As the trial of former WWE wrestler Ted DiBiase Jr. unfolds in a Jackson federal courtroom this month, Mississippians are once again confronted with the ugly reality of the state’s $77 million welfare scandal. DiBiase Jr. stands accused of siphoning millions in federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds through “sham contracts” to fund his lifestyle, buying a boat, a vehicle, and a down payment on a house, all while the millions that could have provided childcare, job training, and a path out of poverty for Mississippi’s most vulnerable families were instead treated as a personal slush fund, leaving those in need with nothing but empty promises.
But the DiBiase trial is more than just a story of individual greed; it is a magnifying glass on a systemic failure. For years, state leaders have criticized federal safety net programs as “handouts” that breed dependency, yet they oversaw an agency that allowed well-connected athletes and insiders to treat those same funds as a personal slush fund. This systemic betrayal is personified by the diverted millions that funded Brett Favre’s pet projects,including $5 million for a volleyball stadium at the University of Southern Mississippi and $1.1 million for no-show speaking engagements. These actions stripped life-altering resources from the very families the program was designed to lift out of poverty, a failure made even more glaring by the fact that Forrest County, where the university is located, maintained a poverty rate of approximately 19.0% between 2019 and 2023. This inability to manage federal funds with integrity is now colliding with a series of radical policy shifts that threaten to bankrupt our communities and dismantle our public institutions.
While federal prosecutors peel back the layers of the TANF scandal, a new crisis is looming on the horizon: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). Enacted last July, this legislation represents a massive shift in how social programs are funded. By slashing federal Medicaid spending by $1.1 trillion nationwide and allowing enhanced ACA subsidies to expire, the federal government is effectively walking away from its commitment to the poor.
For Mississippi, the consequences are dire. The cost of social programs is being shifted directly to a state that has already proven it cannot, or will not, properly manage the funds it receives. Policy analysts predict that as many as 200,000 Mississippians could lose health insurance coverage as premiums skyrocket. Our rural hospitals, already operating on razor-thin margins, are bracing for a $160 million annual hit in Medicaid reimbursement cuts.
At the same time the state is being asked to pick up a larger tab for healthcare and food assistance, our leaders are intentionally gutting the state’s ability to pay for it. With the passage of the Build Up Mississippi Act, the state is on a path to completely eliminate the individual income tax by 2030.
Governor Reeves has called this a “transformation,” but for the average working family, the “transformation” looks like a windfall for the wealthy and crumbs for everyone else. While the top 1% of earners will see an average tax cut of $41,000, the poorest 20% of Mississippians will see a measly $42. This $2.5 billion annual loss in revenue will inevitably lead to deeper cuts in public services, forced reliance on regressive sales taxes, and an even greater inability to fund the very social programs the federal government is now offloading onto us.
The final piece of this coordinated assault on the public good is the proposed expansion of “school choice” through House Bill 2. Under the proposed House Bill 2 (HB 2), nearly $87 million could be drained from our public school system in the first year alone, a figure projected to grow as the program expands to 20,000 vouchers by the fourth year. While public schools are required to serve every child regardless of disability, income, or background, private schools are explicitly granted the right to maintain their current admissions and academic standards without adjustment, essentially allowing them to “pick and choose” which students to admit while receiving public funds.
Furthermore, these private institutions are not held to the same federal and state education standards that ensure quality and equity in public education. Under HB 2, private schools receiving public tax dollars are specifically exempt from administering statewide assessments and are not subject to the state’s performance accountability system. This lack of oversight extends to the curriculum and religious instruction, which the state is prohibited from regulating under this bill.
This diversion of funds is made even more damaging by the bill’s strategic manipulation of school funding formulas. By revising the definition of “net enrollment” to exclude pre-K students from enrollment counts, HB 2 permanently reduces the formula funding allocated to public districts. This change effectively strips resources from the very foundation of our educational system, early childhood education, to subsidize private, unaccountable choices for a few. We are witnessing a systematic defunding of the institutions that serve the many, leaving our public schools to do more with significantly less.
The trial of Ted DiBiase Jr. reminds us of what happens when there is no accountability for how public money is spent. But the real scandal isn’t just the millions that were stolen in the past; it’s the billions being signed away today through tax eliminations, healthcare cuts, and school vouchers.
Mississippi’s resources should be used to build up people and our communities, not as a private playground for the powerful. As we watch the news in February, let us remember that the “poor fiscal management” being discussed in the courtroom is a mirror of the policy decisions being made in the Capitol. It is time to demand a budget that reflects the needs of our neighbors, not the greed of the well connected.
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