Joe Rutherford 6/14/09Joe Rutherford 6/14/09 for monday bottom with photos of McCoy and Barbour

hed: Partisan criticism of travel is lame, late, and negative

The notion that partisans in either the House or Senate would be carping and griping about anyone?s travel plans after the Legislature has failed to craft a budget some six months after the start of the 2009 regular session is laughable, lame and late.

If one counts the Joint Legislative Budget Committee hearings, the Legislature has been actively working on the overdue state budget since last September amp< some nine months ago.

Blasting Barbour

Now, with Gov. Haley Barbour confirming that he?s going to (gasp!) keep his out-of-state travel commitments the last week of June, Democrats are extrapolating that Barbour's travel that week will somehow keep the Legislature from accomplishing what they've been unable to accomplish for the last six-to-nine months.

Barbour said Wednesday that he would honor prior commitments to travel to Iowa and New Hampshire in late June when lawmakers are expected to be back at the Capitol working on a budget for fiscal 2010 which begins July 1. Both states are key in GOP fundraising efforts for presidential candidates in 2012.

"It strikes me as an abdication of responsibility, especially since he insists on dictating terms of any budget compromise," said state Rep. Cecil Brown, D-Jackson, a key House budget negotiator. State Rep. George Flaggs, D-Vicksburg, was even more pointed.

"I think it was irresponsible that during the regular session, we had a budget compromise but the governor would not allow ... the Senate to agree with it," Flaggs said. "The governor needs to provide the leadership needed to get us out of this quagmire that may or may not have been caused by him."

Mickey Mouse?

Responding to some pointed criticism of the brief absence of Sen. Alan Nunnelee, R-Tupelo, during budget negotiations in May by House Speaker Billy McCoy, Republicans jumped into the travel-bashing fray as well.

Rep. Dirk Dedeaux, D-Perkinston, was a House budget conferee who was also AWOL for a time during negotiations in May because of a previously-scheduled family vacation to Disney World in Orlando, Fla. State GOP chairman Brad White excoriated Dedeaux: ?I don't begrudge a man for a family vacation. But public service is a sacrifice and if it is one Dedeaux is unwilling to make, he should consider another line of work. When the voters hear that Mickey Mouse is more important to Dedeaux than Medicaid, they may make that choice for him.?

The budget isn't unfinished because of any travel plans by Barbour, Nunnelee or Dedeaux. It isn't finished because of six to nine months of constant partisan bickering over the hospital tax, education spending and a disagreement over budget set asides.

The "did not, did, too" over travel is just another manifestation of that partisan bickering.

Contact syndicated columnist Sid Salter at (601) 961-7084 or e-mail

ssalter@clarionledger.com.