Phil Bryant's Beef Plant Keeps Bleeding

It looks like a pet project of Haley Barbour and Phil Bryant is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.You and I will be left to pay for Haley and Phil's mess.

The KiOR project in Columbus has been plagued with cost overruns that would make Wall Street blush. Haley Barbour and Phil Bryant expect you, me, and other Mississippi taxpayers to pick up the tab for this debacle.

What started as a $75 million loan from the state of Mississippi (standing by for outrage from all those who say we shouldn't spend money we don't have and the government shouldn't pick winners and losers) has turned into a disaster which now requires Mississippi taxpayers be immediately repaid over $300 million! In fact, the total cost of the project has now exceeded $6 billion, tripling its original cost! It is cheaper to send probes to Mars (powered by engines tested in Hancock County) than it is to keep Haley and Phil's mess in operation.

KiOR has delayed repaying its loans to Mississippi taxpayers; the Bryant administration has let them get away with it, so far at no penalty. Other than a letter from the Mississippi Development Authority, no enforcement of the loan repayment has taken place.

If you operate under the theory that corporations are people, why hasn't this company been taken to collections or court yet? Ordinary citizens like you and me would have been taken behind the woodshed for negligence like this. Most folks like you and me would call this special treatment unfair, yet friends of Phil Bryant don't event get a slap on the wrist.

Get ready, Mississippi. Phil Bryant's mess is about to hit your wallets and electricity bills big time.

HOLY BOONDOGGLE, BATMAN! Or "Has anyone seen our $70M?"

KiOR, the biofuels manufacturer, has four more months to begin repaying its $69.4M loan that the State of Mississippi made to it at the urging of former Gov. Haley Barbour (R - MS).  The State apparently passed up on the opportunity to seize KiOR's Columbus plant, which apparently doesn't work worth a dang anyway.

Read this entirely-too-depressing story here.