'Mississippi's moment': Gov Tate Reeves touts economic growth from eliminating income tax

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EXCLUSIVE: Mississippi will be the 10th state to eliminate the state income tax, and Republican Gov. Tate Reeves is celebrating the anticipated economic boom as "Mississippi's moment."

"We are more competitive than we've ever been before. Lowering the tax on work, and ultimately, eliminating the tax on work, is going to make us even more competitive," Reeves told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview. 

Reeves signed a bill into law in March to roll back Mississippi's state income tax from 4% to 3% by 2030, and eventually to zero. The Republican governor said eliminating the state income tax would "help level the playing field" and make Mississippi more competitive with neighboring states, such as Texas, Florida and Tennessee, who already have no income tax. 

"We have already seen the fruits of that with over $32 billion in new capital investment in Mississippi over the last four years. We had the lowest unemployment rate in our state's history last year. We had more people working last year than at any time in our state's history. We had, in 2024, the second-fastest growing economy in all of America last year. We had the fourth fastest-growing per capita income in all of America in 2024," Reeves said. 

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While President Donald Trump's administration has floated tax hikes for millionaires to accomplish his ambitious budget agenda, which includes an extension of his 2017 tax cuts and no taxes on tips or Social Security, the Trump loyalist made his position on tax hikes clear in an interview with Fox News Digital. 

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"I oppose raising taxes on anybody," Reeves said when asked if he would support a small tax hike on millionaires. 

Reeves explained that his plan to eliminate Mississippi's income tax was devised to "reduce taxes on hardworking Mississippians" and "hardworking Americans."

"We believe that the government ought to take less, so that individuals can keep more. And that's what we've tried to do in our state. We need more workers in our state. We need more income in our state, and I believe if you want more of something, you ought to tax it less," he added. 

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While Reeves was unwilling to bend to Trump's potential tax hike, the Mississippi governor dismissed concerns over Trump's tariff policies. 

"There's no doubt that there are a lot of opinions about the Trump administration's approach to tariffs, but let me just tell you what our experience has been. Mississippi has had tremendous success in the last four to five years in growing our economy," Reeves said. 

He touted more than $75 billion in potential capital investments, claiming Mississippi's "deal flow is larger today than at any time in our state's history." Reeves said states like Mississippi are going to be "huge winners" under Trump's leadership as he seeks to return manufacturing to the United States. 

"We never gave up on manufacturing. We have been, for years, investing in training and retraining our workforce for a manufacturing boom, and I think we're fixing to see that here in the United States of America," Reeves said. 

As for the future of Mississippi's economy, Reeves said "it's going to continue to boom."

Mississippi has also been leading state-level Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) efforts, which the state auditor Shad White has jokingly called "MOGE." White released a compilation of audits last month that amounted to over $400 million in waste during his tenure. 

"During the time between 2012 and 2020, when I was lieutenant governor, we actually saw a reduction of total state employees from 33,000 down to almost 24,000, almost a 30 percent decline in the total number of employees, and yet, we're still providing the same level of government service. If that can be done in state government in Mississippi, it can be in every government, from the local level, to the state level, to Washington, D.C.," Reeves said. 

The Mississippi Republican added that Washington has a "spending problem," and applauded Elon Musk's efforts to cut government waste during Trump's first 100 days in office. 

"I would think every American would be for reducing the types of irrational spending that the Biden administration did in its final year," Reeves said.