NO, I'M ROSS PEROT:

Barbour's 'hard stuff' budget: Proposals on education, state agencies sure to anger (Emily Wagster Pettus, 11/24/09, ASSOCIATED PRESS)

He proposed merging the eight current universities into five, reducing the number of school districts from 152 to 100 and closing some mental health centers.

He said the Mississippi School for the Arts should close shop in Brookhaven, move 200 miles north to Columbus and join the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science.

The governor also said local school districts should tap into their own financial reserves to help pay some education expenses normally paid by the state and teachers should forgo their annual "step" raises that give them more money for increased years of experience.

He said some smaller agencies should be absorbed by larger ones and all agencies should see an average 12 percent budget reduction between the current fiscal year that ends June 30 and the new one that begins July 1.

Mr. Barbour, a Republican, will begin his seventh year as governor in January. He can't seek re-election in 2011, and that might have given him the freedom to propose ideas that are, predictably, unpopular.