Nixon’s “bold action” on budget lacks detail
Gov.-elect Jay Nixon just released his initial five-point plan for coping with the state’s projected $342 million budget shortfall.
But if you thought it would highlight any specific cuts, you were wrong.
Saying that the state’s economic problems require “bold action to make government smaller, more efficient ansd more responsive,” Nixon anounced that when he takes office on Jan. 12, he will:
– Require each state agency to submit a plan to reduce its expenditures before the current fiscal year ends June 30.
– Freeze all new long-term state contracts for goods and services.
– Review capital improvement projects that have not yet broken ground and analyze the cost of completing those that are under way.
– Order performance reviews of every major state program and see whether some can be consolidated.
– Get a report from the Department of Economic Development on which tax credits are producing jobs.
In a telephone interview, Nixon said that while the moves wouldn’t produce instant savings, “each one of these things lays the groundwork for a decisionmaking process” that will make state government leaner.
“I will make the challenging decisions to ensure the budget is balanced and to move the state forward,” he said. “We can’t sit around and wait for Washington to solve our problems.”
The budget crunch is bound to make it hard for Nixon to advance his campaign priorities, such as reinstating Medicaid coverage for 100,000 low-income adults and providing four years of free college tuition to eligible students who start at community colleges. But Nixon says he is still committed to those goals.
Asked to rate the chances of salvaging his campaign promises, Nixon said: “I don’t see it as salvaging. I really think budgets are about priorities.
“Right now we have challenging economic times. We need to get people working again, we need to get health care improved, we need to make college more affordable. The economic climate may have changed but my priorities haven’t changed.”
Nixon, a Democrat, said he’ll be looking to the Republican-led Legislature for help in crafting bipartisan solutions. He will meet Friday with the Senate Republican Caucus during the GOP legislators’ annual retreat in Branson, Mo.
“I’m encouraged by their invitation,” Nixon said.
And why isn’t Baby Blunt doing/saying anything? He’s still the gov for over a month to go. Blunt,who let Ameren get off lightly after Taum Sauk. Blunt, who cannot manage his own email.
P.S. to the commentor who thinks that all on Medicaid are deadbeats: may you never fall ill, grow old, lose a job through no fault of your own, or have a congenital condition yourself, or have an imperfect child which prevents a 40-60 hour work week. Yes, probably some are working the system, but no one I’ve ever known personally on Medicaid is there voluntarily.
Of course Nixon doesn’t have specifics yet. He’s still functioning as attorney general while trying to get up to speed. Will he be perfect? Nope. Will he get everything he wants? Nope. But hope is about trying…hopelessness is giving up. “Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law.” — Missouri state motto, and that “welfare” doesn’t mean the handout type.