Ellington

Columnist Bill Minor writes this week: "Bad enough that the chief propagandist for the Mississippi Republican Party is a turncoat Democrat, but worse that he lies to make taxpayers believe they can't afford health care for 65,000 of the state's neediest. State GOP chairman Jim Herring on Mississippi Public Broadcasting's 'Statewide Live' the other night kept repeating the fallacious party line that Mississippi is 'the highest taxed state in the nation.' Absolute hogwash. The facts are that Mississippians are among the nation's most lightly taxed.

"But in his "Statewide Live' face-off with state Democratic Chairman Wayne Dowdy, Herring parroted the "highest taxed" canard to camouflage why Gov. Haley Barbour whacked 65,000 vulnerable Mississippians off Medicaid rolls to save $41 million and preserve his no-tax-hike campaign pitch."