MCCOMB ENTERPRISE-JOURNAL
By John Surratt
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
BARBOUR: MISSISSIPPI SEEING MOMENTUM
Gov. Haley Barbour recalled the positive image Mississippi presented to the nation after Hurricane Katrina as he called on McComb Mill employees Tuesday to help re-elect him to a second term.
“Katrina, or more accurately our response — the people’s response to Katrina — has done more to help Mississippi’s image in the country and the world than anything in our lifetime,” Barbour told mill employees during a lunchtime program.
The visit to the McComb Mill “was a big surprise,” Mill employee Terry Cameron said. Cameron took a few seconds to take some video of Barbour with his cell phone before going back to work.
“It was good of him to take the time to come to McComb Mills,” he said.
Cameron, who said he supported Barbour when he ran in 2003, said he plans to vote for him again.
“I’d like to see him get another four years,” he said.
When people talk about Toyota and major companies coming to the state in the past two years, Barbour said, “those people never gave us a look before Katrina.
“A lot of them told us afterwards, ‘when we saw the people after Katrina in Mississippi, we thought those are the people we’d like to have working for us,’ ” he added.
People, he said, will never look at Mississippi the same way again because they saw the character and spirit of its residents in their response to what has been called the country’s worst natural disaster.
“People who never gave us a chance before are giving us a second look,” Barbour said. “I’m committed to taking advantage of this time when the world and this country is giving us another look.
“We’ve had a great year-and-a-half in terms of job creation since Katrina, and I want to keep my foot on the accelerator,” he said. “That’s what we need to do. We need to do it in Pike County; we need to do it for every county, and that’s what I’m committed to doing.”
Following up on Mississippi’s post-Katrina advantage could put the state in a position “where families will see their children and grandchildren stay in Mississippi, because this is where the jobs and the best opportunities are,” Barbour said. ...
“The number of people we have working in Mississippi today is 47,000 more than when I was elected governor four years ago,” he said. ...
“We stayed focused on the things in Mississippi to make our state economically healthy and our state government financially healthy,” he said.
He was critical of the Legislature’s actions that caused financial problems during former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove’s term, calling the situation “the deepest hole we’ve ever been in.”
He said he was able to balance the state’s budget during the second year of his term without raising taxes by controlling spending and setting spending priorities.
Barbour added that the current state budget includes increased spending for the state’s elementary and high schools, community colleges and universities.
Barbour asked the workers to look at his record.
“We’ve got the state going in the right direction,” he said. “But don’t think it can’t turn back in the wrong direction.”
For the full story, visit the McComb Enterprise-Journal website: http://www.enterprise-journal.com/articles/2007/10/03/news/01.txt