MISSISSIPPI SPOTLIGHT
Job Growth Is Job One
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| Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour |
| T |
ort reform and a renewed focus on work-force training are
among Gov. Haley Barbour's early accomplishments as Mississippi's chief
executive. These and other business climate issues were among the topics
discussed recently by the governor and Site Selection Editor Mark Arend.
Site Selection:Having spent a number of years on the national political stage as Chairman of the Republican National Committee, what are your thoughts on the re-election of President Bush, and how will the election as a whole benefit Mississippi?
Gov. Barbour: From the standpoint of Mississippi, the president's re-election is very positive. The president doesn't have any stronger supporters in the Senate than Senator Cochran and Senator Lott. Our congressional delegation is well regarded by the Administration, and the president and I have known each other for 20 years. He was elected governor of Texas when I was Chairman of the RNC, and he asked me to be one of 10 people to serve on his national exploratory committee prior to his decision to run for president in 1999. So we feel like we are a team, a really good team. And with the president continuing to serve for four more years and the Republicans maintaining control of the Senate, it means that Senator Cochran will be Chairman of the Appropriations Committee and Senator Lott will be Chairman of the Rules Committee. So in terms of economic development and job creation, we couldn't have a better team. One of the political journalists wrote here that Bush's re-election and Republicans' maintaining the Senate means the biggest winner in the election year was Thad Cochran, and he wasn't even on the ballot. It's a big win for our state. He's in an incredibly powerful position.
SS: Mississippi's business climate improved earlier this year with passage of the Tort Reform Act of 2004. Does this legislation go far enough to correcting this issue in the minds of potential investors in the state?
Barbour: The comprehensive tort reform bill is the biggest legislation to improve our business climate, but it's not the only one. The Heritage Foundation has described our tort reform bill as the most comprehensive any state has passed. And that is an accurate description. We have had this year reforms that are putting an end to lawsuit abuse in Mississippi in the areas of venue, joinder, protection of innocent sellers and landowners, caps on non-economic damages, reduced caps on punitive damages, medical liability reforms, ending joint and several liability in favor of pure several liability and jury reform. This has all been put in place this year. I said that we needed comprehensive tort reform to end lawsuit abuse in Mississippi, and that's what we've got. Right now, I don't want to pursue further tort reform, because what we've got does the job.
I have been able to appoint a number of judges; three of the four judges up for re-election this year on the bench are strong, strict constructionists and have been proponents in the majority who have brought our Supreme Court back to a level of fair play. It is important that the judiciary is moved back to being a fair one for the business community. Also, the U.S. attorney this fall indicted a number of plaintiffs who were involved in one of the pharmaceutical cases, which fraudulently entered the case with fake prescriptions. They have indicted more than a dozen, and about a half dozen have pled guilty, which will have a positive effect on ending lawsuit abuse. Recruited plaintiffs are a major element in the mass tort business, and when these plaintiffs get indicted for fraud, other recruited plaintiffs will think twice about manufacturing claims. So we feel very good about what's been done in lawsuit abuse, and more importantly, groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Small Business Survival Committee, the American Tort Reform Association and others all recognize that we have addressed each one of the critical issues. We had a lot to deal with. It took all these different elements, but they are all in the bill.
SS: In November, you signed an Economic Development Bond Bill. What is its purpose, and how will it create jobs specifically?
Barbour: It includes funds for capital improvements for universities, community colleges and state infrastructure. Passage is a very positive outcome, particularly in the area of job creation. I don't intend to have a bond bill next year that relates to capital improvements. The only bonds that we will authorize between now and the end of 2005 will be for job creation and economic development, because we are stabilizing our bonded indebtedness. It went up a lot in the last 12 years, and our goal now is to keep that approximately the same level. So we will pay off $400 million worth of bonds in 2004 and 2005, and our goal is to issue approximately that much. This bill authorized $450 million. Typically, 10 to 15 percent of authorized bonds don't get issued on a timely basis or at all, so actual issuance will probably be around the $400 million, which will keep us stable. In fact, we'd like to reduce the indebtedness a little over the next few years.
