The Mississippi state legislature quickly rubber-stamped a $247 million incentive package that Gov. Tate Reeves put together to land a major aluminum plant in Mississippi’s Golden Triangle area.
The deal was presented as a no-brainer: a $2.5 billion investment by the so-far-unnamed company (at the time) and a thousand additional jobs at an average salary of $93,000 per worker.
If those numbers are right, that comes to about a 10% match by the state for the company’s investment. And the majority of lawmakers didn’t bat an eye approving that expenditure, even though most of them probably did not read the legislation they voted on to be certain there were not some hidden costs within all of those pages.
Meanwhile, this same Republican-dominated Legislature has spent almost a decade thumbing its nose at Medicaid expansion, a larger investment in Mississippi that would produce many more jobs — 20,000 more, according to some estimates — than this new plant will.
The federal government since 2014 has been offering to pick up most of the cost of providing health insurance to the working poor. If looked at solely as an economic development project — not accounting for all the additional benefits of a healthier population — it also has been a no-brainer. Washington would send to Mississippi about a billion dollars a year to cover the costs of expansion, and Mississippi would have to put up a match not to exceed 10%. In the early years, an opportunity already wasted, the match would have been nil. Then last year, with the Democrats in control of Congress, another temporary sweetener was added that would more than pay for the state’s share for the first two years following expansion. Still no dice from Reeves, House Speaker Philip Gunn and the majority of the state’s Republican leadership.
Meanwhile, rural health care in Mississippi is in a crisis. Greenwood’s hospital is on the brink of closure, and several other hospitals around the state are not far behind, based on current trends. Yet no one in the Republican leadership, and certainly not Reeves, is talking about a special session to deal with this major threat not only to health care access but also to the state’s economy.
We’re not begrudging the good fortune of Lowndes County, or wherever nearby this new plant is going. We’re happy for that community’s success.
Nevertheless, it should be noted that this factory is going to be a boost to mainly one section of Mississippi. Medicaid expansion would be felt positively statewide.
Some Republicans, such as Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, seem to see that. Unfortunately, they are currently outnumbered in their party.
Contact Tim Kalich, editor and publisher of the Greenwood Commonwealth, at 662-581-7243 or tkalich@gwcommonwealth.com.
