What War Costs Mississippi

We all know that the war is costing the US lots of cash but just thought I would let Mississippi know what could have been done for the state with this money.

Taxpayers in Mississippi will pay $1.8 billion for the cost of the Iraq War through 2007. For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided:

399,174 People with Health Care OR

1,313,801 Homes with Renewable Electricity OR

56,769 Public Safety Officers OR

35,083 Music and Arts Teachers OR

385,648 Scholarships for University Students OR

122 New Elementary Schools OR

26,134 Affordable Housing Units OR

1,046,075 Children with Health Care OR

295,841 Head Start Places for Children OR

36,414 Elementary School Teachers OR

Now where do you think the money should have been spent?

Casinos For Jackson County

Anyone that knows me, knows that I am not a supporter of the Coast casinos. Not on any of the normal reason cited, but rather that not enough is done to make these corporations pay for the privilege of operating in the state. So I agree somewhat with the sentiment of this Coast mayor.

Senate Bill 2199 gives tax breaks to casinos, but also restricts casinos to those counties in which gaming currently exists.

“Permitting only select communities to prosper from casinos lends favor to those communities creating an environment of haves and have-nots,” Moss Point Mayor Xavier Bishop wrote in a letter to Gov. Haley Barbour on Thursday. “Imagine the state legislating which communities could have Wal-Marts?”

It should ALWAYS be up to the people to decide if they want the casinos or not. Any legislation contrary to that is not truly democratic. But will the Governor do the right thing? How much money will be involved?

WORD!

Casinos Win Again

The casinos have lots of friends in Mississippi and most of them are your reps in the state legislature. They will now get more tax cuts for building anything not casino related. Now we will see just how much more they give the Coast with the ability to keep more of the cash.

The bill was part of a deal between the House and Senate. The Senate, which has a large anti-casino faction, agreed to the incentives package. The House, where there is more support of casino gambling, agreed to pass the Senate’s moratorium on casino counties.

House Bill 1196, offered by Rep. Diane Peranich, D-Pass Christian, provides tax breaks to casinos that invest more than $10 million on non-gambling developments. It covers theme parks, water parks, cultural or historical centers, motor speedways or other large, non-gambling tourist attractions. The bill would also provide incentives for hotel investments of more than $40 million, as well as golf courses with investments of more than $10 million.

Sen. Billy Hewes, R-Gulfport, Sen. Tommy Gollott, R-Biloxi, and Sen. David Baria, D-Bay St. Louis, championed the bill in the Senate Wednesday. They sparred with Sen. Gary Jackson, R-Kilmichael, who is a Baptist pastor, as well as Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory, and Sen. Alan Nunnelee, R-Tupelo.
Hewes said the incentives plan would allow a casino group to take advantage of incentives already offered to other businesses through past legislation that excluded casinos. The bill would allow a casino to recoup up to 30 percent of the project’s value over a 10-year period, by giving it access to a percentage of the sales tax the project creates. Coast senators said the incentives would likely cause much investment on attractions in the state from casino groups.

We will see just what they will do with the tax money they do not have to pay and that the state needs to cover the cost of “real” programs that benefit ALL Mississippians.

Barbour’s Tax Study Proposal

Barbour said state and federal taxes, as well as local taxes, figure into the discussion, and commission members would remember that as they work on the code.

“We have to keep that in mind as we work to have a system that is fair to all Mississippians, generates the amount of money we need to run our state government and is pro-job creation and pro-economic growth,” Barbour said.

Barbour promised on the campaign trail last year he’d look into tax changes. It was his answer to criticism about his vetoing – twice – a bill that would have cut grocery taxes and raised cigarette taxes.

Barbour’s political opponents, primarily the House Democratic leadership, has said he would likely champion pro-business tax breaks rather than those to help lower-income Mississippians. They said the state’s taxes are already considered “regressive” toward those of modest means.

These proposals have almost always favored business over Mississippians and now the people are told that this one is different, that it will take into consideration of growth with jobs. This is bovine fecal matter. It will be about tax cuts to attract more corporations to the state. BTW, tax cuts creates few jobs and the ones that are lucky enough to have one it will be a short lived job.

I jus hope Mississippians have finally opened their eyes to lies and misdirections, but I am probably just having wishful thoughts.

They Did What?

The Mississippi legislature passed a bill that would raise the pay for elected officials. It did eliminate the governor, lt. gov, AG, legislators from receiving the pay raise. But that was not good enough. Why do i say this? What have these people actually accomplished? Mississippi is still in the bottom 10% of states on so many levels. These people have done nothing that would deserve a pay raise.

I say, if they must get a pay raise, then make it contingent on results. If they do not show any results then they get NO pay raise. And it there particular area of expertise shows a decline, then they lose 10% of their existing salary.

Mississippi cannot progress to the future if the elected officials are a drag on the system. This is where the emphasis should be, no progress no salary increase.

Whose Annexation?

Recently, in Mississippi’s Hancock County, a councilman for the city of Bay St. Louis, has suggested that the council use the planning people to check on the viability on the possibility of the annexation of a n area north of I 10.

The idea was defeated by 3-2 vote. The city has not totally recovered from Katrina and had annexed some territory just after the storm. Why would this be a good idea, to try and put a further drain on the limited resources of the city by trying to suck up more land?