There is a diverse group of issues in this jobs creation bond bill. The biggest is Northrop Grumman, which has two shipyards on the Mississippi gulf coast, and we authorized $40 million of bonds - they will put up $80 million in private investment as we continue to upgrade these shipyards to keep them on the cutting edge and the most competitive shipyards in their class for the Navy, the Coast Guard and foreign military sales. We have approximately $24 million of bonds that are authorization to build a new building at the Stennis Space Center, a NASA facility, because Stennis, with 10 private joint venture partners, is competing to be the site of NASA's new shared-services center. NASA will take all its administrative functions and consolidate them at one center. We won't issue those bonds if we don't win the competition, but we think we are very competitive. We have great private-sector partners. Then we have the expansion of Viking Range, headquartered in Greenwood, which plans to build a dishwasher plant and an R&D center, and there is funding in there for that. We put up about $3 million in capital, and Viking invested another $10 million - that's 250 jobs at the plant and 60 or 80 jobs at the R&D center. Baxter Healthcare has a big plant at Cleveland, Miss., and we are engaged in a project with them where they will put up $50 million in capital and we'll put up $8 million in order to keep them competitive and growing.
These towns are both in the Mississippi delta, which is an area some have given up on in terms of high-end manufacturing, but we haven't. Just this year, Textron has consolidated three Midwestern plants and moved them to Greenville, also in the delta. Faurecia, a French auto component manufacturer, is opening a factory in Cleveland in the delta. Then there's Viking and Baxter as I mentioned. One of the good things about this year is that we have seen some great, positive job creation projects in the delta all related to high-end manufacturing. On the Alabama line is the part of the state we call the prairie. And we have a very successful generic pharmaceutical operation now in Macon in that area, Pharmapak, and there is some money in here for them to make another expansion, which will be their third. Then in Meridian, there is a proposed engineered wood product manufacturing facility for which the state will put up $10 million after the company raises $100 million in the equity markets and the principals raise $7 million more.
To me, that's the way this is supposed to work. We put up less than $3 million on Textron, and they put up $35 million. We put up $3 million or $4 million for Federal Express in DeSoto County for a $58 million distribution center where 600 people will work. These are the kind of public-private partnerships that we are working toward.We also have in the bill our regular Development Authority programs that get funded in this way.
Site Selection:Having spent a number of years on the national political stage as Chairman of the Republican National Committee, what are your thoughts on the re-election of President Bush, and how will the election as a whole benefit Mississippi?
Gov. Barbour: From the standpoint of Mississippi, the president's re-election is very positive. The president doesn't have any stronger supporters in the Senate than Senator Cochran and Senator Lott. Our congressional delegation is well regarded by the Administration, and the president and I have known each other for 20 years. He was elected governor of Texas when I was Chairman of the RNC, and he asked me to be one of 10 people to serve on his national exploratory committee prior to his decision to run for president in 1999. So we feel like we are a team, a really good team. And with the president continuing to serve for four more years and the Republicans maintaining control of the Senate, it means that Senator Cochran will be Chairman of the Appropriations Committee and Senator Lott will be Chairman of the Rules Committee. So in terms of economic development and job creation, we couldn't have a better team. One of the political journalists wrote here that Bush's re-election and Republicans' maintaining the Senate means the biggest winner in the election year was Thad Cochran, and he wasn't even on the ballot. It's a big win for our state. He's in an incredibly powerful position.
SS: Mississippi's business climate improved earlier this year with passage of the Tort Reform Act of 2004. Does this legislation go far enough to correcting this issue in the minds of potential investors in the state?
Barbour: The comprehensive tort reform bill is the biggest legislation to improve our business climate, but it's not the only one. The Heritage Foundation has described our tort reform bill as the most comprehensive any state has passed. And that is an accurate description. We have had this year reforms that are putting an end to lawsuit abuse in Mississippi in the areas of venue, joinder, protection of innocent sellers and landowners, caps on non-economic damages, reduced caps on punitive damages, medical liability reforms, ending joint and several liability in favor of pure several liability and jury reform. This has all been put in place this year. I said that we needed comprehensive tort reform to end lawsuit abuse in Mississippi, and that's what we've got. Right now, I don't want to pursue further tort reform, because what we've got does the job.
