Mississippi Governor Barbour Highlights 2010 State Of The State
Source: Governor of Mississippi Posted on: 19th January 2010
Governor Haley Barbour delivered a State of the State address Monday night that focused on moving the state’s economy forward and spending tax dollars responsibility in the coming year.
These are the highlights:
Job Creation
- Continue to support workforce training initiatives. Workforce training helps Mississippians increase their wages and earn promotions. Workforce training programs helped raise Mississippi’s per capita income by 27 percent between 2004 and 2008. A lot of that came from replacing lower skilled, lower-paying jobs with higher-skilled, better-paying jobs.
- Mississippi’s workforce has gained respect nationally and internationally in recent years, meaning it is critical the pipeline of well-trained, qualified workers never dries up.
- More people working means more income for families who have been affected by the global recession. Well-trained workers strengthen small- and mid-sized businesses that are the backbone of our economy.
Energy
- Mississippi is well positioned to be a leader in the energy sector. Energy companies are investing billions of dollars around the state to develop a variety of energy resources from nuclear power to biofuels.
- Experts confirm Mississippi is the focus of the biofuels energy industry because of the state’s large supply of wood products and capacity to grow feedstock crops for cellulosic ethanol and similar fuels.
Budget
- A recession is no time to raise taxes. Instead, we need to spend the money taxpayers entrust to us as wisely as possible. That begins with making sure the State’s Rainy Day Fund lasts three more years; we should spend only one-third – about $78 million – of its balance this year.
- Similarly, I cannot support a tax amnesty. The State had a tax amnesty in 2004, and producing another one may encourage more people to delay paying their taxes. Taxpayers deserve for us to make every effort to collect taxes owed by people or companies that are not paying as they should.
- We have more budget cuts to make in this fiscal year, and I have asked that the Legislature change the law to allow the Governor the flexibility to cut departments and agencies up to 10 percent. Without that flexibility, the cuts that would be required for the Corrections budget would force the state to release 3,400 to 4,000 convicts who are not approved for parole.
- The Rainy Day Fund, known as the Working Cash Stabilization Fund, must last three more years and only one-third of the balance – $78 million – should be appropriated for Fiscal Year 2011.
Mississippi Leading
- 2010 is the year we will help lead America out of this global recession; the year when we pick up where we left off before this recession sidetracked our growing economy and rising incomes.
- We can and will out perform the national economy. We were doing it before this global recession, and we’ll be doing it again soon.
To read the full text, click here.
Topics: 2010, accountability, Biofuels, crops, economic development, economic growth, economic recovery, Economy, education, employment, eneregy industry, energy, energy resources, feedstock, Fiscal Year 2011, global economic downturn, Governance, government, Governor Haley Barbour, investment, job creation, jobs, Mississippi, nuclear power, Rainy Day Fund, recession, revenue, rising incomes, skills, society, State of the State address, tax amnesty, tax dollars, taxes, transparency, U.S., United States, workforce training, Working Cash Stabilization Fund
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