Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn addressed the Stennis Capitol Press Forum at Hal & Mal's this week.
Gunn exhorted organizations and businesses to take advantage of new tax credits to support pregnancy resource centers designed to help young women who find themselves pregnant. The program was expanded this year to allow $10 million in state tax obligations to be redirected to 37 pregnancy resource centers throughout the state.
The $10 million would fully fund all 37 resources centers if private businesses take advantage of the available tax credits.
"There are 37 of those around Mississippi. These women come to these resource centers and they lay out their situation and ask 'what can I do' and they provide them counseling and resources and help and support and encourage them to go forward and give birth to that child.
"By giving this tax credit, we're able to incentivize a private sector solution to a public problem rather than growing another government program. That's a tremendous idea," Gunn said.
The tax credits allow businesses to donate up to $10,000 to these non-profit organizations instead of paying state taxes. Gunn said he's on an education campaign to raise awareness of these new tax credits.
Gunn said a recent poll showed that protecting family values was the number one goal of Mississippi Republicans. These new tax credits are designed to protect "the most sacred institution we have, the family unit . . . It is the foundation of our country."
"We are in the process right now of traveling the state and trying to get the word out," Gunn said. "People owe this money. It's not a donation over and above what you owe. If you are a business owner, this is money you are going to pay. But you can choose to give some of it to the pregnancy resource centers."
Gunn said the legislature this year did an additional $10 million in tax credits to transitional homes helping young adults within the state who have "aged out of the state's foster care system. They're too old to be foster kids anymore but they've not yet gained enough independence to be on their own."
Gunn said the legislature also allocated $4 million in similar type tax credit to fund non-profit health care clinics throughout Mississippi and doubled the state tax credit for adoption from $5,000 to $10,000 to make it less costly to adopt.
Gunn mentioned other action this legislative session: House bill 1318 reformed the state haven baby drop off process; House bill 1149 reformed the Child Protective Services making it an independent state agency. House bill 510 created a foster parents bill of rights; House bill 1125 prohibited transgender medical procedures on minors.
The legislature also passed a large teacher pay raise.
Referring to the transgender bill, Gunn said, "There's a lot of things we don't let minors do like drinking, smoking, entering into contracts, getting married, voting," Gunn said. "We have decided that a child's mind is not mature enough to make those types of major decisions.
Gunn spoke on many other topics and achievements in the legislative session. You can hear all these details in the video of his talk posted with this article.
