Mississippi’s special session face-off was but a few short months ago. It was replete with political posturing of the highest order. I opined at the time that it was a historic opportunity to bring order to chaos. In light of the current circumstances, it seems that the press and the public have already forgotten the meaning of that debate.
The Democrats, led by House Speaker Billy McCoy and Democratic Party Head Jamie Franks, advocated to use all stimulus and “rainy day” money available immediately and spend all available funds like drunken sailors (with our sincerest apologies to drunken sailors everywhere). Franks was particularly strident in his comments. “We have money to pay for services now, but instead of doing so the governor and lieutenant governor will waste thousands of taxpayer dollars on a special session. That may be good partisan politics, but it’s horrible public policy.”
The reality was that it was very forseeable that Mississippi would in fact not have the money to do everything that everyone wanted. Republicans led by Governor Haley Barbour, Lt. Governor Phil Bryant, Treasurer Tate Reeves and Senate Appropriations Chair Alan Nunnelee saw a state and national economy in serious decline and urged revenue increases on hospitals and holding the line on other spending to come up with a realistic budget and carry some of the burden forward. Democrat press allies slammed the legislative effort as purely partisan and mean spirited. Not even four months into the FY2010 budget, we are faced with making huge cuts in services due to declining revenues, and once again, Haley Barbour is vaulted into the position of being the bad guy. Cuts will likely move into a statutory mandate and affect all state agencies by at least 5%, and budget forecasters do not see a substantial economic bounce anywhere on the immediate horizon.
If in fact Barbour and the Republicans had caved, the situation would be far worse than it is now. Other states, like Michigan, are facing draconian cuts in services and are in deep fiscal trouble due to the declining national economy and their own lack of fiscal control. Though making additional cuts to keep our budget in line still hurts, having the extra $60-80M in recurring revenue (via hospital assessment and cigarette tax increase) and not spending the additional moneys that McCoy and Franks advocated for has made our current situation certainly less painful than it would have been had Republicans not stood up and forced the special legislative session and subsequent compromise. With the Democratic solution, we’d be cutting twice as much as we are right now.
The bottom line is that a conservative outlook was the right approach in the summer of 2009. Government simply can’t do everything that everyone wants, regardless of how well intended some might portray themselves. As we move into the 2010 legislative session and it gets down to making important decisions, let’s all endeavor to keep in context our most recent history, who was right and whose side everyone was on.
Magnolia Tribune
