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.
4 comments:
I think you have your projects mixed up.
Um, no penalty? They charged Kior an interest only payment this summer. That is a penalty as it raises the costs for Kior.
Kior had until the end of October to make a payment. What is state supposed to do? Seize it overnight? That does not happen in commercial or residential defaults that quickly.
Do you even know what is going on here or were you just in a hurry to throw out a post?
You are employing the same apologia Kingfish that the supporters of the Beef Plant used before its ignominious end. The question is why are you carrying the water?
Any "penalty" that merely "raises the costs for Kior" doesn't really sound like a penalty if there's no chance of getting the money. It sounds no better than a city deciding to put a tax lien on a property owner for letting his abandoned property go to hell. That property-owner isn't going to be paying that lien because he's not paying his property taxes anyway. He's an absent landowner.
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