BUCK: The governor of Mississippi, Tate Reeves, is with us. Mr. Governor, thanks for calling in.

GOV. REEVES: Thank you for having me. As always, it’s great to be on the show. How are y’all today?

BUCK: We’re good, sir. Thank you. Let’s talk taxes for a minute, if we can. I know you’re doing some things in your home state of Mississippi to try to ease the tax burden. But why is it that there are some red states out there that still have state income taxes, what can you do to get rid of it, and why is our tax code at a federal level (chuckles) thousands of pages long?

GOV. REEVES: Well, you know, that’s a couple of questions in there that could take a couple hours to answer. Let’s start with the federal tax code. It’s a couple thousand pages long because the federal government continues to spend irresponsibly, and somebody’s gotta pay for it. You know, we believe down here in Mississippi that government doesn’t have anything that it doesn’t first take from somebody else.

And, at the federal level, they literally take trillions of dollars from the taxpayers and constantly spend and spend and spend. And today is just an example that more and more people hopefully are paying attention to how much they are paying in taxes.

Technology is a good thing, but the technology that allowed American workers to take out on a weekly or a bimonthly basis or a monthly basis of their check, what they pay and owe the federal government makes a lot of individual Americans forget how much they’re paying to the federal government, and I think that creates some of the challenges.

CLAY: Appreciate you coming on, Governor. I’m curious how much attention with covid mobility — meaning so many people were able to work remotely and move to different parts of the country. It feels like among the business-centric state, which obviously a lot of them have Republican governors, there’s been an attempt to make an appeal to that group by declining the amount of state income tax.

And obviously I live in Tennessee. People know Florida, Tennessee, and Texas don’t have a state income tax in the South at all. How much of that is competition that you’re seeing to try to help Mississippi give a little bit more of reason for somebody to move to your state potentially — and also, obviously, help the people who are already there?

GOV. REEVES: Well, as usual, you have absolutely hit the proverbial nail on the head. I tell my legislators and the people across my state, “You don’t have to be a genius to look at a map and recognize that to Mississippi’s west is Texas, to our north is Tennessee, and to our east is Florida,” and if we want to be competitive, if we want to be competitive in our attempts to see additional capital investment…

If we want to be competitive in our attempt to create jobs, if we want to be competitive in our attempt to lure more residents into our state, we have to recognize that Texas, Tennessee, and Florida all have zero income tax. And that’s the reason earlier this year I proposed the complete elimination of the income tax in Mississippi so that we would be on a level playing ground.

We didn’t get a hundred percent of what we asked for, but we did get a major move in the right direction wherein today based upon the law that I signed into law last week we now have the fifth lowest marginal tax rate in America amongst those 41 states that have an income tax. As you know, there are nine income states including Texas, Florida, and Tennessee that do not have an income tax.

But amongst those 54 states that do have an income tax, Mississippi has — number one — the highest exemptions. So the first $36,300 of income is not taxed or is taxed at 0% in Mississippi. And then we also had the fifth lowest marginal rate so even our highest earners pay a flat 4% income tax, which, again, is lower than some 36 other states in America. And so we do it because I think it’s good public policy.

But as you so correctly said in the question, we also do it ’cause we have to because that’s exactly who we compete with. And look, the results are obvious. When you look at Florida, you look at Tennessee, and you look at Texas — three of the fastest growing GDP states in all of America — and you look at the other states across America and what you see is that in terms of economic growth, in terms of GDP growth, and in terms of population growth, those individual states that do not have an income tax are doing better, almost without exception, than those states that do have an income tax.

BUCK: We’re speaking with Governor Tate Reeves of Mississippi. Governor, the numbers are in for the last month on immigration when it comes to our southern border. There were, according to a federal court filing, 221,303 migrants encountered — which means processed and arrested for illegal entry at the southern border — in March. That’s the highest for any month since Biden took office.

Eighty thousand of them were released into the U.S. The other 109,000, give or take, were expelled via Title 42 authority. That Title 42 authority goes away in about a month’s time, and there’s already a number of major migrant caravans making their way to the U.S.-Mexico border. How do you see this playing out, and what is the Biden administration doing in preparation for a surge that we can all see coming in?

GOV. REEVES: Well, I can only assume that the Biden administration is doing the same thing in preparation today after announcing their decision on Title 42 that they’ve been doing for the last year, and that is basically absolutely nothing. It is streamed concerning to me and to other southern state governors particularly that we’ve seen this huge uptick in illegal immigration in this country.

It frustrates me to no end, to be honest with you, that within the last two weeks, Vice President Kamala Harris has found time in her schedule to visit Greenville, Mississippi, to highlight whatever it is that she wanted to highlight, but she hasn’t had time in the last year during her tenure as being in charge of the border crisis to actually visit the southern border.

