Jackson Free Press

I love me some Business Insider, even when they start making up stuff to drum up page views, like this recent "slideshow" piece. The premise of this piece on "socialist" states is simple (and ridiculously oversimplified); take the revenues of the state government, divide by the GDP of the state and rank them according to relative size of government.

While it's hardly an accurate assessment of whether the state is "socialist" (which, as an actual term, means government ownership of the means of production, not "bigger government than we want it to be"), it's interesting to note (a.) where Haley's state ranks and (b.) where the states rank from whence come some of our top-tier GOP candidates who claim hard-line conservatism as their song and verse (hint: Alaska is #1).

If there's a jumping-off point for interesting conversation here at all, it might be for Mississippians to recognize the nuance here -- the state is a net-positive recipient of Federal dollars, for instance -- and to consider sending politicians to Washington who believe in *good* government instead of *no* government at all.