't want about paint the picture that I think Public education Mississippi is just totally defective or anything like that, because I do think, to your point, stolen those kids in the middle, I think they do receive a decent level of attention and education in certain districts. But you know we have to be able to, to your point, tailor that academic approach to what the child needs and there needs to be more choice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and in that regard and some parents are perfectly okay with their kids going to a Public school in their area.
Speaker 3:I went to a great public school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's, and that's okay, like that's why we are never like you have to send your kids to this or you have to send your kids to that, like it's just, it's your choice, it's your opportunity and and at the end of the day, I think I think you hit the nail on the head that, like again, all these teachers, these, these folks and are in the public school system, I never, never want to a teacher to think that I'm disparaging what they do Because they put up with a lot every single day, but also like if that teacher was to open up a microscope and make good money while doing it, while educating a smaller group of kids that she knows more individually so that's not legal currently.
Speaker 3:No, I think it's legal. I think there's there's a Harper learning Academy. Yeah and is it in Byron? I might be yeah, but they're they. They get to 20 students and then they open up another one. Yeah, there's Pony Wood School, which you know more about, that's a boy's school, ain't it?
Speaker 2:I Don't know as much.
Speaker 1:I remember their basketball team yeah but it's.
Speaker 2:It is legal.
Speaker 2:But the thing is is in our current system, the money is directly linked to supporting one system.
Speaker 2:So, like all my money goes to the public school system Because I live in flow with now, or like I live in reservoir Brandon Just for factual, but like I live in res reservoir Brandon, all my money that goes to the schools goes to the public school.
Speaker 2:When you allow for that money to be attached to the student, when you allow for the money to be attached directly to to a child and what they need, I could allow my student to go to a micro school because I love the concept of micro school. And when you don't have the, when the incentives are one particular model where all the money goes to that public school, why would you have a bunch of people starting micro schools or or private schools or whatever? You know, aside from the, you know the issue that a lot of folks have a private schools but, like, again, micro schools. If there's the money's already sent to the public schools, you would have to pony up the rest of the money to pay for the students or to pay that teacher salary, on top of already paying the school for a school that you're not using.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's also worth mentioning that Public education and the quality of it is the number one economic driver, especially in smaller communities. So you know, for example, right here in Philadelphia, we have a school that is not performing very well in the city limits. People will not buy or build, yeah, their houses in the city limits if they give a rat's ass about their child's education. So that what are they doing? They're taking their tax dollars that would be spent inside the city limits and they're leaving the city and they're going to the county, and so selling a house inside the city limits becomes difficult. The the property values are Deluded because of that. So it has you know. Then you start talking about trying to attract business, right? Well, people want to know how your public schools performing, because that's a very important indicator as to how healthy a community is. And so, if we can, I know Arkansas just recently.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was school.
Speaker 2:Strong leadership matters when it comes to stuff like that, because we've seen, I mean, and the thing is, is there's not just like a flood of that, like 50%, like 80% of schools aren't just rushing to go join a different option?
Speaker 2:It's gonna take many years for people to build trust in those communities and to say, oh, like I Like again my home school friend that lives in Philadelphia, she was a teacher who went home and did home schooling for her kids.
Speaker 2:Now they're part of the classical conversations group but, like you know, when you have, over the years, as people say, oh, I, I have more time on my hands, maybe I could start a micro school, maybe I could, maybe I could start this. Or maybe I have teacher friends who I really trust and if I gave them a building and took all that money that follows the students and Opened up a school, like they would get paid well, we would have more students getting more individualized care and Individuals and we, I think we would see a lot more flexibility with communities. Like I mean, I think I really care about Philadelphia, I really care about Mississippi, all the small towns, but again, if you have more flexibility, I would love to live in. You know Purvis, and again, nothing is Purvis schools. I love them there, like I love the school spirit they're part of.
Speaker 2:Lamar County, yeah, and then I think they're probably really good schools but, like again, I think I think one dad much where they're have my kids in like a system of like, like more of a Christian environment, more of an environment where you know I'm, I have a little bit more control over what's being taught and that's okay. I think that's my choice, you know, when I become a parent. So but again, the flexibility allows for people to live across the board. That's what we want. We want flexibility of businesses, won't flexibility of health care. We want flexibility of education that, because people are not like Blocks that you just stick in a peg in a hole and you just kind of make them fit. It just doesn't work that way. You have to have flexibility To allow a society to work. Free choices, free markets are our principle when it comes to like these, the way that we operate and work right right.
Speaker 1:So Americans for prosperity, prosperity, yeah. Stone clanton, cade Yates, I appreciate y'all coming through. Is there anything else y'all'd like to add? For we just check us, check us out On our social media pages.
Speaker 3:You can find us on Facebook and Americans for prosperity Mississippi Instagram, I believe is AFP Mississippi, yeah, but you'll find it on there. And then we're on X, twitter or whatever you want to call it, afp Mississippi. Check us out on our national website, americans for prosperity dot org.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think that's it. I mean we're, we're thank you for having so much man. This is awesome.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I've been a listener for a little while now.
Speaker 1:Well, I appreciate it. That means a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it means a lot, and and now that I know that we're like we have a connection beyond like like now I know that we played baseball when we were younger together I'm like I'm gonna have to listen more and more and more, be like what's up with this dude? I love it.
Speaker 1:Well, I appreciate it guys. County line congregation. Thank y'all Americans for prosperity, until next time, peace.