JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi House Speaker Billy McCoy says he can’t understand why any official would think of rejecting money the state might receive from a federal stimulus package.
McCoy, a Democrat, said he was puzzled to read comments by Republican Gov. Haley Barbour over the weekend.
In an Associated Press report from Washington, Barbour said he didn’t have details about conditions that might be attached to the federal money. The governor said he didn’t know whether he’d take all that’s being designated for Mississippi.
McCoy said Mississippi is struggling to write a budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. He said the state is in line to receive about $2.6 billion under a plan that passed the U.S. House.
The U.S. Senate this week is debating its own version of a stimulus package, and the two chambers are expected to work out their differences.
“We intend for Mississippi to get the proceeds that Congress intends for us to receive,” McCoy told reporters Monday after a luncheon in Jackson.
Barbour, at a news conference a short time later, was asked to elaborate on his concerns about the federal stimulus legislation.
He said the bill passed by the House would require states to give unemployment benefits to people who are seeking part-time jobs. Mississippi gives unemployment pay only to people who are willing and able to work full time, Barbour said.
“I will be very careful to look at whether we’re going to take a year and a half’s worth of money and then have to change public policy to suit Nancy Pelosi for the rest of our lives,” Barbour said.
Pelosi, a Democrat from California, is speaker of the U.S. House.
Barbour said the House stimulus plan “is the pinup wish list of liberal proposals that Bill Clinton wouldn’t do, much less the last eight years” under the Republican administration of President George W. Bush.
For Mississippi, the House plan includes $637 million in state budget aid, $353 million for highways and bridges, and $249 million for school modernization, according to information from congressional staff.
The plan would also give Mississippi $52 million for wastewater treatment and sewers, $20 million for mass transit, $16 million for Head Start, $13 million for education technology grants and $7 million for low-income energy assistance.
Mississippi lawmakers expect to work until late March or early April on the state budget for the coming fiscal year. Barbour said Monday that state tax collections in January fell 6.5 percent short of expectations — a sign of the struggling economy.
State News
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