The Most Powerful Man In Missouri (For Just Two More Days)

The incomparable Ron Richard press operation was in full force yesterday, and was as frustrating and hilarious as you might expect. The Speaker plans to attempt an override of HB 1903, intended to create a fund to manage federal stimulus funds.  Governor Jay Nixon vetoed the bill in July, saying the proposal was "unnecessary and duplicative of legislation passed during the 2009 session."  Nixon pointed to 2009's SB313 in his veto letter, which created the "Federal Budget Stabilization Fund" and the "Federal Stimulus Fund."

These basic facts are pretty clear.  But in interviews for the Associated Press and St. Louis Beacon, Richard gave contradictory responses about the true intent of the veto override attempt (Spoiler: it's all about a bank-shot political statement, and not about the policy), and contradictory statements about his overall philosophy regarding federal stimulus dollars.

In the Beacon, Richard said the creation of a duplicative third fund for federal stimulus dollars "would make the allocation process more transparent."

Richard said he feared that federal stimulus aid was going into "a black hole to balance the state budget," with no one really knowing how the federal money was being spent.

This doesn't make much sense to me. The Most Powerful Man in Missouri knows (or should know) how the General Assembly has allocated federal stimulus dollars in the budgets they passed, and we all have access to powerful reporting tools on the Recovery.gov or state's MAP Federal Stimulus Reporting websites. 

Is Richard even convinced that a third fund will solve the "black hole" problem he's imagined?  No.

Ron Richard isn’t sure a fund to manage federal money will work, but he wants to “test it and see,” he said Monday...

Richard said he called the veto session because he values the bill, rather than for the “pure purpose of spectacle.”

“I think it’s important for us to track that money,” he said. “That’s our duty and part of our constitutional responsibility.”

Except Richard doesn't actually value the bill.  He told the Associated Press on the same day that "the argument is not the funds." Instead, it's about "a conversation."  From the AP story on Richard's plans: 

Richard acknowledged Monday that the special fund itself is not his primary concern. The main purpose of the override attempt is to draw attention to his belief that the House has been left out of discussions about how to use the federal money, Richard said...

In his veto message, Nixon said the new fund was unnecessary because lawmakers in 2009 already created a fund for stimulus-act money. He said the expanded duties of the legislative committee could infringe on the constitutional powers of the executive branch.

Richard dismissed Nixon's constitutional concerns as something the courts could decide.

He acknowledged the federal money could be spent from an existing fund just as easily as from a new fund, but he added: "The argument is not the funds. My argument to my members is we should have the ability to have a conversation about how money from the federal government is sent to the people of Missouri."

So it's "not the funds" Richard is concerned about, or the "black hole."  It's that Richard wants "to have a conversation about how money from the federal government."  By this, I think he means that (1) he wants to provide his members with an opportunity to rail against the federal stimulus money they whined about and then used on the House floor, and (2) he wants to make some hay with the grant money awarded and then un-awarded to a film festival in Warrensburg. 

In addition, Richard had some incredible -- and incredibly frustrating -- comments about the federal stimulus money he and the Republican-led General Assembly allocated in their last two state budgets. Back to the Beacon:

Over the past two years, Missouri has received almost $4.3 billion in federal stimulus aid. The speaker acknowledges that a sizable chunk of the money has helped the state balance its last two fiscal budgets.

But Richard adds that the help might not have been good for the state in the long run. (Nixon and his aides have said that the stimulus aid prevented onerous budget cuts that would have forced layoffs of thousands more teachers and state workers. Even with the aid, Nixon cut about 2,500 state jobs.)

"It postponed the inevitable,'' said Richard, referring to the belt-tightening that Nixon's budget office already has ordered for the next fiscal year that begins July 1, 2011. That budget will see less federal stimulus help.

Richard noted that state legislators had initially sought to reject the federal stimulus money back in 2009, and then considered sending the money back to Missouri taxpayers. Nixon and the federal government helped nix those ideas,

Should Missouri have turned back the federal help? "It's hard to say,'' Richard said.

Noting the current rising public ire over the federal aid, Richard observed that Missouri Republicans "maybe were ahead of the country'' when concern was raised two years ago.

Richard (once again) seems to have forgotten that the House passed an FY2010 budget that spent every dollar of the budget stabilization funds from the federal stimulus bill, from which Nixon had to cut more than half a billion dollars.

He also seems to have forgotten that he also wants the federal stimulus dollars that remain to be spent in a more expedited fashion by the state.   The headline and lede from the Associated Press story:

MO. HOUSE LEADER: SPEND, DON'T SAVE FEDERAL MONEY

State House Speaker Ron Richard said Monday that Missouri should spend - not save - a more than $200 million influx from the federal government under an extension of part of the economic stimulus act...

The House speaker suggested the money could be spent this year to temporarily boost Medicaid payments to doctors and other medical providers, or could go toward a new state mental hospital in Fulton.

It's all clear as mud.  The stimulus is awful, and probably shouldn't have been spent at all.  Except Richard wants to spend it NOW, and not hold it until the 2012 budget in a more prudent manner.  And the veto override attempt is about a new fund he wants to set up, except he's not sure such a fund would do anything, and his stunt isn't really about the fund at all. 

How will Missouri survive when Ron Richard is no longer The Most Powerful Man in Missouri?