Uh, is that something that's gonna be a go? Where are we on that? 'Cause that's gonna bring in a lot of good jobs.

Yes.

Um, I was not in state government in twenty twenty-five when the, uh, aluminum plant project was approved, Tom.

Uh, and, and I had some questions myself, uh, with, you know, limited information.

But, uh, I did, I did a deep dive into all the information, and I did become a supporter for two big reasons.

One, the, the job creation is just phenomenal.

Ten thousand jobs, nine hundred and forty million dollars of estimated annual payroll income.

Uh, but what is the big thing that you're hearing from, uh, people who are likely voters? What, what, what do they, uh, seem to be most concerned about?

I may not have the ideas, but let's work together and see what we can come up with one.

Part of my success in business and particularly at the state capitol was a listening ear, respectful dialogue, and ongoing collaboration with the stakeholders of whatever issue or projects we're dealing with.

It took me seven years, Rich, to fix the pension systems for police officers, teachers, firefighters.

And everyone knew it was a problem, but it was hard to educate everybody on what the solutions and options were.

But year after year, we worked on it in a collaborative fashion.

And fortunately, today, our pension systems are sound.

If we hadn't have done that, these retirees of ours would be receiving 30 to 50% less of their pension payments or our income tax rate would be 10%.

Just curious in terms of, you know, kind of your vision for how we might be able to address, you know, the mental health and substance abuse challenges in our states, homelessness in our state, because it still continues to be an undercurrent of a population that we don't give enough attention to.

Tell us about your, your plan for getting us back up to where we need to be.

Well, there were, uh, numerous education reforms that we started, uh, when the three of us were in the legislature.

And I know John Ford, the former chairman [chuckles] of Education, is not happy that we're forty-ninth in education, uh, with this generation of Republicans having a super majority.

So in my first week, uh, in a Maisey administration, I will hire a statewide literacy director to implement the very successful model that took Mississippi from fiftieth to first in reading outcomes.

I've had a one-on-one meeting with the literacy director of Mississippi.

Her name is Amanda Malone.

Uh-huh

... efforts that did allow us to lower rates, clean up the tax code, uh, pass difficult budgets without raising taxes.