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Miss. dems fight back - blame Barbour for not taking stimulus $ killing unemployment bill

Miss. dems fight back - blame Barbour for not taking stimulus $ killing unemployment bill

Dear friend,

You are going to hear a lot about the Mississippi Department of Employment Security and a Senate unemployment bill that the House killed today.

Know this: Everything would have been fine had Gov. Barbour accepted federal stimulus money to help the unemployed people of Mississippi during this national recession.

Gov. Barbour thought Democratic leaders in the House would fold, walk away and leave the unemployed to fend for themselves. But that’s not what’s happening. Democrats in the House are fighting for our unemployed.

Now that we’ve reached a boiling point, Gov. Barbour is in full spin mode. He’s released a statement saying the House leadership is to blame for what is going on. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

Below, I’ve included a press release from Rep. Rufus Straughter, chairman of the House Labor Committee. Rep. Straughter lays out the facts quite well. Please read it and pass it along.

Then, do me a favor. Call Gov. Barbour and Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant. Tell them you’re tired of their putting politics before people. Tell them to work with the Democratic leadership to forge a true compromise that provides much needed unemployment benefits to our people.

Mississippi Democrats
3/10/10

Posted March 11, 2010 - 8:14 am

4 Comments:

The dems are spinning too. Paying unemployment from the stimulus money would have obligated the state to pay long after the stimulus ran out. As usual, the dems are doing their own spin. The Governor was correct not to agree to that. Mississippi already can’t pay our obligations and the dems want to obligate us to more.

Ship Island

Posted by ship island on 03-11-2010 at 10:53 AM [link]

Gov. Barbour thought Democratic leaders in the House would fold, walk away and leave the unemployed to fend for themselves. But that’s not what’s happening. Democrats in the House are fighting for our unemployed.

Actually, that is exactly what the House leadership did. They killed the bill. Not the Republicans. Not Barbour. They didn’t like some part of it, and rather than fix it, they killed it. Sam Hall has criticized Republicans for doing the same type of thing. Well now, what’s good for goose is good for the gander. The Democrats should have tried to amended the bill if they didn’t like it. Instead, they killed it. And they can’t blame anyone else for doing it.

Posted by josepacheco on 03-11-2010 at 05:09 PM [link]

The Dems will lose if they play this game. People don’t want to see partisanship. They want to see principles in action (conservative principles, I might add), but they also want problems solved. They want people w/ principles to find ways to forge a consensus so that things get done.

The governor has been criticized for taking principled-ness to the point that he’s just stubborn, wants it only his way. This may even have merit sometimes. But the Dems don’t even have the people w/ them on the principles; so, if they want to double down on “I’ll just take my ball and go home”, they’re going to go down. Big time. Bad policy decision and bad politics by the House Dems.

Posted by Howard Roark on 03-12-2010 at 11:05 AM [link]

The House Democrats like to point fingers on anybody but
themselves… This goes for the “big boys” in Washington and
those here in the “crooked letter.” Billy McCoy and his
flickering lieutenants are scared over the upcoming elections
(with the power shift that could ensue) that they redirect
blame on the only person they can (Barbour). On Magnolia
Report, you can vote for who will likely be Speaker in 2012
(although it leaves out the most credible candidate...Rep.
Jeff Smith of Lowndes County), and I would suggest you
vote (or at least email MR and tell them who should be).

Posted by whiskeyriver on 03-12-2010 at 08:03 PM [link]

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