Economy takes top billing at National Governors Conference

Governor Barbour greets guests at the National Governors Association Meeting in Biloxi

This year’s National Governors Conference is taking place in the midst of a national recession and as MPB’s Phoebe Judge reports that inescapable fact has taken top priority at this year’s conference.

In a sprawling room at the newly rebuilt Mississippi Coast Coliseum and Convention Center, which was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, Governor Barbour began the opening session of the 101st National Governors Association annual meeting amidst tight security and about half of the nation’s governors. The progress that the Gulf Coast has made in the four years since Hurricane Katrina was a rallying theme for a group of governors who are dealing with a nation in the grips of an economic recession. But the severity of the economic situation was made visible by the number of missing governors not attending the conference because of the fiscal crisis ongoing in their home states. Governor of Vermont Jim Douglas,

“There is no more critical time in the fiscal and economic lives of states then now. There is no more important time for governors to come together and talk about the challenges that the people of this great country are facing.”

Collectively the nation’s states are facing a 200 billion dollar shortfall in revenue. Mississippi has seen across the board budget cuts at state agencies of 5 percent. But Dr. David Altig, senior vice president with Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta says the good news is that the bad news isn’t getting any worse,

“I think the green shoots are real, unfortunately, we all sort of know what that means. If someone is pounding you in the head with a hammer twice a day it feels pretty good once they start pounding you in the head once a day.”

If estimates are correct that the nation is at the bottom of this recession, insiders still say it may be 2011 before things really start to turn around. But Blake Wilson, president of the Mississippi Economic Council says the state is in a better position than most to weather the storm,

“When you consider the fact that so many other states have businesses that are shuttering their doors, and pulling out, Mississippi is in a pretty good position to reap the benefits of a recovery.”

Wilson says where Mississippi is in the place of greatest economic opportunity is the automotive industry. While people may not be buying new cars now, the cars they are continuing to drive are getting older and when the nation does come out of the recession the automotive market will swell. That puts Mississippi in prime position to benefit with a number of new and retooled auto manufacturing plants across the state. The Governors will take on the issue of energy and the economy later this morning.