Phil Bryant in a speech last week, trying to backpedal on his earlier statements:
“If we see the oil, if we have tar balls, that’s what I’m concentrated on,” he said. “An odor of petroleum might not be something you want to detect, but that is not at my top list of concerns.”
Someone should let him know that the top of his list happened the day he gave this speech.
Via gulflive.com.
Gov. Barbour vetoed funding for the Mississippi wind pool insurance program, going against the Legislature, Insurance Commissioner and the wind pool board.
Via GulfLive.com:
Rep. Brandon Jones, D- Pascagoula, and vice chairman of the House Insurance Committee, said the $20 million is critical to purchasing reinsurance.
“By cutting off this funding, the governor has insured that Gulf Coast insurance rates will rise significantly by 2012,” Jones said in a statement. “The governor has lost his footing on this issue and should have deferred to the Legislature, insurance commissioner and wind pool board who uniformly felt this was the most responsible way to keep insurance costs low.”
Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney said the veto would not increase coastal rates this year.
“In the previous fiscal year, the Legislature has given the wind pool an extra $20 million in subsidy, which I held in reserve to maintain level rates in case there was a budget shortfall, which has now happened,” Chaney said in a news release.
The conference committee report on House Bill 1642 passed 52-0 in the Senate and 121-1 in the House. The governor’s veto is for the portion of the bill containing the $20 million.
Jones said the plan was to fund the wind pool in the short term until the insurance market bounced back. “Now we are getting away from that plan.”
Good thing Barbour is not running for re-election. Someone needs to ask Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant his thoughts on this.
The state is facing unprecedented economic struggles, we have an oil spill of gigantic proportions and what is Gov. Haley Barbour doing?
He’s wasting taxpayer money on a politically motivated lawsuit. Via the Clarion-Ledger:
The lawsuit contends the federal government exceeded its authority in forcing individuals to buy health insurance.
That basis is thin at best, but adding Mississippi to the action was useless, even if Barbour actually believes in its ultimate purpose. Participation is irrelevant.
Barbour complains that the state will incur costs as people are added to the Medicaid rolls.
What should be of more concern to Barbour are people in Mississippi who do not have access to adequate, affordable health care, the purpose of this law.
Barbour’s announcement Friday said the legal fees for the lawsuit in Florida would be capped at $50,000 and Mississippi’s part would be a fraction of that.
It is a fraction too much. Such political actions should be paid for out of private or campaign funds. This is about politics, not policy.
I believe this is what Haley Barbour at one time called a “frivolous lawsuit”. I guess that doesn’t matter, if said frivolous lawsuit scores you political points and you’re wasting taxpayer money.
For a change of pace, here’s a bit of comic relief for your Friday.
First up, a video lampooning Republican candidate for Governor of Alabama Tim James, who said if he is elected, the state will use only English.
Second, here’s a great clip from the Daily Show. In it, Lewis Black takes on Glenn Beck over Nazi comparisons.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Back in Black – Glenn Beck’s Nazi Tourette’s | ||||
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It seems Sen. Alan Nunnelee has been looking at a different America than the rest of us.
Here’s what Nunnelee sees, via the Daily Corinthian:
The candidate said he’s extremely concerned about what he described as a significant increase in the size of government and the amount of government spending over the past few months.
“Over the last 16 months I’ve seen the United States Congress enact one policy after another that, they may have had different names, but they all end up having the same effect. We’ve had higher taxes, more borrowing, less individual freedom and more governmental control. I think at the root of the problem is unrestrained spending and borrowing from successive generations at a rate this nation’s never known,” he said.
Nunnelee should be reminded — just like his opponent, Henry Ross — that it was the Bush Administration that spent us into the massive deficit that we now have, after taking over a surplus from the Clinton Administration.
Furthermore, there are two facts that run counter to Nunnelee’s claims:
Nunnelee takes a couple of swipes at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is a favorite whipping horse for Republicans in Mississippi. But since Nunnelee professes to be an anti-spending kind of guy, I wonder if he would be willing to give Pelosi props for the new travel guidelines she proposed today:
Democrats are planning to crack down on travel perks for members of Congress, largely relegating lawmakers to sit in coach and severely limiting the use of Defense department planes to ferry them around the world.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Friday announced that lawmakers should fly in coach unless a flight is more than 14 hours. Government money, provided to lawmakers per diem on congressional delegations, can only be used for “official purposes related to the trip,” and spouses cannot travel on the government’s dime.
Pelosi also installed Stacee Bako, a retired Air Force lieutenant, to oversee congressional travel.
Sounds like a solid, fiscally conservative plan to me.
The Associated Press took a look at how Gov. Haley Barbour and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal — both Republicans with national name recognition — have handled the oil spill crisis.
Via The Associated Press:
The ambitious Republican governors of Mississippi and Louisiana are a study in contrasts as an oil spill threatens coastal economies still reeling from Hurricane Katrina.
Mississippi’s Haley Barbour, a well-connected former Washington lobbyist, has calmly said the oil slick looming offshore is just a sheen in most places and there’s no reason for people to panic.
Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, meanwhile, has questioned oil giant BP PLC’s response capability and the federal government’s plans to clean up crude spewing from a well blown out by an offshore oil rig explosion April 20. He activated the Louisiana National Guard and called on coastal parish leaders to draw up their own response plans after saying he couldn’t get answers from BP or the Coast Guard.
Here are two quotes from the governors that sum up their individual approaches.
First, from Jindal:
“This oil literally threatens our way of life,” Jindal said. “Here in Louisiana, we’re going to do everything we can do. We’re going to do what it takes to protect our way of life.”
Now, from Barbour:
“Come on down here and play golf, enjoy the beach, catch a fish and pay a little sales tax while you’re here,” Barbour said Wednesday during a televised news conference in Biloxi, Miss.
Here’s another doozy from Barbour:
Oil has not started washing up on shore in any large quantities, and Barbour likened much of the spill to the gasoline sheen commonly found around ski boats.
“We don’t wash our face in it, but it doesn’t stop us from jumping off the boat to ski,” Barbour said.
So is Barbour being a shill for the oil companies?
Barbour said BP, which was operating the rig and is responsible for the cleanup, was not a client of the Washington lobbying firm he helped found — previously called Barbour Griffith and Rogers but now shortened to BGR.
True enough. But BGR Group does list two other major oil companies as clients. And if BP’s offshore drilling starts getting a bad reputation, it hurts any oil company who is drilling. That, in turn, hurts BGR Group’s profits and the estimated $25,000/month Barbour still gets from BGR Group, even as governor.
Too, there is this:
Since Barbour became head of the Republican Governors Association last June, records show oil companies have contributed $51,350 to RGA. Shell Oil provided the largest portion of that, $50,000. BP America gave $450.
Records show BP America gave RGA $10,000 in 2003, the first year Barbour ran for Mississippi governor. It’s not possible to trace that donation directly to Barbour, but his campaign received about $2 million from RGA in 2003.
At the end of the day, Barbour is trying to serve two masters. Even Jindal, who learned from his predecessor what bad crisis management can do to your political future, knows that serving your constituency in a crisis of this magnitude should be your only order of business.
The National Journal has an interesting piece on job creation under the Obama Administration as compared to the Bush Administration.
Via National Journal Magazine:
If the economy produces jobs over the next eight months at the same pace as it did over the past four months, the nation will have created more jobs in 2010 alone than it did over the entire eight years of George W. Bush’s presidency.
Granted, the economy still has a ways to go, but what we’re seeing as a result of Democratic policies coming out of Washington are positive signs that we’re headed in the right direction.
It also means something else, in relation to the Republican approach to creating jobs:
One is that there’s no evidence to support the argument from congressional Republicans that tax cuts offer a silver bullet for expanding employment. Job growth boomed after Reagan cut taxes, but expanded even faster after Clinton raised them, and then faltered despite two massive tax cuts under Bush. If tax rates are the critical factor in that record, the relationship is well disguised.
The real point of looking again at Bush’s record is to underscore how few jobs the economy was creating even before the 2008 collapse. Bush’s tally of 1 million jobs was much less than the economy had generated during any other two-term stretch since World War II: Dwight Eisenhower produced nearly 4 million, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson (together) almost 16 million, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford (together) 11 million, Ronald Reagan 16 million, and Bill Clinton more than 22 million.
Today, Democrats in Washington have our economy moving in the right direction as compared to Bush and the former Republican leadership in Congress. That’s the bottom line here.
Sierra Club Director Louie Miller wants to know if the dispersants BP is using on the oil spill will cause long-term damage.
[Miller] joins a growing number of Louisiana state agencies demanding answers about the chemical’s safety.
“Our big concern is we’re not interested in being BP’s guinea pig on dispersants,” Miller told the Jackson Free Press this morning. “We’ve asked for what the chemical composition of these dispersants is, but they’re hiding behind proprietary information.”
Seems like a reasonable request. Perhaps our governor or lieutenant governor could help put pressure on BP to provide an answer.
Yesterday we were wondering where Sen. Billy Hewes was.
Today, we found him:
State Sen. Billy Hewes of Gulfport paid an informal call on the [Northeast Mississippi] Daily Journal this week and talked briefly about his very active candidacy for lieutenant governor.
Yep. Campaign trail. Just like Phil Bryant.
Sen. David Baria has written a letter addressing concerns about the oil spill, including how many of our elected officials have sought to minimize the impact of the oil spill.
Via Baria’s blog:
I understand the need to allay the fears and concerns of Mississippians and those who may be traveling to Mississippi as tourists, and I agree that it is important that our leaders tamp-down any disproportionate anxieties. I understand also that the type of oil involved and its distance from our shores should be considered in any response efforts currently underway, including our public relations strategy. However, I do not think it is responsible to attempt to minimize a situation that in its current state constitutes an ongoing environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Furthermore, I think it is irresponsible and insulting to tell residents of the Mississippi Gulf Coast that they are not in the midst of experiencing an environmental disaster of epic proportions.
Baria, who has shown exceptional leadership in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and in the Legislature, made a call for the following actions:
Thanks, Sen. Baria, for your continued leadership.
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