News

By Timothy Woerner, The McComb Enterprise-Journal
September 28th, 2008

Former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, who is campaigning against incumbent U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker in the November congressional election, stopped Friday in McComb as he campaigned across southwest Mississippi, telling reporters he is intent on cutting federal spending and developing a cohesive national energy policy.

Musgrove, who also focused on what he called "mismanaged private Wall Street institutions," said Wicker, a longtime member of the U.S. House of Representatives, has already had 14 years in Washington to fix a number of problems that have impacted Mississippi. And he accused Wicker of representing corporate interests ahead of Mississippians.

He said Wicker had toed the Republican party line and said those criticizing Democratic policy alternatives are ignoring the results of Republican rule, blasting "utter incompetence in Washington, which gave the special interests anything and everything they asked for."

"We have trade agreements that were written for the special interests," Wicker said. "As a result, our people get the short end of the stick. ... Surely we can negotiate treaties that treat our farmers right and our workers right."

Musgrove tied woes on Wall Street to changes in 2002 in regulatory laws that altered the ratio of debt to equity banks were required to hold.

"Unbridled greed took over," Musgrove said. "I'm outraged that we're talking about a $700 billion bailout of these institutions when CEOs have run off like bandits.
"We didn't learn from the savings and loan collapse 10 years earlier ... and that policy was led by Phil Grimm and Roger Wicker and his cronies inside of Washington."

Read the rest of the article here.