Haley the Hatchet

Monday's Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal addressed an issue of utmost importance, Medicaid funding. While I agree with half of the editorial regarding the necessity of raising the tobacco tax, I find the proposal of Democratic capitulation on Medicaid at best unnecessary.

First let us look at what the Daily Journal got right:

Mississippi's cigarette tax is unconscionably low. At 18 cents per pack, it's nearly $1 below the national average, and that's in the unhealthiest state in the nation.

For two-plus years now, there's been a major push to raise it, at one point in combination with a cut in Mississippi's grocery sales tax - the highest state levy in the nation.

A majority of legislators favor raising the cigarette tax. Several statewide opinion polls show strong public support for an increase. Numerous public health professionals and groups have endorsed it.

The Daily Journal is dead on target with their assessment of our ridiculously low tobacco tax relative to the rest of the nation. The editor omitted the reason for the "unconscionably low" tobacco tax. Haley Barbour at one time was the highest paid tobacco lobbyist in Washington. This has been well documented. He would rather raise the grocery tax, the most regressive tax known to man, than raise taxes on his cronies at Philip Morris.

Now for the part where the Daily Journal drops the ball:

In short, a cigarette tax to fund Medicaid is politically untenable at this point. There are two alternatives for the House, in spite of periodic talk of other options: 1) Accept Barbour's position and the plan prepared, if reluctantly, by the state Hospital Association, or 2) Continue the stalemate and watch Barbour put major Medicaid cuts into effect.

The House leadership has taken what it considers a principled stand on the tobacco tax and says Barbour doesn't have to cut Medicaid. But the fact remains that he will. It's simply not worth the impact on people needing health care to push that position any farther -in spite of perceptions that Barbour is being stubborn and inflexible, and perhaps a desire by some to see him ensure some self-inflicted political damage.

Is yielding to the governor's position political surrender? Only in the short term, and anyway, politics can't rule the day on this one. Sure, Barbour has his own political axes to grind, but the House could end this mess by agreeing to the Hospital Association plan and calling the governor's hand on his promise about the cigarette tax.

I disagree with the assessment rendered. The money is there to keep Medicaid running well into the spring of 2009. The legislature will convene after the new year and will have plenty of time to address the shortcoming. There is no need for the Governor to make the huge monthly cuts he is threatening.

I am glad he is seeing the light on the tobacco tax, but he has other plans in those regards. He is planning on teaming a tobacco tax increase with a state income tax cut, to make our state have an even more regressive tax structure than the current, which ranks 1 out of 50 as being the most regressive. With the incredible fiscal challenges our state is facing such as this current Medicaid crisis, what sense does it make to cut taxes?

Haley will NOT make cuts to Medicaid. There is no way he will inflict that much unnecessary pain on those who have the least just to make a political point. If he does, it is not only political suicide for Haley, who is probably done anyway, but a huge black on eye on the already punch drunk Republican brand in Mississippi. Need I mention Travis Childers or the Musgrove race?

The Mississippi Republican brand cannot afford for Haley Barbour to be the hatchet man in this one, although I have no doubt he would not miss a night's sleep if he were. Mississippi is trending blue whether some folks want to admit or not. The last two months presidential polls have had McCain with only a six point lead. Ronnie Musgrove is in a neck and neck race with Roger Wicker for the Senate seat vacated by Trent Lott.

I would slightly alter the title of the Journal piece, "Call his hand". I would phrase it "Call his bluff". Don't capitulate to the plutocrat. He has lost this round. The money is there to make it well into next session. Will it be "Haley the Hatchet"? Cotton Mouth and thousands of elderly and poor Mississippians want to know.