Press Release: With State Revenues Down Two-Tenths of One Percent Governor Cuts Nearly 10 Percent from State Budget – Decimates Education

With State Revenues Down Two-Tenths of One Percent

Governor Cuts Nearly 10 Percent from State Budget – Decimates Education.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – After a session of fighting with the legislature so that he could spend more of the taxpayer’s money, Governor Nixon has turned his budget wrath on the children and disabled of Missouri according to House Budget Chairman Rick Stream, R-Kirkwood.

Stream noted that Governor Nixon abandoned the state’s process for determining a revenue estimate in December because the House and Senate would not agree to his higher spending levels. Stream said it is distressing to see that only six short months later, the governor is accusing the legislature of spending too much. He pointed out that the governor proposed a budget in his State of the State Address that spent $215 million more than the budget that was passed by the legislature.

“On the campaign trail, I’ll bet almost all of us made a promise to invest in our students and our schools,” Nixon said during his annual address in January.  “Well, you know what?  It’s time to put our budgets where our campaign brochures are. Now it’s time to decide whether we’re merely going to talk about public education, or whether we’re going to fund it” Nixon continued.

“It was nice of the governor to answer his own question for us” said Chairman Stream, referring to the massive cuts to education the governor issued today.  Stream continued, “We worked very hard to pass the largest education budget and largest increase to education in the history of the state while still cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in wasted spending elsewhere from the governor’s budget.  I am saddened that once again our children’s education is being used as a political pawn.”

The Budget Chairman also pointed out that the Governor was able to find the money for a $4.35m increase to tourism funding while still reducing the Department of Higher Education and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education by over $220 million.

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