In today's
Clarion Ledger, political columnist Bill Minor takes aim at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Those of you who have read Cotton Mouth for a while know how we feel about their influence on our State Supreme Court. Well they are back again, this time looking to saturate the airwaves with falsehoods about Ronnie Musgrove. Minor takes them to task for their distortions of Musgrove's record, and for bypassing our state's campaign finance laws.
Our old friend (I jest) the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the powerful business lobby, is back in Mississippi with vicious, false TV attack ads, this time trying to destroy the senatorial candidacy of Democratic former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove.
Is the Chamber going to get away again with ignoring the state's campaign finance disclosure law as in 2000 when it poured over $1 million into Mississippi to pack the state Supreme Court with four handpicked candidates?
Minor covered Mississippi politics when Musgrove was Governor, and is well versed in his record as Governor. Here he calls the ads out for misrepresenting the facts.
Musgrove in 2003 rejected even a Stennis Institute study calling for raising some taxes to balance the state budget. Consequently, lawmakers cut every program (except public schools), dipped into rainy-day funds, scoured fees from special fund agencies and diverted payment into the 1998-created health care trust fund created from the $4 billion tobacco settlement.
The Chamber's claim that Musgrove inherited a surplus in 2000 and left the state with a $700 million "deficit" is a fat lie. By state law, lawmakers can't appropriate a state budget not balanced by estimated revenues.
Another outrageous blurb claims Musgrove "raised" taxes. The truth is Musgrove made a mistake in not increasing some taxes during the three-year revenue crisis. Many forget the Stennis study funded by the Kellogg Foundation recommended raising the state's top bracket income tax from 5 percent to 6 percent to produce $284 million.
Once again we see the Karl Rovian strategy at work: Repeat a lie often enough on TV and people will believe it. Again we see Chamber president Tom Donohue mastermind a plot to take over the internal politics of this Deep South conservative state.
The Karl Rove strategy still plays well in Mississippi, or at least that is what the Chamber of Commerce is hoping. I am hoping Mississippians see through the lies and distortions and elect the right man to go to Washington, former Governor Ronnie Musgrove.
While it's true the republicans are far too beholding to big business, it's also true that the democrats are far too beholding to the trial lawyers.
ReplyDeleteI like the elder Minor a lot, but he really disqualifies himself on this issue because he refuses to acknowledge that a lot of these trial lawyers really are pirates.
Plus, not to drag out the obvious, but his own son went to prison for pushing the envelope on the campaign finance laws too far.
The thing that nobody seems to get is that most Mississippians don't much care to be the prize in this particular battle and would be much happier and better served if both sides backed way the heck down.
Have you seen how much money is flowing into both these campaigns? Us locals are nothing more than pawns in this game.