Steelman Slams MOGOP's "Budget Sissies"

Today in the Missouri Record, David Steelman expresses his disgust with Roy Blunt, Peter Kinder, Ron Richard, Allen Icet and the other "budget sissies" in the Missouri House.  

First, thinly-veiled shots at Roy Blunt:

Face it, while the current majority is breaking all spending records, the records they broke were set by a Republican majority in both chambers of Congress and a two term Republican president.  Despite Karl Rove’s conservative appearances on the cable networks, he invented the idea of “compassionate conservatism” to justify an increasingly large government, a lack of fiscal responsibility and the use of our money in earmarks to fatten campaign coffers and pay off favors.  My question to any Republican candidate this year:  Have you learned your lesson?  If so, prove it.

Emphasis added. Then, the Republicans in the Missouri House and Peter Kinder:

I was hopeful Republicans had learned their lesson until I learned of the recent actions of the formerly conservative Missouri House Budget Committee.   Despite a Republican majority and a Republican chairman, they preferred to abdicate their budget responsibilities rather than risk the wrath of lobbyists and special interests. In their eagerness to show themselves the same budget sissies as the last Republican congressional majority, they surrendered a great conservative opportunity....

I believe the politics behind this decision is a monumental miscalculation.  It is widely rumored that the political calculations behind the House’s refusal to make obviously necessary budget cuts, thereby forcing Governor Nixon to make those hard decisions, originated with Lt. Governor Peter Kinder and his strategists.  This rumor is given credibility by Lt. Gov.  Kinder’s only public pronouncements on the budget, which have been to urge more spending, not less.  (See, for example, The Tour of Missouri and the Missouri Veteran’s Commission).