Recent editorials from Mississippi newspapers:
May 6
The Mississippi Press, Jackson, on state pre-K education:
Most young people in Mississippi are too uneducated and/or too fat to serve their country in the armed forces, according to Mission: Readiness, a group of more than 300 retired generals and admirals.
Of course, these top military men and women have an agenda for their national campaign to get more states to pay for pre-K education. "Our nation's future security depends on having enough educated and fit young men and women available to serve in uniform," Mission: Readiness states on its website, http://www.missionreadiness.org.
And Mississippi statistics on those two points are even worse than the national average.
Nationally, three out of four young Americans are unable to join the military, mostly because they didn't graduate from high school or did graduate but still couldn't pass the military's basic exam for math, literacy and problem-solving. Other reasons include being overweight or having a criminal record.
In Mississippi, though, Mission: Readiness projects that 80 to 90 percent are unfit to serve their country.
That's because of lower graduation rates, especially in the Delta; a higher failure rate on the military exam (38 percent), and because half of all young people ages 18 to 24 are overweight or obese.
No wonder four retired generals held a news conference in Jackson recently to call for state-funded pre-school programs.
Multiple studies cited on the website show greater achievement throughout school by children who received pre-school education than by those who did not.
Mississippi has several pre-school initiatives, including the Excel by 5 program in school districts serving Pascagoula, Moss Point and Biloxi. Altogether, nearly half of the 4-year-olds in the state attend some sort of pre-school. But Gov. Phil Bryant maintains the state can't afford a statewide program this year.
In the meantime, Mississippi's young people miss out on the opportunity to serve their country and begin valuable careers through military service. The military must have volunteers who are both physically capable of fighting to defend their country and educated enough to handle increasingly sophisticated technology and increasingly expensive weapons and equipment.
Beyond the military, the statistics indicate that too many young people leave high school without the basic skills to take on careers that call for both technical knowledge and the ability to learn and adapt to new technology.
Not only aren't they ready for the military, they may not be ready for much of anything.
Online:
http://www.sunherald.com
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May 4
Northeast Miss Daily Journal, Tupelo, Miss., on state litigation legislation:
Gov. Phil Bryant is almost certain to sign a bill intended to crimp the attorney general's power to hire outside counsel — private-sector lawyers — to handle litigation on the state's behalf on a fee contingency basis (a share of any money damages awarded the state).
The incumbent, Jim Hood, cries politics over the bill and asserts it's unconstitutional.
The bill is inarguably political, and a court probably will have to decide Hood's claims of unconstitutionality.
Reeves said he was keeping a campaign promise to reduce the amount of money the state borrows.
Hood, and his immediate predecessor, Mike Moore, legally hired some of the best trial lawyers in Mississippi to sue on the state's behalf on a contingency basis. Both Hood and Moore are Democrats and on the opposite side are anti-plaintiffs'-lawyer Republicans.
One of the lawyers hired by Mike Moore, Dickie Scruggs of Oxford and formerly of Pascagoula, and who is a brother-in-law to former GOP Sen. Trent Lott, had spectacular success suing tobacco companies for damages to states financially for health care costs.
The national tobacco lawsuit settlement ($248 billion) brought Mississippi more than $4 billion in damages, gleefully spent by Republicans and Democrats. The fee for Scruggs and other lawyers involved was calculated at about $1 billion.
Hood is perhaps best known for hiring Joey Langston and Timothy Balducci, then Northeast Mississippi plaintiffs' attorneys, to sue for back taxes owed Mississippi by telecommunications giant MCI.
Mississippi was paid $100 million, and the lawyers were paid $14 million on contingency.
Scruggs, Langston and Balducci all eventually were disbarred in an unrelated scheme to bribe a state-court judge.
Republican business people and politicians, angry because of the trial lawyers' success in those and many other cases not involving state money, struck back, first with what's known as tort reform limiting damages.
Attempts to limit the attorney general's power to hire and pay on contingency basis is not new, but the proponents lacked a Republican majority in the Mississippi House. This year, the GOP has the majority and House Bill 299 is the result. ...
While the limits are not wholly objectionable, we agree with critics who contend the door has been opened to increased spending on fees, more lawsuits, and possibly lengthy, expensive litigation challenging the law.
If that happens, what has been accomplished except shifting money from one side to the other?
Online:
http://www.cdispatch.com
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May 6
Enterprise-Journal, McComb, Miss., on Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves:
Mississippi Republicans spoke of how much they accomplished during the recent legislative session. For the most part, that's true. But there's one area where they're far apart — $125 million, to be exact — and that is how much money the state should borrow during the coming year.
The Senate, led by Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, refused to accept a House-passed bill that authorized borrowing up to $250 million for everything from local bridge construction to new buildings at universities.
However, Reeves and the Senate declined to go along. They offered borrowing $125 million, and there was never a real chance of a deal between the two sides.
Reeves said he was keeping a campaign promise to reduce the amount of money the state borrows. The House countered that, as a measure of its own fiscal responsibility, it designed the proposal to stay below the $284 million in loans that the state will pay off this year.
Philosophically, Reeves has the upper hand over Gov. Phil Bryant and House leaders. Republicans can't grouse about government overspending and then pass up a chance to do something about it, which the bond bill offered.
So it will be interesting to see how the politics play out. If the Senate won't budge from $125 million, what will the House and the governor do? Will a deal be worked out in a special session?
Meanwhile, voters and interest groups will expect Republican lawmakers to deliver some improvements. So when Reeves and Senate Republicans start making the rounds of local civic club meetings and banquets, they'll have to explain their hard line.
Online:
http://www.enterprise-journal.com