What should Missouri’s budget priorities be while facing cutbacks?
Like so many other states, Missouri will begin budget cuts.
While the budget cuts will start at some of the state’s social services programs, the Tour of Missouri, a bike tour that starts Sept. 7, will be safe. According to the Post-Dispatch the bike tour costs $1.5 million, a fraction of the $60 million in cuts that Nixon is studying.
The Post-Dispatch also reported that $475,000 will be cut from domestic violence programs and $2.25 million from Health Care centers for low income families.
The Missouri Water Patrol, for instance, faces the possibility of scaling back patrols on some of the state’s rivers and lakes. And up to 3,000 people with disabilities might lose some services at independent-living centers across the state.
…Other proposed cuts include money for job-training workshops for people with disabilities, funding for anti-smoking programs and services for pregnant women as an alternative to abortion.
While the Tour of Missouri might bring in some tourism dollars, does it deserve funding ahead of other programs? What should be the state’s first priorities as budget cuts begin? Are there other items that should be cut first? Do you think any of the items mentioned shouldn’t have been cut all all?
B,
I couldn’t agree with you more. You are the only person who makes any sense. Go get your education, through the military or school loans. Go get your self a house or an apartment. Then have children when you are ready, able, and stable. I am with you, I am tired of my tax dollars paying for some trailer trash mom on meth or some crack-dealing ghetto mother with their 10 kids and nobody seems to know where or who the father of any of these kids are so it is easy to receive welfare. Get your @#$! straight before you have all those dang kids.I, like you, pay for my own healthcare but somehow my tax dollars go to helping the above mentioned. Not the disabled you can’t help who or what they have.
It’s obvious the subtlety of my argument on education is lost on several of you. Perhaps your own education did not include “A Modest Proposal” by Dean Jonathan Swift.
Read the second paragraph. Check out the work-study plan of the College of the Ozarks (which may now be a university for all I know…university is just an inflater word for “overpaid staff offering classes to undermotivated students.”)
If someone doesn’t want an education, you cannot shovel it in through the eyes and ears, and hope it takes. That’s a total waste of money. The education industry is very attached to its sinecure from the state and school district. MAP standards are laughable. If you look at the educational background of the Forbes top 10, you will be surprised at the lack of formal education there. I was.
I say, let’s let the under-motivated grow up ignorant, and see how long it takes for them to pursue remediation on their own.
If Missouri wants to cut funding, they could cut some funding within the Military Funeral Honors Program and still not affect the actual service. The program is top heavy with adminstration and short handed with personnel to do the actual service. The program actually has a person in Jeff City that does nothing butsit there all day and monitor whether someone is leaving their computer idle for more then 60 minutes. Once the 61 minute mark occurs, this individual is sending an e-mail to the individual and the supervisor. Further, the program can eliminate the area supervisors and secretary or adminstration assistant position in each area and save even more money. Seems the Army National Guard likes to take care of the officers whether they need them or not. Further there is more reverse discrimination in the program then you can shake a stick at and everyone seems to have a blind eye to this fact. Wish EEOC would check this program out in St Louis.
I followed the link that STLguy provided, and got some general information. The total budget expenditures for 2009 were approximately 19,122 Million dollars. Were talking about a 60 Million dollar cut, or a 0.31% reduction.
To put that in perspective, on my budget that would be like cutting one fast food meal for the family, every two months! I don’t care where the cuts come from, but if there are complaints about that small of a reduction someone needs a swift kick in the behind.
The funding to Alternatives to Abortion program should not be cut. Cut something that is not a matter of life and death instead.
Not paying for a PR stunt by our governor to go to Iraq. Could have saved the money to keep at least one more employee in a salary for a year I’d bet. Or how about using the money for some luxuries for the troops like wet-naps, magazines, toothbrushes etc.
They should Consolidate the small Rural Schools in Missouri. That would save some money and help education out, because a lot of small school don’t have a lot to offer to the kids that go to them!