Jackson Free Press

The tobacco tax is back on the board. The House amended and approved Senate Concurrent Resolution 655 to include state statute sections that could eventually pave the way for a tax increase on tobacco and alcohol products. The resolution, designed to allow a bill to be considered past its deadline, passed with an 81-to-38 vote.

Legislators are battling to fund Medicaid, which is facing more than $90 million in deficits this budget year, and another $160 million shortfall in the next budget cycle. Some officials say the program has enough funds to survive until mid-April, though money will allegedly run out by mid-year.

The fight over funding Medicaid between the Democrat-controlled House and the Barbour-owned Senate has not changed. The Senate, following the lead of former tobacco lobbyist Gov. Haley Barbour, wants to tax state hospitals to make up the shortfall, while Democrats in the House want the tax to sit on the shoulders of smokers and heavy-drinkers—folks they say are running up the state's Medicaid bills in the first place.

The Mississippi Hospital Association is considering a plan to go with the Senate, though their plan, so far, calls for a $150-a-day collection fee on every patient in the state occupying a bed without federal co-payments.

House Speaker Billy McCoy warned last month that Barbour's plan would "amount to a tax on the sick," and MHA's proposal seems to solidify McCoy's concerns.

There was no telling if senators would welcome the tobacco or hospital tax increase on Tuesday.

Shawn Lea, Mississippi Hospital Association's vice-president for strategic communications, said the association's proposal was still "a work in progress, so there are no concrete numbers to report," but added that the current proposal "does not include a tobacco tax or a gross revenue tax on hospitals."

Barring Medicaid, the House and Senate have already approved appropriation bills for most state agencies, including the Department of Transportation, the Department of Wildlife and others.

Some legislators are asking their respective chambers to take a second look at SB 2988 through House Concurrent Resolution 79, arguing that Barbour requested legislators review the bill's imperfect language. The bill makes felons out of undocumented residents who get jobs in the state and could cost employers who hire them their business permits.

Bill Chandler, president of immigrant advocacy group Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance—a pro-union organization—said he finds it odd that he and the generally anti-union business lobby are both pushing for a re-examination of the bill.

"It's mostly BIPECers (Business and Industry Political Committee) and Republican-types who are concerned for the employers more than anything pushing for this resolution," Chandler said.

While Chandler said the business lobby likely could not care less about the state of their immigrant employees, their desire to push for a re-examination of the bill could ultimately serve the interests of immigrant advocates.

A two-thirds majority of both chambers is needed to consider changing Senate Bill 2988, which Chandler admitted would be difficult to accomplish, even with the oomph of the pro-business lobby.

Interesting note: MIRA registered about 200 new Latino voters along the Gulf Coast in the last two months, mostly Puerto Rican transplants who are already American citizens. Chandler said new registrations were coming in all the time, and warned that politicians backing legislation like SB 2988 should be nervous about this.

In other legislative news, the Joint Legislative Budget Committee downgraded the state's revenue estimate for Fiscal Year 2009, as the predicted 2.9 percent revenue growth over the course of 2008 did not pan out. The state saw 2.4 percent growth instead, amounting to a revenue increase of slightly more than $100 million. Legislators quickly remembered that the national economy is in the hole, largely as a result of rising fuel prices.

Adding to this pile of pain is the absence of almost $200 million in one-time money for numerous state agencies, such as K-12 education, corrections and—of course—Medicaid. Legislators cobbled together the $200 million, some of it Hurricane Katrina-related, last year by re-directing money from other areas in the state budget. The Joint Budget Committee recommended tightening the state belt up another two notches in FY 2009, recommending $17.6 billion in state spending—a $61 million cut from last year.