Mississippi STEPS up as national model for ‘governing in prose’
Y’all remember a few years ago when the President and Congress tried to stimulate the nation’s economy through the “stimulus package,” right?
You may recall the stimulus – officially named the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA – totaled some $787 billion in government spending (the total was later revised upward to about $820 billion).
It was costly and controversial. It represented the ultimate manifestation of the Democrats’ government dream: Lots and lots of new (and, to me, quite unnecessary) spending. For example, the Census Bureau, which was prepping for the decennial count in 2010, got an extra billion dollars.
I didn’t support the logic behind the so-called “economic stimulus package,” and I still think it was mostly a waste of lawmakers’ time and taxpayers’ money. With that said, here’s the rub: What Congress dictates as spending policy, states must implement as programs. So that’s what we did here in the Magnolia State.
Capital Chronicle
11/21
