The Dow Jones Industrial average is continuing to fall as the Treasury Department keeps pumping money into banks and financial institutions to “rescue” the economy. As Washington, D.C. almost hopelessly scrambles to bail out these institutions in order to encourage them to continue lending, Mississippi has made a couple of recent wise decisions.
I’ve rarely written about Gov. Haley Barbour in the past, and usually what I have had to say hasn’t been positive. Although Barbour is chief among Washington insiders, those popularly infamous people, and has used scandalous campaign strategies typical of a Mississippi politician, he has made some good decisions for our state. To put it simply, he has gotten us a lot of money, that green stuff that often overshadows any personal wrongdoings in the minds of most voters. Not that I blame those voters. I like money too.
On Wednesday, Barbour announced state budget cuts of $42 million as a result of a 2 percent fall in state revenue, according to The Clarion-Ledger. However, he was successful in exempting critical departments and programs, such as the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, Student Financial Aid, University of Mississippi Medical Center and Medicaid.
Although public universities unfortunately received a budget cut, Barbour has shifted the cuts overall to less critical agencies and is cutting back the budget of the Governor’s Mansion in Jackson as well as his own office budget.
Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant has said he plans to reduce Senate traveling expense, and State Auditor Stacey Pickering is also making cuts.
As The Clarion-Ledger pointed out in a Wednesday editorial, these cuts are smart and will save a lot of social sectors more so than “across-the-board cuts,” and the paper reinforced the need to exempt education from budget cuts in order to invest in our future.
However, not only has Barbour brilliantly protected public education, but he has also exempted Medicaid and the State Department of Health. This move to save health care departments from budget cuts is a tremendously commendable act on the part of Barbour.
I have long held that in our currently deteriorating economy, health should be one of the very last things to be cut back. People often complain about government waste in health care and about how greedy young mothers have babies just to gain more from the system. While there are indeed innumerable woes to be pointed out in agencies like Medicaid, some of which I’m personally aware, I think much of public opposition originates from an idea that the average taxpayers shouldn’t have to cover someone else’s medical bill. Advocates of this general philosophy further justify it by pointing to a bad economy.
A question that has often arose in my head over the past few months is this: Why cut down on health care to save money when we can save plenty of money in other areas? On a federal level, those areas could include an irresponsibly-conducted war. We could also try not paying public officials so much money, as well as not giving in to lobbyists for corporations that simply want profit.
Perhaps more encouraging than Barbour’s budget cuts is the passing of the $27.5 million bond issue for Oktibbeha County Hospital. It is encouraging because individual voters stood behind it in the face of a bad economy.
A month ago, many citizens and officials said they opposed the bond because it will raise property taxes on people who are already going through rough economic times.
However, it is important for Oktibbeha County and other communities throughout the U.S. to continue to fund the institutions that are important to the larger society and only cut back in areas that are wasteful, such as lucrative government spending and favors.
Good hospitals and robust health care isn’t going to break our economy, and neither is well-funded public education. What breaks our economy are corrupt politicians and others in Washington, D.C. Not to mention the atrocities of our central banking methods headed by the Federal Reserve.
Matt Watson is the opinion editor of The Reflector. He can be contacted at [email protected].