State Sen. Terry Brown, R-Columbus, visited the Columbus Rotary Club Tuesday to share a little optimism, some pessimism and a lot of uncertainty.
Starting with the good news, Brown told the Rotarians gathered at the Columbus Country Club the Mississippi coast was rolling economically despite the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
“Every room is rented and the restaurants are as busy as they can be,” Brown said, quoting a conversation he had with finance authorities. “We didn”t feel any economic impact off the spill negatively. I don”t think it”s any positive to it, but negatively, it did not hurt us.”
Brown”s comments run counter to tourism officials and Coast business owners who say business is down. According to an Associated Press report, businesses on the Mississippi Gulf Coast are “scrambling” to offer discounts and other incentives to lure visitors.
A new report from the Oxford Economics forecasting group projects the disaster could cost the region $22.7 billion by 2013. With a $500 million infusion from BP to promote tourism, they estimated that figure could drop to $15.2 billion. “The group also said travel to the Gulf Coast wouldn”t rebound until at least 2013,” the AP reported.
“Communities known for their beaches or charter fishing appear to have suffered most, while a few others managed unexpected increases after an anemic recession year,” The AP reported.
According to Linda Hornsby, director of the Mississippi Hotel and Lodging Association, the Mississippi coast has experienced a severe lack of business due to the oil spill.
“Business is down. I know of three (restaurants) that have closed and one more that just announced it”s closing. All were seafood restaurants,” she said.
“The cost of doing business has risen a great deal. Not just for restaurants but for hotels as well in terms of what it takes to get the business we do have in here. Usually we expect to be full on the weekends in the summer months. Reservations had to be made much further out, but Saturday people coming in were able to get rooms (that day).”
Reached Wednesday for clarification Brown said he spoke with officials from the Finance Administration and was surprised when they told him revenues were above projection for July and August. The state was $6.6 million above projections for July and the numbers for August won”t be tallied until next week.
He admitted he wasn”t certain how revenues were up with businesses struggling on the coast.
“I was expecting revenue to really fall off. I guess all the spending and money coming in from BP (has helped),” Brown said Wednesday. “I”m not saying individuals are not hurting down there. There has got to be certain segments, but overall revenue is not down that much.”
Brown said BP is providing an economic infusion. He shared a story about his trip to Destin, Fla., three weeks ago, where he saw BP workers in white suits cleaning the beaches 20 minutes at a time, due to the heat, and cooling off for 45-minute intervals all while being paid $18 per hour. Shrimpers, he said, were being paid $2,000 a day by the petroleum giant to “sit on their butts.”
Brown expressed no sympathy for BP, but says the company is needed to clean whatever oil lurks under the Gulf”s surface.
“I don”t want anyone to feel sorry for BP. They screwed up and blew the thing up. But we hope they don”t go broke because the government is going to have to clean up what”s left (of the oil),” he said.
On his first of several more somber notes, Brown recapped the state”s budget situation.
He blamed fellow Republican Gov. Haley Barbour”s recent cuts to universities, Medicaid, nursing homes and infrastructure on a fiscally imprudent Legislature, which has overspent since 2005 when the state was growing and the general fund budget was just $3.2 billion. Now facing a $5.5 billion budget, he says that overspending is coming back to bite Mississippians. The loss of $400 million in stimulus money from last year only compounds the problem.
Upcoming choices would be difficult for any legislature, but Brown says 2011 will be a “real crazy year” because legislators will have their attention divided by elections and reapportionment.
Brown predicts many legislators will have to run in back-to-back elections in 2011 and 2012 if the U.S. Department of Justice rejects the initial reapportionment proposition as he expects.
“Everybody doesn”t want their districts messed with and minorities want more minority districts. The first time they send (the reapportionment proposition) in I believe the Department of Justice is going to turn us down because somebody, the Ike Browns and them, is going to file an objection to it. They”re going to put it on a stay, and y”all are going to run in the districts you”re in now, then a three-judge panel is going to draw district lines and you”re going to run in the new districts the next year.
“That, my friend, is not fun. I”m going to do everything I can to keep that from happening but I”m not going to give away the state just because we have to run twice.”
Ike Brown is a black voting rights advocate from Noxubee County banned from running elections, for discriminating against white voters while chairman for the county”s Democratic Party. He spoke Saturday at the Mississippi University for Women campus before the Standing Joint Legislative Committee On Redistricting and Reapportionment.
Mississippi is one of nine states which must submit their reapportionment plans to the Department of Justice under the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
“(Mississippi has) a lot stricter guidelines than any other state in the union because of past practices and minority participation and stuff like that,” said Brown.
Switching back to budget concerns, Brown said he would prefer to reject federal funds from a $25 billion education stimulus package just as he would have rejected the first stimulus because the state will have to carry on next year whatever programs are funded this year with stimulus money. He says state tax revenues are up a little in recent months, but still nowhere near yearly projections.
Add to all of that almost $500 million Mississippi will be responsible for providing to receive a four-to-one federal match to fund Medicaid.
“When I was elected in 1988 and put on the Senate health care subcommittee to appropriations I was a freshman and didn”t know the difference between Medicaid and Medicare,” said Brown. “We were struggling to come up with $22 million to match. We passed an amendment that year that we would never, ever, ever, go over a $25 million match. The match this year is $480 million.
“We”ve almost got government health care now.”
Jason Browne was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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