The Chronicle-star combined with the Moss Point advertiser., 1946-02-15

The legislature and the ADMINISTRATOR OF
Governor Tom Bailey have done a classic
pork-barrel political job in spending the
states S28.O0OO00 s~ales-tax surplus. The
bows up in Jackson still haveAa few million
to 90, before it is all gone, But let's not be
impatient. The present session of the legls-
lature IS little more than a month old. Give
them a few more weeks and they will make
the rest vanish like a magician's rabbit.
Not all of the spending bills have been
cleared through both houses and signed into
law, but the biggest and most extravagant
measures have-and the others are conced-
cd passage by ali p~agties. Fifteen million
dollars worth of road-construction bills, at
least five million dollars of which were for a
pork-barrel county road program, went
through like an express train. In addition to
these bills, another measure provided for
paving back $l,051 90 which the state Dor
rowed' from its own highway inc in 1882.
That makes more than $l6,000,000 Of the
surplus gone to road building.
To get this road picture clear. one state
bill provided expenditure of $l0.000.00O.
plus \ Condition dollar bond issue to be
matched with federal money. to finance
a bodybuilding program which is part of
a backlog of public works that the fed
eral government has been planning for
years as a mesns of giving national en-
ploynent a shot-in-the arm in postwar
years. Similar programs are In readiness
for all the states. The Mississippi program.
in addition to primary highways also in
cludes a total of 4.400 miles of farm-to-
market roads. which in our minds is ade-
quate.
Therefore we consider it pork-politics to
an aggravated degree when the state-al-
ready assured of 400 miles of farm-to-mark-
ct roads under the federal set up-tosses in
another bill to appropriate an extra $4,000
900 of the surplus to be apportioned to the
county boards of supervisors for road build
ing. A more accurate phrase than road build
ing in this connection would be 'for the con-
struction and repair of political fences"
We ask our readers who ride the highways
in this and other states whether Mississippi
does BOT already have roads up to par with
any in the country. OF course we do. That is
the one department in which we stand high.
The reason is we had to lag behind the other
states so many years, that when we finally
got our roads built, theirs were wearing out.
This state has already spent more than sixty
million dollars on a bodybuilding program,
over the past ten years. That should be
enough-and we should turn our attention
and start spending our money on other
things that are badly needed. The use of the
vast part of this ~sale-tax created surplus for
more BODYBUILDING, for more sand and gravel
dilQ dopidlt SOiiti oNto, " iiiOiC POl
spending to be dealt out to favored contract
ors by politicians, is in our opinion a ruthless
and cynical abuse of the states spending
power.
The boys have a few million more to go.
Where are the county hospitals that the
people of Mississippi need SO badly, It was
their s~ales-tax payments on every loaf of
bread and every bottle of milk which ac-
counted for the major part of that surplus.
Where are those hospitals? The Mississippi
Farm Bureau bulletin last winter printed a
careful study of health conditions in the
state, revealing that we stood 48th in hos
pital facilities, 18th in the number of doc
tors, nurses, and so on Town a long list.
The Farm Bureau called for a sound public
health program financed out of the surplus.
The prime need of the state was for a series
of regional hospitals like the Jackson county