Moody's lowered Mississippi's ratings outlook to negative although the actual credit rating remained at Aa2. Moody's stated on its website:
New York, August 11, 2016 -- Summary Rating Rationale
So the credit rating stays the same but Moody's says be careful about buying Mississippi. Nice.
Moody's Investors Service has affirmed the State of Mississippi's Aa2 general obligation bond and Aa3 lease-appropriation ratings. The rating reflects the state's historical conservative finances and average governance offset by above-average debt levels and low per-capita income. Moody's has revised the outlooks on both the general obligation and lease-appropriation ratings to negative. ...
Rating Outlook
The negative rating outlook reflects ongoing revenue weakness and below-average economic growth. The state resorted to use of reserves to address revenue underperformance in fiscal 2016. Revenues continued to underperform in July, the first month of fiscal 2017, which, alongside the suspension of the 98% limit on appropriations may lead to a worsening in the state's fiscal position. We believe the state's economy will continue to grow at a pace slower than the rest of the nation, leading to ongoing fiscal stress. The state will likely address these issues with further budgetary discipline, but also through use of one-time revenues, like the rainy day fund, which could leave it with less financial cushion than peer states.
29 comments:
republican elected leaders blame out of control spending. republican elected leaders have been in place for many years. constituency too dumb to notice due to hypnotic spell of the state flag.
The governor responds with a strong statement:
Gov. Phil Bryant has called on the State... to address what he has deemed a “pattern of poor decision-making and mismanagement” by the state..., following an error by employees that’s placed the federal funding for...programs in jeopardy.
Wait, strike that. That's his comment on the actions of MDE.
let's just keep it simple.....our WHOLE ENTIRE state government sux!! it does not matter democratic or republican.....all that is, is a different name for the same actions!!
Phil Bryant, Tate Reeves and Philip Gunn have been a disaster. Our state finances have been mismanaged and the recent tax cuts are causing chaos in state government. Bryant tends to put unqualified cronies into important positions. Notice his daughter getting appointed in Madison County? She was not qualified.
They say we have a balanced budget but we issued about $500 million in bonds this past year. They are just maxing out the credit cards.
Remember: If you criticize state leaders, it means you support creating the kush district. If you criticize Jackson leaders, you are an active klan member. It may look like both are hooking up their friends, looting the treasury, and rejecting even the appearance of accountability but they are not. Stay the course. Everything is fine.
And the Governor is raising cane about the MDE- waiting for him to address the short sightedness of his time in state government, what's it been? 20+ years on the state payroll?
Bryant tends to put unqualified cronies into important positions. Notice his daughter getting appointed in Madison County? She was not qualified.
A rich display of your near total ignornance.
Um yeah. She is in over her head. Not at the level of Martin/Gaylor but in over her head.
When your attorney says more than once "Let me call the AG", you have a problem. SOmething rarely said by Espy, Slay, Simon, Tiewuseen.
Phil is driving this train wreck. He will go down as overseeing the most corrupt/dysfunctional/inept administration in the history of our state. Let's see: multiple agency heads in or on the way to prison; corporate defaults on payments due to the state; reduced taxes while increasing spending; reduced bond ratings; multiple state agency scandals; etc.
Exaggerate much @12:43 PM?
Ever since politicians learned they can always blame the other side for all wrongs they do not even try to hide their piss poor performance. If they are republicans they can blame everything on the democrats and all of the republicans will go along with them. Democrats do the same thing. No one actually cares if their politicians are crooked. They only care if the have a D or an R behind their name.
12:37, Trey Baxter is trying to earn favor with Bryant Gunn and their crowd to get their support for future political runs for higher office.
The people of Madison County lose out to Baxter's political ambitions.
Say what you want to about Madison Atty, but the one thing you can't say is that she was put in place by the Governor. Each county does its own thing, and last time I checked, we haven't demoted Feel to the position of county supervisor, much less him occupying three county supervisor seats.
Those big corporate tax cuts don't even kick in til next year. And there was zero analysis done on the effect to revenues.
The issue with the MS economy is bigger than the current administration - although they do share some of the blame. MS has been on a downhill trajectory for decades. There is basically nothing to lure big, financially-solid employers to the state other than tax incentives. We have a poorly-educated workforce, bad roads, no major airports and a really bad image in the eyes of the rest of the country (i.e. backwards, racist, uneducated). And then you have the state flag and HB1523 to really put a knife in our back. At some point, even the tax incentives can't outweigh the negatives, and no big employers will want to come to the state.
HB1523 appears to be self-healing in that the courts are going to kill it. The flag issue isn't complicated, just stupid - get rid of it! The other issues are complicated and will take years and hundreds of millions to fix. I don't pretend to know how to address them, but suffice to say that as long as we continue electing greedy, self-serving demagogues into office, it won't get better.
The root of the problem is that a relatively small cadre of wealthy rent-seekers continue to fund the same old political class that perpetuate the problems. Meanwhile, that small group creates and/or maintains generational wealth through the influence they have with these elected officials, so they are fat and happy and couldn't care less about what happens to MS as a whole.
How dare these ignorant posters seek to lay blame for this financial mess on Bryant, Reeves and Gunn. The Democrats controlled the Governor's for four years out of the past 24 years, and they controlled both the House and Senate until 4 years ago. How could we blame anyone for this mess but them?
