BILL CRAWFORD — Conservative tax plan needed for road and bridge repairs
Yes, the Mississippi chapter of Americans for Prosperity is right that we don’t need excessive new taxes for road and bridge repairs. So, yes, the Mississippi Senate was right to kill the eight...
View ArticleBILL CRAWFORD — Universities must do even better job preparing reading teachers
Reading matters. Perhaps no other accomplishment would improve Mississippi prosperity more than for all our children to read proficiently. So believed Jim and Sally Barksdale 16 years ago when they...
View ArticleCRAWFORD: Legislative groups should target declining communities,...
As legislators gather in their working groups to study programs and budgets, they should also take note of long-term phenomena with significant impacts. One of these is a downward spiral that can...
View ArticleBILL CRAWFORD — Tax needs vs. tax cuts bedevils legislators
With legislators looking at taxes, some of us should be worried, some thrilled. The need to study taxes results from weakening tax revenues along with a sluggish economy, and also because the largest...
View ArticleBILL CRAWFORD — Pathways for unmotivated people become useless pathways
Pathways” is the popular word today for fixing broken, adolescent, and unsuccessful people. Here are a few examples. At the federal level there are the Pathways out of Poverty Act, the National...
View ArticleBILL CRAWFORD: University president terms getting shorter
Jackson State University President Carolyn Meyers becomes the latest university president to leave prematurely. She announced her resignation following disclosure of financial problems at the...
View ArticleBILL CRAWFORD: State economy struggles to hit half the national growth rate
State economists lower forecast for remainder of year,” read the Mississippi Business Journal headline on Oct. 27. “Mississippi’s state economists have pulled back on an already-weak economic forecast...
View ArticleBILL CRAWFORD — Leaders’ power play puts egg on their faces
How appropriate. Fate chose the week of the Egg Bowl for legislative leaders to have to wipe lots of egg off their faces. How silly. House Republican leaders passed a rule, with Senate mimicry...
View ArticleBILL CRAWFORD — Is out-of-state student growth good for Mississippi taxpayers?
USM, seeking students, reduces out-of-state tuition,” read the recent newspaper headline. “The idea is to reverse a 2,000-student enrollment dip by pricing a USM education below some public...
View ArticleBILL CRAWFORD: Strangulation budget hits state employees, poor
Merry Christmas state employees. The budget proposed by Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, House Speaker Philip Gunn, and their budget committee colleagues targets you. If you get to keep your job, they want you to...
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