Jill Schupp

The Post-Dispatch has the exciting story today of the resurrected Missouri Veterans History Project, a program that preserves the stories and recollections of veterans.  Previously, the program was coordinated by the office of Lt. Governor Peter Kinder at a cost of $1,400 per video, or about $550,000 per year.  Honoring and saving the stories of veterans is obviously an important goal, but in a time of serious budget cuts, it was hard to justify the great cost that went entirely to one firm with a spotty track record who just happened to have associates who made campaign contributions to Kinder.

So Kinder just bagged it.

As noted in the Post-Dispatch, the program's website still has Kinder's call for citizens to contact legislators and ask for the money to be reinstated (without explaining what should be cut instead), and #PDK moved on to silly lawsuits, fighting back against Lefty Jew Hatred, and standing up to fascists on the radio. 

Enter Rep. Rep. Jill Schupp (D-Creve Coeur), Mizzou's Journalism School, the State Historical Society of Missouri and devoted volunteers.  They've come together and are announcing a reconstituted program tomorrow in Columbia.  Volunteers and J-school students are now compiling the videos, at a negligible cost to taxpayers.

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Sen. Brad Lager should check the record before going too far in suggesting that everyone thought the previous cost to taxpayers was absurd. "The only person who thinks that it's reasonable to spend $1,400 per video is the guy getting paid," he told the Post-Dispatch.

Kinder most certainly thought that sum was reasonable, and he had the support of some Republican colleagues int he House. In fact, you can still see Kinder's call for support on the MissouriVeteranStories.org website, still see his staff's calls for full funding on Twitter, and still watch the video created by the program (presumably also at taxpayer expense) and then posted to his campaign's YouTube Channel during the middle of the budget debate.

I'll confess: I was completely wrong in my predictions of how the House would handle the health care proposal put forward by Gov. Jay Nixon and the Missouri Hospitals Association. It was my assumption that the health care debate would work a lot like the budget debate -- after a lot of hemming and hawing about how awful the plan would be, House GOP leaders would do the right thing and let the plan pass. After all, it would have provided health care to 35,000 working parents and wouldn't have cost the state a dime.  There was all sorts of political cover from business interests like the Associated Industries of Missouri, and strong support from Republicans and Democrats in the Senate.

But I was wrong. House Republicans voted the plan (in HB11) down in a party-line vote.  And when given the chance to do the right thing on the last day of session, Speaker Ron Richard and Floor Leader Steve Tilley wouldn't even let the proposal come up for a vote. They callously left the proposal on the table, putting their extreme ideology before working families that desperately need a hand.

As the session was wrapping up, I spoke with a number of House members about their experiences in the session, and especially about the health care and budget debates. Here are a few of the comments that stand out: