Just in case you are keeping up at home…
Our “cash strapped” state which cannot find the fiscal means to fund almost anything adequately (mental health, public education, roads, bridges, etc.) and which is run by leadership (Reeves/Gunn) and their various committee chairmen (self-professed fiscal conservatives, forced to make the “hard” choices that seem to always involve cutting the services used by the general public or not funding them to adequate levels) have the ability to “earmark” funds to pet projects behind closed doors. Yet, apparently, the fiscal conservatism conviction fades a bit when the camera lights dim and the real action begins behind closed doors! Yes, these same earmarks by the Mississippi House and Senate leadership are what your might remember gave Weight Watchers over $1.5 million and funneled millions to various other pet projects which benefited a few and were pushed heavy by lobbyists. Okay, so that part was just the memory review to refresh our mind of what we are talking about leading into this discussion. Now, let’s get to the latest from the “fiscal conservative” leadership, one of which (Reeves) is now asking for your support as the next Mississippi Governor.
Thanks to digging and reporting by the Clarion-Ledger, we now find out that nearly $1,000,000 in state funds, again via “earmarks” and other funding by legislative leadership, has been given to an early childhood education program run at the University of Mississippi. Great! I mean who does not support learning more about early childhood education and who opposes money spent for research into it? Well, the devil is certainly in the details on this one.
While Mississippi is unable to fund Pre-K programs for much of the state, this “lab” at Ole Miss gathers hundreds of thousands in funding “earmarked” specifically for this Pre-K program at Ole Miss per year, not just for this year, but for the past several years. This program providing early childhood education to a total of seventy-two children per year. Who are these fortunate children? Maybe, you’re thinking they are the children of struggling college students, going to class during the day while their efforts are supported by their children receiving subsidized Pre-K on campus. Perhaps, you’re even imagining they are children from the Oxford area, able to take advantage of an affordable, high quality early childhood education for their children, since the state is subsidizing the program. Well, you would be wrong in both cases, unfortunately. While we do not know who the specific parents of the children being served by this high-quality, conveniently located on-campus, instruction for these select seventy-two Pre-K children, we do know one defining characteristic of them. All of the parents were apparently able to afford to pay an additional $6,000/year from their personal funds for their child to be a part of this group of seventy-two. Yes, not only did the program get a couple hundred thousand per year of your tax dollars to fund an on-campus Pre-K program to serve seventy-two children, but those children’s parent(s) then wrote checks totaling $6,000 per student per year for the privilege! With that level of parent supplied tuition per child, it would seem to be a reasonable assumption that the program for the past several years has not exactly been serving the needs of those in the lower income brackets, much less students with young children, struggling to pay their tuition.
As several critical of our current legislative leadership have pointed out, the problem in our state does not seem to be a total lack of money, such as for adequate pay raises for state employees. No, the problem getting funding mainly seems to hinge upon whether or not the legislative leadership wants to send the money in a particular direction or not. If the project is in the leadership’s backyard and you can afford $6,000/year in Pre-K tuition, the funding is certainly there for your benefit. If you run a nationwide weight loss program with full-time lobbyists ready and willing to give political donations, then the money flows freely from the state’s faucet. However, as we all have seen under the current leadership in the legislature, if the project is one serving the general public, outside of the select few, the faucet will slow down to a trickle or be cut off altogether. As diligent reporting is pointing out, the lack of water seems to have less to do with overall supply of water and more to do with whose hand is secretly turning the valve.
If Mississippians desire a different direction, they will have the opportunity to let it be known this November. As the old saying goes, “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
– Clint Stroupe
The Thinking Conservative Blog 