When band booster parents make their visits to local bank presidents to seek a check for the new school year, they'll likely get a donation - but perhaps not as big as last year's.
Financial institutions are facing tighter times, one more note in the growing chorus of economic hardships sapping almost everyone.
Stocks and mutual funds are lower. Gasoline and electricity charges are higher. Food costs are surging. Jobs are becoming more scarce. On and on and on. To tell you the truth it's downright oppressive. While we, as a people, find plenty to complain about in boom times, the overall mood of the masses is far more dour when every morning the price posted at the pump is a nickel or two higher.
There are, however, bright spots - or "it could be worse" spots.
So read on - and feel better.
First, the aforementioned banks. Being a poor state, the biggies of banking have for the most part, skipped Mississippi. That means most of us are served by community or regional banks where more cautious owners have managed their clients' assets with more prudence. Their stocks have taken hits anyway, as have their investments, but they are fully solvent.
Second, the $90 million Medicaid shortfall notwithstanding, the state's fiscal condition is actually more sound than it has been in years.
In the late 1990s, when state revenue was increasing at double-digit rates, legislators managed to increase allocations even faster. That led to a big-time crunch about six years ago and that, in turn, led to raiding highway money and the "sacred" Tobacco Trust. Even the state's rainy day fund - a 2 percent budget reserve - was depleted. And while that was going on, the state was borrowing at a record pace to fund a palatial new building for the Supreme Court, assorted beef and car plants and new construction and maintenance at public universities.
Still, in recent years and under the stewardship of state Treasurer Tate Reeves, the state's bonded debt has actually been reduced to a little more than $3 billion. Also, some money was actually restored by the Legislature to the rainy day fund, at least on paper.
There's no guarantee this trend will continue, but it is good news - especially in a comparative context: Nationally, the state and local government debt load is $1.9 trillion. Because 1 percent of Americans are Mississippians, too, our proportional share of that would be $19 billion. But it is less than a sixth of that. Give credit to authors of the 1890 Constitution who ordained that Mississippi, with the exception of bonded debt, had to live within its annual income. Think California is a great place? It's $144 billion in the red, a figure that has more than doubled from the $70 billion owed when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took office a mere five years ago.
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