Do Mississippi Leaders really Want to Wreck the State?

{COMMENTARY}

No more crocodile tears or feigned hand-wringing over having to cut agency budgets because a lousy state economy simply leaves them no choice.  State leaders have let the cat out of the bag – They WANT to cut budgets because that’s how you shrink government, and shrinking government is what they’re all about.

A Monday article in the Clarion-Ledger by Emily Wagster Pettus included these gems from the mouths of prominent legislative leaders:

“We Republicans have campaigned for many, many years that we are for living within our means, we are for controlling spending, we are for reducing the size of government,” said Speaker of the House Philip Gunn. “We don’t have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem. We are for reducing the tax burden.”

Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, who heads the Senate, agrees with Gunn wholeheartedly: “That’s what voters elected us to do. They elected us to live within our means,” Reeves said near the session’s end. “They believe they ought to send less money to the government. They believe that they are already overtaxed and overburdened.”

So there you have it.  Our top leaders are PROUD to be doing the people’s will in taking a wrecking ball to our evidently overblown state apparatus.   Apparently, Mississippi just has too much health care, too much education, too many mental health services, too much attention to public safety and to maintaining our transportation infrastructure.

Disagree, social workers?  Then you’d better get busy convincing your fellow citizens that they need to elect leaders with a different mindset.  The current crop has made it clear – Tax cuts take precedence over health, human services, education, and all the rest.  They mean to keep the wrecking ball swinging.