JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — The Missouri House began the long slog of formally debating and approving of the 13 bills that make up the state of Missouri’s budget for the upcoming year.
Under the constitution, Missouri lawmakers must pass a budget every year, and it must be balanced. House members opened discussion on a handful of the first few budget bills. HB’s 2 and 3 appropriate funds for elementary and secondary education, as well as higher education. The House spent much of its debate time on the two bills.
In HB 2, members clashed when a $3.5 million increase to the Parents as Teachers program as reduced to $2.5 million, with the extra million instead funneled into Teach for America. The move triggered a lengthy debate about the relative merits of both programs. As has become common, Democrats moved to add an amendment to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, a move Missouri Democrats have supported for several years. The amendment was easily voted down by the Republican-controlled House.
The House budget process is expansive and time consuming, and while some members on both sides of the aisle complained that various provisions amounted to “legislating through appropriation, many of those provisions are likely to be removed. One House member who asked not to be identified said that they expected the Senate to “butcher and rewrite” much of the budget in their own appropriations process.
The House gave first-round approval to all of it’s budget bills after an entire day of endless debate on dozens of amendments.
Collin Reischman was the Managing Editor for The Missouri Times, and a graduate of Webster University with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism.
