Every now and then, Gov. Phil Bryant says more than he intends.

You’ll find no better example of this than Bryant’s comments in support of Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves during his campaign for governor.

Since March, Reeves has been the presumed favorite in the race, primarily for two reasons. First, he’s next in the line of succession in a state where the Republican Party has established something very close to a political monopoly. Second, Reeves has tapped into the bottomless well of corporate donors who have aligned themselves with the state’s GOP establishment.

Reeves had almost $7 million in his war chest to spend on securing the GOP nomination. As it turned out, he needed almost every penny of it to turn back the challenge of Bill Waller, Jr. in this week’s GOP runoff.

The difficulty of Reeves’ fight to win the party’s nomination reveals much about Reeves. He’s been in public office for 16 years, the last eight as Lt. Governor, long considered the most powerful position in state politics. Lt. Governors in Mississippi preside over the Senate and Reeves didn’t merely preside, he ruled. Whatever the state senate has done over the past eight years was either by Reeves’ bidding or his approval.

Therein lies the problem.

What does he have to show for those eight years?

Name an area where our state has really made progress. Record unemployment, maybe? The state’s unemployment rate is still among the highest in the nation. Meanwhile, the state’s GDP growth rate is 47th. No matter where you look, Mississippi continues to slog around near the bottom.

So what’s Reeves got?

Uh. Well. Hmmm.

Oh yeah. He cut taxes, lots and lots of taxes.

And this is where Gov. Bryant steps comically into the picture, to “help.”

“Under the leadership of Tate Reeves, we’ve cut taxes 50 times since 2011!” Bryant boasts.

Well, that’s interesting.

I do not recall getting 50 tax cuts. Do you?

Has your standard of living improved since 2011? Great if it has, but I wonder: How much, if any, of that can be attributed to those 50 tax cuts, do you think?

Just think of it. Fifty tax cuts over the past 96 months or so. That’s almost two tax cuts a month. Remarkable. That must mean millions of dollars, maybe even billions, have been removed from the state’s general fund and returned to, uh…come to think of it, where DID all that money go?

Have you people been getting thousands and thousands of dollars from these tax cuts on the down low?

How did I miss out on this gravy train?

All I know is that I’m not getting my fair share of those millions/billions.

But I’m not alone.

This week, House Speaker Philip Gunn told the Columbus Rotary Club that the state allocated almost 42 percent – $2.5 billon – of its $6 billion budget to fund K-12 education. That sounds impressive, right?

Be careful when people use statistics. As Mark Twain noted: “Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable.”

Forty-two percent is the statistic. The fact that matters is $6 billion and it’s a big reason why Mississippi spends less on education than almost all other states and will continue to do so. There just isn’t enough money to do right by education – or by most other things, for that matter.

Republicans like Reeves and Bryant like to brag about low taxes and judicious spending.

But my taxes – and yours, I suspect – were pretty low before all of those 50 tax cuts. We’re not getting the benefit of those tax cuts as far as I can tell, but we’re sure paying the price on the other end in terms of diminished services or under-funded schools, beat up roads and rickety bridges.

Most people like to get pay raises and will work hard to get them.

Not Mississippi, though.

It will stay poor and ignorant and proud, thank you very much.

At a time when most states have expanded their budgets, broadened their horizons and invested in the future of their state and their people, Mississippi’s leaders are hiding over in the corner somewhere, jealously guarding their nickels and snarling at anyone who thinks, just maybe, taxes are necessary if we’re every going to get off the bottom.

Tate Reeves cut somebody’s taxes. Repeatedly, Bryant says.

Fine.

Let those people vote for Reeves.

The rest of us would like something a little better.

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].

READER FAVORITES

• 

  Slimantics: Women’s sports never needed saving

  By Slim Smith • 1 hour ago