It is extremely frustrating to me, it is bad for the country, but it just shows on issue after issue after issue Biden administration — and particularly those at the top — really have no understandings of what’s happening on the ground because they refuse to individual places like the southern border.

CLAY: We’re talking to Mississippi governor Tate Reeves. Governor, obviously today is tax day, and you’ve done a good job of helping to rescind some of the taxes that are obligated to be paid by your citizens. As you look toward — and I know you’re a state elected official, but as you look toward 2022 and what feels like — and I bet you feel it in Mississippi — what’s going to be a red wave, are you concerned at all that Democrats may try to pass through a tax increase to the national level while they still have a majority in the Senate and in the House regardless of what this economic impact might be, because come November, they’re not gonna have the power to do it anymore?

GOV. REEVES: Well, I certainly hope that there are enough members of the U.S. Senate that are reasonable that that would not happen, but we yes, I’m very concerned about it. If you look at one of the biggest problems domestically today in, it’s America is inflation. It is the fact that when Mississippi residents and others across the country…

When they go to their gas stations to fill up, their gas costs 30, 40, 50% more today than it did just a year ago. One of the big problems in America today is the rising cost of bread and milk and other goods that individuals are buying at the grocery store. And there is no doubt that all of this rising inflation is a direct result of the bad economic policies put in place by the Biden administration.

So I would not at all put it past the Biden administration to propose yet another bad economic policy like raising taxes on the hardworking people of this country who are struggling right now to pay the bills because of the fact that inflation is eating up the dollar every single day.

BUCK: Governor Reeves, have you seen the latest out of federal court in Florida where they have struck down, a judge has struck down the federal mask mandate? Just wondering what your thoughts are on this and how do you see this playing out in your state and so many other states now? It would seem like now people shouldn’t have to mask up on planes, trains, or elsewhere.

GOV. REEVES: Well, I will tell you, I literally was just told about that as I was walking into this particular interview, and good for the federal judge in Florida. My understanding is the basic argument in his striking down is this is yet another federal overreach by the Biden administration that is not justified by the science.

And that is something that has become more and more evident. In fact, I’m scheduled to fly sometime in the next two or three days, and I think what you just said is exactly right. I don’t think anybody — after this ruling by this federal judge in Florida — should be required to wear a mask on an airplane.

CLAY: Governor, I appreciate you joining us here on this day. When you look towards 2022, what do you expect to see? What are you seeing on the ground in Mississippi? What do you expect to see come November?

GOV. REEVES: Well, obviously I’m extremely optimistic for the 2022 election, particularly those elections in the U.S. House of Representatives as well as the U.S. Senate, as well as governors races from around the country, because the American people are a lot smarter than the Democrat politicians in Washington think they are.

The American people and the American voters recognize that the reason prices are going up is because of the excess spending by the Biden administration. They recognize that when you look at red states and you see GDP growth and you see the lowest unemployment rate in our country’s history…

For instance, in Mississippi, today we literally have the lowest unemployment rate we’ve ever had in our state. But when you look at blue states they continue to have unemployment rates that are nowhere near their all-time lows, and that is, in large part, because of the policies that were enacted during the pandemic. You see, states who believe in freedom tried to ensure that we focus not only on protecting lives but also protecting livelihoods.

Making sure that our people could get up and go to work and provide for themselves and provide for their families. We never wanted individuals in Mississippi to have to make a choice between doing what was best and providing for their families and their ability to put food on the table, and what the CDC or some federal agency told them that they had to or could not do.

And so I think the American people have seen what’s happened. They have seen what leadership looks like and the different decisions that have been made in red states versus blue states, or at least in those states that are run by Republican governors versus those that are run by Democrat governors. They’ve seen the excess spending in Washington that has led to significant additional burdens on every single working family across America.

And I think they also recognize that literally were it not for one or two Senators joining the 50 Republicans in the United States Senate — were it not for them, literally just a razor-thin margin of senators — the Biden administration would have been successful at getting three or $3.5 trillion more of their Christmas wish list in spending. They would have simply caused our prices for gas and food and milk and bread, et cetera, to go up even further.

So I’m optimistic about the 2022 election, but I’ll also tell both of y’all, and I mean this. It is just April of 2022. Our candidates across the country running for House, for Senate, for governor, and every legislative seat and every local race, we still got a lot of work to do, and I’ve always believed that the harder you work, the luckier you get, and we’ve just gotta keep working hard and keep explaining to the American people why our policies are good for the American people and Joe Biden’s policies are bad. And I think if we continue to focus that message over the next six months, I think we’ll be very successful in November.

BUCK: Governor Reeves of Mississippi. Sir, great to have you on. Thanks for joining.

GOV. REEVES: It’s always great to be on. Y’all have a great day.