Before anything substantial is built, two things are required — an agreement on what is to be built and a plan for how to build it.
Each January when the Legislature convenes in Jackson, our representatives start crafting and writing bills in a frenzy of policy-making. The results that are achieved are generally small in scope, mostly populist measures designed to curry favor with the legislators’ bases.
And so, while legislators get very busy each year, the work they devote themselves too hardly acknowledges the real problems that affect the vast majority of Mississippians.
Certainly, it is not for lack of issues. We seem to be reminded almost daily of our deficiencies. Whenever new state rankings are announced, we’ve grown accustomed to looking first to the top of the list of “worsts” and at the bottom of the list of “bests” to find where we stand. Health, poverty, education, infrastructure, jobs. In virtually all of these categories we occupy the same dismal standing that we have held for as long as anyone can remember. Each of these issues affects every Mississippian, either directly or indirectly.
It would be cynical indeed to say that the people we send to Jackson simply don’t care about these issues, although the results would be the same as if they didn’t.
What is lacking, we believe, is that there is no agreement on what should be done and a plan for how to do it, and while that’s par for the course, there have been exceptions.
More than 30 years ago, the Legislature passed the Mississippi Education Reform Act of 1982, which among other things established publicly funded kindergartens and created a compulsory school attendance law.
Hailed as “The Christmas Miracle” because it was passed during a special session called by Gov. William Winter in December of 1982, it was hailed as the most important single piece of education reform legislation in state history.
Likewise, in 1987, the Legislature passed funding for major highway construction, Under the legislation, the state built 1,800 miles of roadway over the ensuing three decades, turning what had been a crippling obstacle for economic growth into an asset.
In both cases, these results were achieved by keenly focusing on an issue and developing a plan to achieve it. In both cases, there were political battles waged and the outcomes were never certain. It took strong leadership to steer that legislation through the political and practical obstacles that stood in the way.
In a few weeks, the 2016 Legislature will convene and the path toward getting something done has rarely been easier. Republicans occupy the governor’s office and the lieutenant governor’s office. They have overwhelming majorities in both houses of the Legislature and are in complete control of all legislative committees. They have the political muscle to get something done.
Great achievements begin with great leadership. We are not hearing anything that suggests we have leaders who have the vision or will to set an agenda that matters.
There has been some vague talk about eliminating the state income tax — a reckless, penny-wise, pound-foolish measure that would do irreparable harm to any future efforts to seriously address the issues listed above. There has also been some talk of better funding of K-12 education, the legislators being chastised, if not humbled, by November’s narrow defeat of a proposed constitutional amendment that would have taken that responsibility out of their hands.
We hope common sense will lead to a rejection of eliminating the state income tax and education funding turns out to be more than a half-hearted tip of the hat to a serious issue.
We remain skeptical, however.
It should be simple; Pick an issue, make it a priority and develop a plan to achieve it.
Out here in the real world, that’s how barns and houses and shops are built.
Without that, we are likely to see an in-cohesive assortment of minor legislation that does not the address the real issue we face in any meaningful way.
In other words, it will be business as usual.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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