Haley Needs To Go 2.0

Well, well, well. Look at Mister "I'm not going to raise taxes" on the front page of the New York Times today.

Haley Barbour is the gift that is going to keep on giving for years to come! He latest is something that should have been done years ago: raising the Mississippi state cigarette tax. Currently, MS has the third lowest cigarette tax.

Here's the rub: After a tax study commission appointed by Governor Barbour recommended an increase, he reversed his opposition but warned that the tax should be viewed as a matter of health policy. Right, so he doesn't want folks like AG pointing out that you can call it whatever you want, it's still a tax increase. Something he said he would not do after he announced his intention for a second term on 12 February 2007. In fact, during his campaign, Barbour signed the Americans for Tax Reform "Taxpayer Protection Pledge" and vowed not to institute any new taxes or raise any existing ones.

Lies, all lies.

What is more interesting is why didn't Barbour raise taxes before? It would have made sense given that it's the third lowest cigarette tax in the nation, yet MS pays one of the highest grocery taxes. Well, wikipedia does a nice job of explaining it Clarissa style: Barbour's taxation policies have not been without contention. In March 2006 Barbour vetoed a bill that would lower grocery taxes, while simultaneously raising tobacco taxes. The "Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids" insinuated that Barbour's lobbying-era affinity with the tobacco industry may also explain his 2006 proposal to dismantle Mississippi's controversial youth-tobacco-prevention program, called The Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi. The Partnership is a private, non-profit group which receives $20 million annually and is led by former Attorney General Mike Moore. Moore created the organization when he, representing the State of Mississippi, settled a multi-billion dollar suit with the tobacco industry. According to the suit, the funds were to offset the extra costs incurred by Medicaid while dealing with smoking related illnesses. Opponents have consistently claimed that Moore uses the organization to further his political ambitions. The Partnership regularly offers up huge grants to political organizations such as the Legislative Black Caucus. Many point to even more facts such as The Partnership not allowing a public audit which in turn permits the group to have no public accountability of its expenditures of state funds. In 2006, Judge Jaye Bradley, the same judge that awarded Moore the annual $20 million in 2000, vacated her previous decision. Bradley claimed she did not decide against The Partnership because of its inability to perform but because she believes that the state legislature is the only body that can legally decide how state funds can be delegated. Following the decision, Barbour stated that it says a lot about Judge Bradley “…that she is a strong enough person to have the gumption to vacate her own order. The only way for the state to spend state funding is for the Legislature to appropriate it through the legislative process."　 After an appeal by Moore, Barbour went on to win a Mississippi Supreme Court battle that prevented the tobacco settlement moneys from funding the program, maintaining that is unconstitutional for a judge to award state proceeds to a private organization. Barbour's lawyer stated The Partnership was "the most blatant diversion of public funds to a private corporation in the history of the state of Mississippi" as The Partnership refuses to allow a state audit of its expenditures of the state's money.

That's not all. In 1991, Barbour helped found Barbour & Rogers, LLC, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm, with Ed Rogers, a lawyer who formerly worked in the George H. W. Bush administration. In 1994, Lanny Griffith (also a former Bush Administration appointee) joined the firm to form Barbour, Griffith & Rogers, LLC. In 1998, Fortune magazine named Barbour Griffith & Rogers the second-most-powerful lobbying firm in America. In 2001, after the inauguration of George W. Bush, Fortune named it the most powerful. The firm has made millions of dollars lobbying on behalf of the tobacco industry.

He should bring this shit to Massachusetts because the Harvard types would roast him alive for this kind of back door dealing! Politics are total bullshit in MS. The man had to be brought kicking and screaming to tax cigarettes because he goes down on RJ Reynolds executive counsel like Paris Hilton to Justin Timberlake on a drunken bender in Detroit. What impresses me most is that he then has the chutzpah to call his tax increase not a tax but a matter of "health policy". Right, except he has no intention of giving any money to any anti-smoking groups, lung cancer groups, or prevention programs.

This is a guy who is trying to be like the carpet bagger Jindal and turn away government funds. Are you like me and just find this kind of ignorance both sad and amusing at the same time? Seriously, how do folks in MS sleep at night knowing they elected someone who steals from their impoverished pockets right in front of them and kicks them in the scrotum while doing so?