JACKSON - How come is it that Gov. Haley Barbour has never made public his federal income tax return and an uncritical Mississippi news media has let him get away with it?
Ironically, Barbour's non-disclosure of his income sharply contrasts with Kirk Fordice, Barbour's Republican predecessor in the governor's office, whose 1992-2000 tenure he frequently invokes as a role model.
Fordice released his income tax return every year he was in office, and even beat his 1995 Democratic opponent, Dick Molpus, over the head for not disclosing his. Molpus had begged off on grounds his return would involve other family members over whose interests he served as administrator.
Democrat Ray Mabus as governor from 1988-1992 began what was thought would become de rigueur for Mississippi governors when he made public his income tax return each year he was in office.
Ronnie Musgrove, as a candidate for lieutenant governor in 1995, released his return and hammered his opponent, Republican Lt. Gov. Eddie Briggs, for not making his return public, at a time when Briggs was known to have auto dealerships.
After winning the lieutenant governor's job, Musgrove made public his tax returns each year in that office and continued the practice after becoming governor from 2000-2004. Significantly his income as governor consisted of only his state salary and a 401K retirement fund.
Somehow, Musgrove, in his losing campaign against Barbour in 2003, failed to make an issue of Barbour's non-disclosure of his income tax return, even while it was well-known that Barbour had become a multi-millionaire as head of Washington's most lucrative and influential lobbying firm.
Now, Barbour, arguably the richest governor in Mississippi history who built his wealth peddling influence on Capitol Hill for some of the nation's biggest corporations, coasts along as governor of the nation's poorest state without having to reveal sources of his personal income.
His income secrecy becomes a matter of public interest because it is well-known that among the clients Barbour lobbied for were the nation's biggest cigarette makers.
His veto of the bill raising the state's pitifully low cigarette tax raises questions that at the same time Barbour shields tobacco from higher state taxes, he may also still be benefiting financially from his old ties to the industry.
Since he hasn't made his income tax return public, we do not know if, as Barbour had said was his intent when he was running for governor in 2003, that he has severed his financial stake in his old lobbying firm. The firm (Barbour, Griffith, Rogers) still bears his name and still has the fattest tobacco company (P. Lorillard) as one of its most lucrative clients, worth $2.4 million the past five years.
Here's where the cheese gets more binding: A Washington business publication, O'Dwyers PR Daily, reported in 2004 when BG&R was undergoing restructuring that Barbour, by then Mississippi's governor, had put his share in the firm in a "blind trust."
If that's the case, then the "Haley R. Barbour blind trust" that Barbour lists in his state Ethics Commission disclosure form as a source of more than $2,500 private income, represents his stake in BG&R. The firm reported earnings of $18.3 million in 2005.
That could pose a problem for Barbour under Section 109 of the state constitution, the key conflict-of-interest hook that has led to the downfall of other politicians, if an ethics complaint is filed.
State Rep. Cecil Brown, D-Jackson, who is both a CPA and a nationally recognized investment counselor, has commented that if Barbour still has a share in BG&R, it technically could not be put into a "blind trust."
Other voices, among them Editor Tim Kalich of the Greenwood Commonwealth, are being raised about Barbour's ties to Big Tobacco, since the governor has set out to kill the Partnership for a Healthy Mississippi, the highly successful private, non-profit anti-smoking program funded by $20 million out of the state's tobacco settlement.
As Kalich observes, any notion Barbour has that the program won't miss a beat if it's put under his administration is a "bad joke." When it comes to curbing use of tobacco, Barbour has "zero credibility," Kalich writes.
Why Barbour has made dismantling the Partnership a cause celebre since he took office is puzzling in view of the remarkable results the program has produced in substantially reducing teenage smoking with investment of a small amount of public funding managed by a blue ribbon non-government board. But because it was the brainchild of Democratic ex-Attorney General Mike Moore, Barbour automatically put it on his petty political hit-list.