I have been able to appoint a number of judges; three of the four judges up for re-election this year on the bench are strong, strict constructionists and have been proponents in the majority who have brought our Supreme Court back to a level of fair play. It is important that the judiciary is moved back to being a fair one for the business community. Also, the U.S. attorney this fall indicted a number of plaintiffs who were involved in one of the pharmaceutical cases, which fraudulently entered the case with fake prescriptions. They have indicted more than a dozen, and about a half dozen have pled guilty, which will have a positive effect on ending lawsuit abuse. Recruited plaintiffs are a major element in the mass tort business, and when these plaintiffs get indicted for fraud, other recruited plaintiffs will think twice about manufacturing claims. So we feel very good about what's been done in lawsuit abuse, and more importantly, groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Small Business Survival Committee, the American Tort Reform Association and others all recognize that we have addressed each one of the critical issues. We had a lot to deal with. It took all these different elements, but they are all in the bill.
SS: In November, you signed an Economic Development Bond Bill. What is its purpose, and how will it create jobs specifically?
Barbour: It includes funds for capital improvements for universities, community colleges and state infrastructure. Passage is a very positive outcome, particularly in the area of job creation. I don't intend to have a bond bill next year that relates to capital improvements. The only bonds that we will authorize between now and the end of 2005 will be for job creation and economic development, because we are stabilizing our bonded indebtedness. It went up a lot in the last 12 years, and our goal now is to keep that approximately the same level. So we will pay off $400 million worth of bonds in 2004 and 2005, and our goal is to issue approximately that much. This bill authorized $450 million. Typically, 10 to 15 percent of authorized bonds don't get issued on a timely basis or at all, so actual issuance will probably be around the $400 million, which will keep us stable. In fact, we'd like to reduce the indebtedness a little over the next few years.
There is a diverse group of issues in this jobs creation bond bill. The biggest is Northrop Grumman, which has two shipyards on the Mississippi gulf coast, and we authorized $40 million of bonds - they will put up $80 million in private investment as we continue to upgrade these shipyards to keep them on the cutting edge and the most competitive shipyards in their class for the Navy, the Coast Guard and foreign military sales. We have approximately $24 million of bonds that are authorization to build a new building at the Stennis Space Center, a NASA facility, because Stennis, with 10 private joint venture partners, is competing to be the site of NASA's new shared-services center. NASA will take all its administrative functions and consolidate them at one center. We won't issue those bonds if we don't win the competition, but we think we are very competitive. We have great private-sector partners. Then we have the expansion of Viking Range, headquartered in Greenwood, which plans to build a dishwasher plant and an R&D center, and there is funding in there for that. We put up about $3 million in capital, and Viking invested another $10 million - that's 250 jobs at the plant and 60 or 80 jobs at the R&D center. Baxter Healthcare has a big plant at Cleveland, Miss., and we are engaged in a project with them where they will put up $50 million in capital and we'll put up $8 million in order to keep them competitive and growing.
These towns are both in the Mississippi delta, which is an area some have given up on in terms of high-end manufacturing, but we haven't. Just this year, Textron has consolidated three Midwestern plants and moved them to Greenville, also in the delta. Faurecia, a French auto component manufacturer, is opening a factory in Cleveland in the delta. Then there's Viking and Baxter as I mentioned. One of the good things about this year is that we have seen some great, positive job creation projects in the delta all related to high-end manufacturing. On the Alabama line is the part of the state we call the prairie. And we have a very successful generic pharmaceutical operation now in Macon in that area, Pharmapak, and there is some money in here for them to make another expansion, which will be their third. Then in Meridian, there is a proposed engineered wood product manufacturing facility for which the state will put up $10 million after the company raises $100 million in the equity markets and the principals raise $7 million more.
To me, that's the way this is supposed to work. We put up less than $3 million on Textron, and they put up $35 million. We put up $3 million or $4 million for Federal Express in DeSoto County for a $58 million distribution center where 600 people will work. These are the kind of public-private partnerships that we are working toward.We also have in the bill our regular Development Authority programs that get funded in this way.
