State of the State

Gov. Phil Bryant gave his state of the state address last night. Here’s the full text; here’s the Democratic response from State Rep. Jay Hughes of Oxford.

An addendum: here’s a fact-check from mississippitoday.org.

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7 Responses to State of the State

  1. Kaelon McNeece says:

    The state of the state address from Governor Bryant brought up a plethora of improvements and fantastic steps in the right direction Mississippi has made over the year. There isn’t anything wrong with a little bit of self-congratulation, but, as State Representative Jay Hughes mentioned, “the policies that impact our quality of life have merely gone unchanged and underfunded.” It is true that the dropout and unemployment rates have lessened and that new jobs have been created, but the small increments in change haven’t moved Mississippi up when compared with the rest of the United States. Simply put, we are still lagging behind. The problems Hughes brought light to and ideas for fixing them are definitely a great start. We can’t merely appreciate the progress we’ve made as Bryant has. We must keep working towards improvement, and that can only be done by taking action and actively trying to push for a solution to the problems still affecting Mississippi.

  2. Brianna Leigh Ladnier says:

    Phil Bryant did an amazing job to highlight our breakthroughs, however, he maintained an ignorance towards our faults.
    Instead of focusing on the issues Mississippi has to face and resolve, it almost seemed as if our governor was calling the improvements “good enough”.
    We are not the best state in the nation, in fact, we are arguably close to the worst if not the worst. Instead of acting like we are perfect and relishing our achievements, we should push for solutions plaguing our state. Governor Phil Bryant did not succeed at emphasizing we still have issues, and we are working to solve them, yet that was the attitutde but across.

  3. Dev Jaiswal says:

    While I think it was important for Gov. Bryant to highlight the areas that Mississippi is improving in, there was very little mention of the many things our state still struggles with in his speech. There was very few mention of the disparity of the schools within our state, the brain drain, the lack of an educated and/or willing workforce, or the disparity of job opportunities between larger “cities” and Mississippi villages. I also am particularly annoyed by the slightly skewed statistical interpretations stics Gov. Bryant proposed in “more than 90% of the third-graders in our state have passed the reading exam.” According to the fact checker, the 90% refers to third-graders who scored higher than the lowest possible proficiency level on the exam. Less than forty percent of the third graders scored at fourth proficiency level or the fifth (the highest)! Is it really that remarkable that 90 percent of our third-graders are not absolutely terrible readers, but only forty percent are actually decent readers? I think Gov. Bryant did a good job emphasizing the positive things about Mississippi, but if our state has any hope to improve and dispel the stigmas surrounding it with positive change, then it is imperative that we learn to recognize our faults and improve on them.

  4. Indu Nandula says:

    First, Governor Phil Bryant did a fantastic job highlighting the improvements and growth that the state has experienced. From lower unemployment rates, to better Navy spending, Mississippi has definitely grown in more ways than one, that too for the better.
    However, it almost seems as though the things that need further improvement or attention have been brushed under the rug. Yes, the fact that we have gotten better in some areas is absolutely phenomenal, but the people need to know what needs to be fixed and what will further be done to fix these things.

  5. Loveish Sarolia says:

    The address given by Governor Bryant provided the watchers to rejoice at the steps taken that make Mississippi better, but what they don’t realize is that we are behind the rest of the country in other ways. Governor Bryant failed to mention the things we need to improve on such as increasing the literacy proficiency of our young readers. A point that was mentioned was the decrease in unemployment and the increase of new jobs but compared to the rest of the country, we are lightyears behind. State Rep. Hughes brought up an important point when he mentioned the increases are significant for Mississippi but are trumped when relative to the rest of the United States. I feel that instead of focusing on solely on the positives, we should also be focusing on the negatives equally, if not more in order to improve the quality of life for Mississippi’s future generations.

  6. Erin Owens says:

    I agree that Mississippi is still behind in many ways from the rest of the country. I believe that there have been some good and small improvements under Phi Bryant’s term but we need more. We have to make a good long term investment in the future of Mississippi. The best way I can see to do that is through education which I believe is the last thing that should get cut in this state. I also appreciated Jay Hugh’s idea of paying back the student loans for MS students every year they stay in state but I have no idea how MS would ever pay for that.

  7. August Andre says:

    The speech is a poor representation of Mississippi’s status and misleads the ignorant citizens into believing that progress is being made within our government. Despite the statements by Phil Bryant Mississippi still tops the charts of teen pregnancy, poverty, and the lowest educational standards.

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