Budget

Jason Rosenbaum captures a funny moment from a Nixon press conference about the agreement announced yesterday to freeze tuition at the state's four-year public colleges and universities.

KY3's Dave Catanese announced this afternoon via Twitter that he was trying something new:

An experiment: Reporting on Nixon's budget cuts via Twitter: http://bit.ly/19HLmj

For his experiment in reporting, Catanese simply pasted together tweets from Missourinet, the Post-Dispatch's Virginia Young and taxpayer-financed partisan attacks from Lt. Governor Peter Kinder's Chief of Staff, Richard AuBuchon. No original reporting, documents regarding the budget decisions, response to the partisan shots or any other additional information was included to inform readers about what actually happened today.

Today, House Speaker Ron Richard and Lt. Governor Peter Kinder announced their opposition to a potential bonding issue proposed by Gov. Jay Nixon. The idea enjoyed broad bipartisan support in the 2009 legislative session -- it passed overwhelmingly in the House, and was only stopped because of "two or three conservative believers" in the Senate.

But now Kinder is desperately seeking relevance as a voice of GOP opposition, and Richard changes his positions on budget matters about as often as he changes his pants, so here we are.

Speaker Richard's dramatic change of heart
In April, Richard voted for HJR32 when it passed his House 131-28, which "would have allowed voters to consider a $700 million bond for construction projects on college campuses." In fact, Richard supported the plan as recently as last week -- along with GOP Floor Leader Steve Tilley, who was one of the top proponents of the idea when it sailed through the House.

Chris Blank has a unique perspective on Gov. Nixon's budget decisions in his analysis piece for the AP.  In the article, the economic development bill's tax reductions are lumped in with other programs as "new state spending."  And later in the analysis, Blank writes, "Nixon decided it was more important to spend additional money on health care and business incentives" than other programs.

Of course, there are costs associated with programs that reduce short-term revenues. But how many times were George W. Bush's tax cuts referred to as "new spending?"  Or how many times was the House GOP's crazy attempt to cut income taxes this spring called a "$1 billion spending hike?" Not many, I'm guessing.

 The Senate has passed its 13 budget bills, and eyes now turn to the House-Senate conference committee that must reconcile the newer Senate proposals with the insanity that came out of the House. Sen. Gary Nodler (R-Joplin) has been diplomatic in explaining the Senate's rejection of the House budget plan. Here's a fascinating (not sure that's the right word) metaphor from Nodler explaining the core differences between the Senate and House budgets:

Nodler compared the Senate's approach to that of one of his friends, who had cancer in a leg and opted to try to treat it before immediately amputating the leg. The state programs that would be supported next year with federal dollars still might have to be cut in the future, if the economy and state revenues do not pick up.

“We're not cutting off the leg now, but we understand that if the medical condition deteriorates, that might become necessary,” Nodler said.

His "friends," of course, are the House Republicans, and the "legs" that his friends want to "amputate" are tens of thousands of struggling children and parents and neighbors.

Late tonight:

At 10:45 p.m., following nearly 12 hours of debate, lawmakers gave preliminary approval to the 13 bills comprising the state’s $22.8 billion fiscal year 2010 budget.

Prior to passage, however, lawmakers engaged in a tense debate over expanding state health-care programs for parents and children.

...

The House must vote once more to approve the budget bills and send them on to the Senate. That vote is likely to take place Thursday.

The bills will then move to the Senate, where lawmakers will debate the budget in committee and on the floor over the next few weeks. The deadline for final passage is May 8. The fiscal year begins July 1.