{"id":153058,"date":"2025-11-03T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=153058"},"modified":"2025-10-29T09:37:24","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T14:37:24","slug":"dana-criswell-do-you-need-permission-from-the-state-for-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/dana-criswell-do-you-need-permission-from-the-state-for-that\/","title":{"rendered":"Dana Criswell: “Do you need permission from the state for that?”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Too many Mississippians need a government permission slip to earn an honest living. Licensing boards\u2014often staffed by the very people who profit from less competition\u2014decide who may braid hair, fix a leaky pipe, or open shop. The result isn\u2019t \u201cconsumer protection.\u201d It\u2019s protectionism. Prices go up. Choices go down. And working-class families get squeezed into three bad options: pay more, do it themselves, or drift into the underground economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mississippi licenses at least 118 occupations, touching nearly one-fifth of the workforce. Before a single dollar is earned, initial fees alone add up to more than $48 million, with another $13.5 million every year in renewals. Inside those gates, the nickel-and-diming continues; a commercial contractor can be out roughly $520 just to get started. If these hurdles consistently produced safer, better services, we could argue trade-offs. But they don\u2019t. Licensing all too often restricts both consumer and worker choice without reliably improving quality, while pushing low-income residents toward fewer, costlier options. That\u2019s not prosperity; that\u2019s a barrier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is some progress. The 2017 Occupational Board Compliance Act gave the Legislature tools to rein in excess. We also peeled back plainly needless rules\u2014freeing hair braiders from cosmetology mandates and scrapping licensing for casket sellers after a court fight. Those were the right moves. They should be the template, not the exception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now do the job completely:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Publish the whole inventory\u2014plain English, public, searchable. List every license, every requirement, every fee. Then benchmark against our neighbors. When we find outliers\u2014niche licenses almost no one else requires\u2014demand proof of a real, unmet health or safety risk. If that proof isn\u2019t there, cut the license. Not next year. Now.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Lock the front door on new licenses. Use a strict \u201csunrise\u201d test: show evidence of actual harm, show why fraud\/negligence law can\u2019t address it, and show a clear cost-benefit case. If it\u2019s duplicative or flimsy, the answer is no. The easiest mistake to fix is the one you never make.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Prefer voluntary certification over mandatory licensing. Let independent groups signal quality. Let consumers decide. Keep the courthouse open for cheaters and bad actors. We already use certification in several roles\u2014expand that model instead of multiplying boards and fees.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    The core principle is simple and old-fashioned: government should guard against force and fraud, not ration opportunity. We don\u2019t need committees deciding who can braid hair, sell a casket, or hang a shingle. We need clear rules against harm and open doors for anyone willing to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Mississippians understand this. Prosperity grows when free people serve willing customers\u2014when the path into a trade is a straight line, not a maze of forms, fees, and insiders. If lawmakers want a fast, real win for ordinary people, start with transparency, sunrise reviews, and a wide turn toward voluntary certification. Tear down the moats and watch what Mississippians can build.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Too many Mississippians need a government permission slip to earn an honest living. Licensing boards\u2014often staffed by the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124494,"featured_media":153061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32635],"tags":[32685,5,32947],"class_list":["post-153058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dana-criswell","tag-dana-criswell","tag-mississippi","tag-occupational-board-compliance-act"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Hairdressing.jpg?fit=1080%2C721&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/124494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153058"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":153062,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153058\/revisions\/153062"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}