By John Mayo

We came in early to leave early and I do not believe that will happen.  Jackson is expecting up to eight inches of snow starting between 5 and 6.  We all went back to our rooms to pack and came right back.

It is now 1:50.  We just took up a bill to reauthorize the Department of Employment

Security.  Besides helping hook up employers with prospective employees, this agency is also the one that takes care of unemployment payments and workforce training.

(Just heard it is snowing on the coast)

The vote required a three-fifths majority.  It failed largely along party lines.  With all but five Dems voting "yes".

I offered the school employee (all employees) furlough amendment to a bill.  It failed, wasn't even close.  I mean, the last time I got beat up this bad was a Baltimore City street fight that lasted two days.

I am afraid that for short term relief, there will be long term grief.  The amendment would have allowed employees to be furloughed three days out of the year and for teachers these would have been the professional development days.  This would have been done during the 2010-11 school year.

There will be more than a handful in each school district who will not be back next year to make up for the coming cuts.  So if you are one of those who loses a job because the rest would not take three days without pay and remain home, thank your representative who voted "no" and there were a lot of them.

By the way, the Senate has passed a bill to cut our own salaries 10 percent.  I will be

voting for that one, too.

We are taking up a number of different kinds of bills.  We did pass this morning the appropriations bill that had those numbers I talked about earlier.  The House and Senate are not that far apart in their figures.  I believe we can reach a compromise quickly.

Unless we are here into the night, this will be the last for this week.

Have a good one.  The folks in South Mississippi are already getting snow. It is 2:15.

John

P.S. The Ways and Means Committee is having a hearing on the Soda tax bill Wednesday at 9 a.m.