@ August 16, 2016 at 1:21 PM
Please elaborate, not trying to facetious, but would like to hear more on the "zero analysis" - because I have a hard time believing they passed tax cuts of this magnitude, without considering what the coffers would look like or the ripple effects?
@ 1:32pm
You hit it on the head. Just a damn shame more people can't see that. But I agree with you 100%
2:10, really not hard to believe they passed tax cuts without considering what the coffers would look like or the ripple effects.
They passed the tax cuts because they could. They can always put the blame on the other party. Every republican will believe them.
Just wait until the democrats get back in control. They will do the same thing for the same reasons. Only difference is all of the democrats will believe them.
Notice how that works? Always has been that way and always will be that way as long as we have political parties.
Just wait until the democrats get back in control.
They won't. They've been gerrymandered out of power until at least after the 2030 Census. Yes, 2030.
This is 1.32PM again: D or R, it doesn't matter. It takes money to get elected, and in order to stay elected, you have to keep the money happy. The D's need access to the money as much as the R's, so should they manage to get themselves back into power, they are beholden to some source of funds to do their bidding. The challenge that the D's in MS have is that we have almost no union presence in this state, which is the primary counter-balance to big corporate money in other states (and nationally). Back in the day you had the plaintiff's bar to support the D's, but tort reform de-clawed the ambulance chasing crowd, so they have less money to throw around. Without unions or billboard barristers funding their campaigns, and owing in part to some creative gerrymandering (as noted elsewhere in the thread), the D's don't have much hope right now. Not that it would make much difference.
The only exception to the above is if you can mobilize a large population through a grass-roots campaign. Good luck with that - especially in MS where the population you are trying to mobilize is largely uneducated and historically doesn't turn out much for elections. The status quo just isn't quite bad enough for people to actually turn out and actually vote the bastards out of office. As things get progressively worse and worse (which they will), perhaps we reach an inflection point and the voting majority breaks from the status quo. Until then, expect the same from our elected officials.
Phil is the captain. MS is the Titanic. he is in his cabin sleeping.
Phil said that under his watch we would never have another beef plant! He was Lt. Governor when KIOR was passed. So, instead of losing $20,000,000 on the beef, we stand to lose $70,000,000 on KIOR. At least the folks in Lowndes County are trying to market the site to someone that will sucking the tits of Mississippi taxpayers!
12:43PM said "He will go down as overseeing the most corrupt/dysfunctional/inept administration in the history of our state. Let's see: multiple agency heads in or on the way to prison; corporate defaults on payments due to the state; reduced taxes while increasing spending; reduced bond ratings; multiple state agency scandals; etc."
Sounds eerily similar to Obama's presidency.
Agency heads in trouble: Geithner was delinquent on his taxes when Obama appointed him Sec of Treasury. Lois Lerner was allowed to retire from the IRS with a $100,000 a year pension after very little investigation into her targeting scheme by anyone other than Republicans in Congress. Then there's Hillary with Benghazi, unsecured classified emails, foreign donations to Clinton Foundation, etc. AG Lynch and her "chance" tarmac meeting with Bill is minor, comparatively.
Corporate defaults: Like Solyndra Solar receiving $535 million from taxpayers and quickly going belly up? Then the auto industry bailout became a union bailout; creditors of General Motors were denied bankruptcy claims while UAW received billions. Or GE's CEO getting cozy with the President at the same time GE enjoyed several years of paying nearly nothing in corporate taxes? Meanwhile POTUS took every opportunity to bash big corporations for dodging taxes thru legal loopholes.
Bond ratings: America's credit rating was downgraded for the first time in history after 3 years of Obama leadership.
Multiple agency scandals: DOJ (Fast and Furious, selective investigating of crimes which should be the responsibility of the city, county and state), State Dept (all things Hillary), IRS, Obamacare's entire implementation from the crap website to the fraudulent enrollments and lies about keeping your doctor.
9:14, it just shows you that no matter who the politician is or which party they belong to, they are all crooks. You would think that by the time a person gets old enough to vote they would know this.
@7;33 - the beef plant losses were $55 million, plus a lot of lawyer fees - with no recovery from anybody possible. It started at $20M, but quickly grew into a 100% loan guarantee to a bank for $55 million.
Not trying to justify KIOR or others - but you can't downplay the beef plant that easy.
The recently passed tax cuts - without decreasing spending or increasing revnue from somewhere else - were a bad idea. They are going to have to come up with $ from somewhere.
Seeing this, though, makes me think: Thank the Lord that Prop 42 didn't pass. Can you imagine where we would be if it had?
10:18 - haven't you read the papers? Listened to all the agencies crying their tears? The legislature DID decrease spending. Now, the bureaucrats, the beneficiaries of those agencies, the Democrats, and our AG Jim Hood are crying that the foundation of all state government has crumbled, with of course, the help of the media.
What is needed is even more cuts. There are plenty of things that could be eliminated as long as the legislature has the balls to put up with the crying and recognize that the continued growth of government needs to be slowed, and a good look taken at what is really an appropriate function of government and what should be eliminated.
State and federal govt. has grown way beyond anything it should be. We need to trim the waste. First step would be making the govt. get by on what they take in. If they have a problem with that, cut until there isn't a problem.
Post a Comment