Greenwood Commonwealth. January 23, 2024.
Editorial: Industry’s I-55 Dividing Line
Democratic lawmakers are grumbling that Mississippi’s biggest economic development victories, such as the electric vehicle battery manufacturing plant announced last week, always wind up in certain parts of the state.
The two areas being ignored, they say, are west of Interstate 55: the Delta and Southwest Mississippi, which happen to be two areas of the state with a higher percentage of Black residents.
The lawmakers are correct. The supersized economic development projects in recent years that have received up to hundreds of millions of dollars in state assistance tend to land in Northeast Mississippi and East Mississippi.
There are exceptions, such as the Nissan assembly plant in Canton and the Continental Tire plant in Clinton. But Nissan is right on I-55 and Continental Tire is only a few miles to the west of it. When it comes to state investment to attract industry, the Delta and Southwest Mississippi are getting the short end of the stick.
The Democratic lawmakers blame Republican Gov. Tate Reeves. Conceivably, he or his people at the Mississippi Development Authority could be nudging big projects toward counties that supported Reeves during his two campaigns for governor. But in the 2023 election, Brandon Presley beat Reeves by 224 votes in Marshall County. So there are different issues in play.
One problem may be that the western part of the state has been losing residents. It’s difficult to convince large employers to give these areas a try when their own residents are looking elsewhere.
Then there are the topics we always hear about, usually involving education or health, whenever Mississippi is 49th or 50th in some national ranking.
A third area of concern is the inability or unwillingness of some counties to work together. For a number of years, state developers have told local officials that the best way to get the attention of large industrial projects is to form regional alliances of multiple counties. Delta Council has made progress in getting the 19 counties it serves in the western part of Mississippi to think more collaboratively, but there is still work to be done in that regard.
The Democratic skepticism about the location of the battery project may be misguided but there are some justifiable questions.
For example, the property where the plant will be built is right on the Tennessee line. An amendment would have required 70% of the plant’s jobs go to Mississippi residents, but it got voted down. Is there any other requirement to hire Mississippi residents in the state’s agreement to provide at least $350 million to the development of the factory? If not, why not?
It’s also worth noting that Marshall County apparently amassed enough land on its own to create a 3,600-acre industrial park, where the battery plant will be located. That much land is a huge advantage when chasing large projects.
There is a 2,000-acre industrial park in Tunica, but apparently nothing else of that size in the western part of Mississippi. Those counties should start working, individually or in groups, toward acquiring land for industrial development on the same scale as Marshall County.
Now, here’s one area where Reeves and MDA could help the Delta and Southwest Mississippi. A story by Mississippi Today said the state recently invested $1.1 million in Marshall County’s industrial park in advance of the battery plant announcement.
The story also said MDA also put another $15 million into 12 other industrial parks around the state — but not one of the recipients was in the Delta or Southwest Mississippi.
That’s very easy to fix. A little help from the state would be greatly appreciated.
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Columbus Dispatch. January 19, 2024.
Editorial: Reeves politicizes poor children to hide his own administration’s shortcomings
There’s an old cliche experiencing something of a revival in today’s political climate: “Every accusation is a confession.”
The more colloquial version we hear most often used is “the pot calling the kettle black.”
According to a report from Mississippi Today, Gov. Tate Reeves’ office confirmed the state intends to opt out of federal funding for a Summer EBT program that would provide qualifying families an extra $120 in EBT per eligible child during the three summer months when school is adjourned.
This makes Mississippi one of only 15 states to opt out, Mississippi Today reported. Among the states, territories and tribes opting in, the U.S. Department of Agriculture expects to impact 21 million children.
Food insecurity is a problem that affects our local districts, where Starkville, Columbus and Lowndes districts all have more than 70% of their students qualify for the free or reduced lunch program.
Reeves wants to opt out because the program “attempts to expand the welfare state.” This is a vile take on its own, but when you add other comments from the state’s Department of Human Services spokesperson Mark Jones, it looks even worse.
Jones said the state simply doesn’t have the resources to administer the program, both from a staffing and funding standpoint. That’s a very different reason than the politically motivated shot Reeves fired at the poor.
Reeves seemed fine with participating in a similar pandemic era program for which the federal government paid 100%. The new program expects states to pay half the costs, though. So now, all the sudden, $120 extra per year for a child to have a little bit more to eat will presumably lead said child to a life of unemployment, crime and God knows what else.
We can only imagine Reeves would prefer these children and their families to pull up their bootstraps and learn the true value of a hard day’s work and a well-earned meal.
We think Reeves should take his own advice. How are 35 other states prepared to take this on, while Mississippi has neither the infrastructure or resources to pull it off? That seems odd for a governor who has been doing quite a bit of chest thumping about the state’s economic success.
Collectively, it’s an alarming sign of lackluster management for which Reeves bears some responsibility.
In recent years, especially, “the poor” are blamed more and more in Mississippi simply for having the audacity to exist. Reeves has eagerly brandished his version of the “bootstraps” narrative that always so callously implies that poor people are poor because they did something wrong. In this case, however, that strategy was a clear effort to deflect from his administration’s own deficiencies.
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