Mississippi Republicans love to talk austerity. After all, it plays well on the national scene where there are $1,000.00 hammers to talk about and whatnot. But when creating the our state's budget, Mississippi Republicans flat out ignore that Mississippi's budget isn't full of pork like the federal budget. They do things like slash funding for education, as if that's some sort of luxury item that we can get by without. (But hey, maybe they're right. Republican Speaker Philip Gunn will appoint you to lead the Education Committee even if you're a college dropout.)
What's the result of reduced funding at the state level?
More taxes at the municipal level, of course. Faced with the Legislature's continued refusal to adequately fund education, Jackson County became the latest to join a number of local governments forced to consider tax increases just to fund a less than adequate budget. Another example of this Mississippi Republican "austerity" is Lincoln County, which is stuck with bridge repair bills they can't pay after the Legislature refused to allocate any money our of the Local System Bridge Program. There are more across the state, and I'll post them as I find them.
It's time Republicans started acting responsibly with Mississippi's budget. Cutting costs to vital programs might make it easier to fool folks into thinking you're being fiscally responsible, but all you're doing is passing costs along to counties, cities and towns. They'll catch on.
2 comments:
Please show me where education funding was "slashed" for the recently approved FY 2013 budget.
Oh I don't know about the college drop out remark. Some of the dumbest people I've ever met were in law school and I'd take a college dropout over them any day of the week.
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