MAGA governor 'kicks' victims 'when they’re down' with new veto

In January, Mississippi residents suffered more than $100 million in damage from a freak winter storm that ruined the economy in this high-poverty state. Now the state’s Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, a staunch ally of President Donald Trump ) has not only vetoed a bill that would have provided low-interest loans to local governments but he accused Senate staffers of committing “unconstitutional and potentially criminal acts with the legislation.”

But Mississippi Today reports Reeves is basing both his veto and his allegations of criminal action on bogus, easily corrected information.

“The plainly unconstitutional (and possibly criminal) act of the person or persons that attempted to surreptitiously change a material (and negotiated) term of Senate Bill 2632 is unconscionable and calls into question the validity of every bill that I have signed into law this session,” Reeves wrote in his veto message.

At issue is Reeves’ claim that the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency was to give local governments loans at a 1 percent monthly charge, as opposed to a 1 percent annual charge.

But Reeves’ preference would have charged embattled local governments 12 percent for on annual loan, instead of 1 percent.

“I don’t have a county or a city who can afford that,” said Sen. Rita Potts Parks (R-Corinth) who lives in the region of the state hit hardest by the January storm.

“You think about raining sleet for 36 hours,” said Parks. “We were over 72 hours with nothing because both transmission lines were down. We had people anywhere from five days to four weeks without power. That’s crushing. To think we can afford a 12 percent loan? …”

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, another Republican, suggested that Senate staff and the governor’s office had mutually agreed on a more affordable 1 percent annual rate, and called the monthly rate “an inadvertent typo,” according to MS Today.

“Notably, without striking the word ‘monthly,’ the language would have resulted in a 12 percent interest rate charge to cities and counties rather than the clearly intended and unanimously adopted 1 percent rate,” Hosemann said.

But Reeves said the removal of the language making the loan more affordable was “malicious,” and he tried to blame a Democrat for making the motion to remove the language on March 17.

“But the person who asked the Senate to change the language was Sen. Tyler McCaughn, a Republican from Newton, on March 13,” reports Mississippi Today. “McCaughn, on March 13, clearly states the bill number and the reason for removing the word monthly, saying that for local governments hit by the storm, “charging 12 percent is like kicking somebody when they are down … I don’t get it.”

“Further, attacking and accusing a Senate staffer of committing a criminal act in a veto message is malicious, unnecessary and false,” said Hosemann.