The question I would ask is, What are the benefits of this proposed annexation? Who would benefit the most from such a move? Sorry. but this propose smells of personal gain more than concern for the future of the city.

Never approve of something without checking out the motivations. Sometimes it is more for personal gain than the city’s gain.

Save The Markham!

Downtown Gulfport was ravaged by Katrina and one of the downtown landmarks was especially hard hit. The old Markham Hotel which has been a landmark for many years needs renovated. But there seems to be those who want to tear it down and put up some form of glass and steel structure. I say tell the developers if they cannot save the majestic old building to go to Vegas with the glitz.

I think the city ought to find a way to save the Markham and turn it into shops and affordable loft apartments. Something that would help save the ambiance of old town Gulfport.

The damn casinos have brought enough glitz, let us save the soul of the city.

Mississippi & Immigration

Seems that the Gov of Mississippi, Haley Barbour, has a new plan for the control of the flow of illegal aliens. His plan if implemented, would penalize businesses with loss of the licenses for one year if they are found to employ illegal aliens. Those businesses that hold government contracts will ;lose their license for three years.

Here is the really good part. Any illegal alien arrested in Mississippi will serve a sentence of one year. Really good! There is massive overcrowding in the penal system in the state, where does pee brain think they will be housed?

This is typical of Republicans, they have ideas but no way to put them into action. all this does is make Barbour look like he is doing something about the illegal alien problem, when in reality he is just creating even more problems for the penal system of Mississippi. Kinda like trying to put a hand held cork into a broken levee.

Mississippi Speaks

This is a good, but slightly biased , report on the election in the state.

By MICHAEL NEWSOM

mmnewsom@sunherald.com

GULFPORT — In Tuesday’s primaries, Sen. Hillary Clinton won four of six South Mississippi counties, but Sen. Barack Obama won the state.

Obama won Jackson and Harrison Counties, and Clinton claimed victories in Hancock, George, Stone and Pearl River Counties. The Mississippi primary was called for Obama less than an hour after polls closed, capping off about a week of intense campaigning across the Magnolia State.

Heading into the elections most of the forecasts had Obama winning easily. The Associated Press reported nine in 10 black voters went for Obama, and three-fourths of white voters picked Clinton.

Marty Wiseman, executive director of the John C. Stennis Institute of Government at Mississippi State University, said Mississippi followed the trend in the other Deep South states and voted for Obama. The Illinois senator has won many small states; the larger ones have mostly gone to Clinton.

Wiseman said the intense campaign here got a lot of positive publicity for the state, and he believes it will continue, as a presidential debate will be held at the University of Mississippi this fall.

“We got some good time in the media for four or five days,” Wiseman said. “I have talked to no end to journalists and media types who said they were surprised at how much the state had changed since they were here last.”

Wiseman said he doesn’t believe the Democratic race will be settled in Pennsylvania, the site of the next primary, where 158 proportional delegates are up for grabs, unless Obama wins big there. Early polls show Clinton leading in Pennsylvania.

But the race could be settled if Michigan and Florida are ordered to redo their primaries, Wiseman said.

Clinton, who campaigned hard in Mississippi, enlisting the help of her husband as well as her daughter, fell a little deeper in the hole Tuesday. She had gained new life last week with primary victories in Texas and Ohio. By Mississippi’s elections Tuesday both candidates had started to campaign in Pennsylvania, where they will battle for six weeks until the vote.

At press time Obama had gathered 20 of Mississippi’s 33 delegates in unofficial reports. In the overall delegate count Obama leads 1,402 to 1,240.

Obama had about 59 percent of the vote in the state as some precincts were still being counted at press time.

Harrison County saw good turnout; nearly 18,000 voted in the presidential primary Tuesday, compared with a little more than 3,200 in 2004. Tuesday’s elections ran smoothly, Circuit Clerk Gayle Parker said.

Turnout seemed to be light in Hancock County, but many there voted for Clinton. Hancock County elections officials said one precinct where normally about 1,800 voters show up only produced 300 ballots Tuesday.

In Jackson County, where turnout was relatively high, Obama won by nearly 2,000 votes.

The Riverfront Community Center in downtown Moss Point is one of 12 polling places in the city and by 4:30 p.m. more than 500 people had voted, most of them Democrat. Poll workers Karen Fountain and Ada Street considered it a strong turnout and pointed to the fact that the after-work crowd was just beginning to come in.

Donald Richardson, in his shipyard overalls, voted right after work.

“I think it’s time for a change in America,” Richardson said, “whether it be a black president or a woman, we need it.”

Mississippi Yearning

For many years Mississippi has been a primary state that was there but who cared? The first time in a long time, Mississippi will be the center of attention. The hunt for delegates, because of the tightness of the race, has made Mississippi very important.

But the questions should be, will Mississippi jump to Obama or slither to Clinton? my money is on the Obama one. Why? 70% of registered Democrats in the state arre black and that gives the edge to Obama. But yet Clinton, Bill not Hil, was very popular with the black voters of the state. Does not matter! Obama gets my nod. The excitement of the primary is spilling over to all ages, but the young seem to be more energized than any.

Come Tuesday we will see if the Mississippi voter will cast their vote for issues, gender ot race.