CL – NYT throws Miss. “roses” over STEPS program
Some five months after Mississippi launched an effective program to utilize federal stimulus package funds to actually fund jobs (what a concept!), The New York Times tossed some roses toward the state this week in a story examining a possible second, smaller federal stimulus package.
Back in September, Gov. Haley Barbour announced the establishment of the Mississippi STEPS program – Subsidized Transitional Employment Program and Services – to aid small businesses in meeting their work force needs while providing employment during the recession.
Mississippi STEPS, a joint venture between the Mississippi Department of Human Services and the Mississippi Department of Employment Security, subsidizes the wages of a new employee hired by any public hospital, private non-profit or for-profit entity in the state over a six-month period. The program, which is part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the formal name of the federal stimulus package), will operate between October 2009 and September 2011.
While we have some reservations about a large-scale second federal stimulus package, the notion that any such second stimulus should be spent directly to create jobs – and bolster infrastructure needs like highways and bridges, water and sewer systems, inter-modal transportation and communications – is the right approach.
Barbour has called the STEPS program a “welfare to work” program. Such programs have helped America get back on its economic feet before and – correctly implemented – can do so again in a manner that the first stimulus didn’t.
Clarion-Ledger
2/18/10
Magnolia Tribune
