[Desk] Barbour Gives Good News at ?State of the State? Speech
by Adam Lynch
Mississippi State Desk
January 16, 2007
Gov. Haley Barbour delivered oodles of great tidings Monday night at his State of the State address in the House Chambers, even as some legislators were quick to point out the details he left out. (Click here for speech transcript.)
Barbour touted the spending the state is lavishing on its education system, saying education ?has been funded at record levels.? Lawmakers gave schoolteachers two 8-percent pay raises and appropriated state funding for K-12 to increase 19 percent. Barbour announced that the state is spending $323 million more on K-12 and promised that if lawmakers adopt his budget, K-12 will receive a $480 million increase during his administration.
The governor announced that the state is also spending an extra 28 percent on state universities, as well as community colleges, and reminded House members and state officials that he planned to sign a bill fully funding the Mississippi Adequate Education Program?a formula he was calling artificial last year. Barbour said he had hopped onto the MAEP boat because of an estimate change last year.
?With its reduced price tag, we can afford to fully fund MAEP,? Barbour said, not mentioning that the price had dropped only about $35 million?about 1.5 percent. Longtime MAEP advocates like Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory, speculated that Barbour realized he was out of step with the preferences of many Mississippians and had already been looking for a reason to hop aboard the MAEP bus.
The state?s economy is churning along nicely, Barbour said.
?Not only are more people working, they are making more money. Incomes in Mississippi increased more than 10 percent the first two years; and both job creation and personal income have been going up at a faster rate this last year,? Barbour told the crowd.
The governor explained that the North Mississippi suburbs have been regularly stealing residents from nearby Memphis and that new operations are moving into the state, such as the $1.3 billion coal gasification plant in Kemper County and the incoming $1 billion Strategic Petroleum Reserve near the coast. Homeowners looking to rebuild their homes and purchase replacement automobiles and appliances after the ravages of Hurricane Katrina have also promoted a sharp increase in state spending, bringing in a flood of new tax money from sales. The federal government has also done its part, dumping billions of dollars into the state to aid in the rebuilding effort, with the $1.1 billion for bridge and highway repairs and $330 million for K-12 school rebuilding being only two examples.
Barbour said that the state has done much to help in the rebuilding effort.
?(The state) had earmarked more than $3 billion for housing for people outside the flood zone, for low- and moderate-income homeowners and for public housing and other affordable rental housing. As of today, we have sent grant checks to nearly 10,000 Mississippi families through a program the state of Mississippi designed, a program that has never been attempted anywhere before,? Barbour said.
The governor warned that much of the new tax revenue was temporary money that would peter out as the coast finished up its repairs, and begged the House to set aside 2 percent of the state budget for the state?s rainy day fund.
Legislators like Reps. Cecil Brown, D-Jackson and David Myers, D-McComb, said the House should be able to conform to Barbour?s request.
?I think the House can be in line with that,? said Brown. ?I don?t see why not.?
Myers praised Barbour?s decision to get behind fully funding MAEP, but added that he hoped Barbour would keep his convictions next year and the year after, when it came time to fund MAEP again.
?I just hope he?ll feel this way next year,? Myers said.
While many representatives received Barbour?s speech with optimism, calling it well written, some, like Rep. Jamie Franks, D-Mooreville, were more critical.
?You can tell it?s an election year in Mississippi,? Franks said. ?He should have mentioned the three years previous, when he didn?t care to fully fund MAEP. This ought to be a yearly commitment, not just a single year thing.?
Franks went on to point out that even though the coast was in recovery mode, there were still far too many coastal residents sitting in FEMA trailers, in the homes of relatives?or worse?permanently removed from the coast.
?Barbour?s taking the credit for all the good things, but he?ll have to take the blame for the bad,? Franks said. ?Like he said, ?we sent checks to nearly 10,000 Mississippi families,? but that?s only 10,000 out of many, many more?and this is more than a year after Katrina.?
Posted by ladd at 11:40 AM in Legislature, Governor, JFP | Email this entry
Comments:
Wow.
1. Barbour’s speech really was oodles better than I expected. But the bigger news is that…
2. Jamie Franks is brilliant. Both of his comments absolutely nail Barbour to the wall. If he runs his LG campaign as well as he just handled his response to the State of the State, Charlie Ross is going to have a fight on his hands.
Cheers,
TH
Posted by Tom Head on 01/16 at 03:04 PM | #
(And Franks is, by the way, another good example of a YDA rising-star Democrat--33 years old and a likely shoo-in for the LG nomination.)
Posted by Tom Head on 01/16 at 03:05 PM | #
