JACKSON - It might interest Jordan and Carmen Rae Musgrove - Mississippi's first teenagers - to know that the old man gets a report card now and then, too.
The conservative Cato Institute think tank last week released their biennial Fiscal Policy Report Card, which grades the nation's governors on how well they have managed to keep spending and taxes down.
For Musgrove, his Cato report card is somewhat a mixed bag. Jordan and Carmen Rae will likely enjoy ribbing Gov. Dad over the fact that he earned a C mark. But considering the overall report and the state's economy, our intrepid governor fared pretty well.
Musgrove's C tied him for 15th place out of the 42 governors ranked.
The tie was with Gov. Paul Patton of Kentucky and Gov. Dirk Kempthorne of Idaho. The Cato Institute only graded governors who have been in office two years or longer.
To put things in greater perspective, only two governors - Bill Owens of Colorado and Jeb Bush of Florida - earned A's. Four governors - Gray Davis of California, Don Sundquist of Tennessee, Bob Taft of Ohio and John Kitzhaber of Oregon - earned F's.
In the Southeast, only Bush and Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes (B) earned better marks than Musgrove.
But the report does make some damning observations about the operation of state government here. Adjusted for inflation and population growth, the report chronicles a 76 percent rate of growth in real per capita government spending in Mississippi between 1991 and 2000 - the highest increase in the nation.
Most of that spending growth took place over the objections of another Mississippi governor named Fordice.
In fact, based on the average annual change in real per capita general fund revenue between 2000-2002 of minus 3.5 percent, Musgrove was rated as the governor with the 3rd best "revenue restraint" in the country by the report.
Between 1992 and 2000, the report also details a state debt service increase of 485 percent - the fastest growing area of the state budget.
The report assessed Musgrove's tenure as follows:
"His (Musgrove's) budgets have been fairly tight-fisted, keeping general fund spending increases below population and inflation growth. When revenue trended downward in his first year in office, Musgrove instituted a 5 percent across-the-board spending cut.
"He vetoed a prison budget that contained a large amount of superfluous spending. He also vetoed the fiscal year 2002 budget because the Legislature assumed that the state would have more revenue than Musgrove assumed. The Legislature overrode his veto.
"But Musgrove was right: revenue growth turned out to be closer to his prediction, and Musgrove instituted another round of spending cuts.
"However, Musgrove's spending record has been marred by his calls for increases in spending in many areas, particularly a $338 million six-year pay hike for teachers, heath care expansions and more money for ineffective corporate welfare programs."
The report makes a startling summation of Musgrove's tenure:
"All in all, he fits the mold of Democratic governors in the deep South who have wrestled power away from the Republicans with a Clintonian message of fiscal prudence, job creation and social policy moderation. As with Bill Clinton, however, the reality does not always match the rhetoric."
But in a weak governor state like Mississippi, Musgrove is only as good as the Legislature he works with. Anyone want to grade the Legislature these days?
