Miscellaneous Missouri examples from the St. Louis Post Dispatch and other sources. I bold parts of the various articles for emphasis. Sorry for the long diary, but I am really pissed at the formally wonderful state that I have lived in almost my whole life.
missouriindependent.com/…
Despite $8 billion surplus, Missouri governor vetoes $550 million in state spending
From the $8,000 set aside so the Lone Jack Police Department could buy rifles to $46 million for an allied health building at St. Louis Community College, Gov. Mike Parson’s veto ax fell heavily on earmarked spending as he finished work on the coming year’s Missouri budget.
He cut $8.5 million set aside for a no-interest loan to Magnitude 7 Metals for pollution controls on its Marston aluminum smelter in southeast Missouri. The loan, Parson wrote, violates a Civil War-era provision of the constitution “which prohibits the lending of public credit to any private person, association, or corporation except under specific circumstances that do not exist here.”
Southeast Missouri is the one of the poorest part of the state.
Parson did approve several initiatives from lawmakers – expanding his $859 million plan for widening portions of Interstate 70 to a $2.8 billion plan for adding extra lanes across the state is the most notable one.
This work will be done mostly in rural areas of the state which will benefit primarily Republican voters.
news.stlpublicradio.org/…
Missouri lawmakers upset over budget vetoes may override Parson in September.
Gov. Mike Parson raised a lot of eyebrows late last month when he struck funding for roughly 200 items from Missouri’s roughly $51.8 billion budget, vetoing everything from major construction projects at community colleges to a project that would spruce up a pond at a Ballwin park.
Parson contended that he wanted to prevent future budgetary difficulties when Missouri’s finances may not be as robust as they are now. But some Republican members of the legislature are furious with his decision-making and say they may try the unusual step of trying to override Parson’s vetoes in September.
Sen. Nick Schroer, for instance, said he was especially incensed by Parson’s decision to veto a number of projects in St. Charles County — including measures aimed at bolstering public safety and cleaning up drinking water. The St. Charles County Republican went so far as to say that residents there “were betrayed.”
St. Charles County is across the Missouri river from St. Louis county, which is predominantly Democratic leaning. St. Charles County owes it’s phenomenal growth due to white flight from mostly North St. Louis County and St. Louis City starting in the 60’s. So it is predominantly Republican.
In many instances, Parson said he was vetoing line items because, among other things, the state would be losing roughly $300 million because of tax cut-related legislation. He also wrote that Missouri “has consistently maintained a AAA bond rating, and we will ensure a blanched budget for years to come.”
But what Merideth was alluding to was how Missouri still has a huge general revenue surplus that can be spent on basically anything. House Budget Committee Chairman Cody Smith, R-Carthage, said that surplus is currently around $2 billion — which he said is unprecedented.
missouriindependent.com/…
Lawmakers have piled criticism on Gov. Mike Parson after he cut the budget by $550 million despite an $8 billion surplus
“As much as you tell me we can’t afford this ongoing cost, you had no trouble passing a $2.3 billion tax cut the other day on this floor,” Lavender said. “Let’s hope they’re still with us next year.”
missouriindependent.com/…
Missouri lawmakers approve largest budget in state history — almost $51 billion
spectrumlocalnews.com/…
Gov. Parson vetoes funding for St. Louis area projects in the 2024 budget.
Is this a surprise? St. Louis are is predominantly Democratic leaning.
Parson issued 201 line-item vetoes, totaling $555.3 million. Among the St. Louis area projects that lost money to the veto pen:
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$46 million for the design, construction, maintenance, repairs, improvements and upgrades to the Nursing Allied Health building at St. Louis Community College.
Everyone knows that there is an extreme shortage of health care professionals due to the stress of the Covid pandemic.
One of the smallest and poorest predominantly black school districts in the St. Louis area.
Republicans always support the police, right?
Here’s another support the police project cancelled by the Governor, a former police chief.
A proposed $20 million in funding for a new 911 public safety dispatch center in St. Louis was reduced to $10 million, while a budget item for $25 million for Great Rivers Greenway was reduced to $15.
The news is packed with how poor the 911 center is, with the inability to answer calls promptly and calls put on hold or completely unanswered during storms and mass shooting events.
www.ksdk.com/…
Parson vetoed $5 million for a low-interest loan program for drinking water infrastructure in St. Charles, saying there were potential constitutional issues because it involved lending the state’s credit to a municipal corporation.
“The MO governor just vetoed $13mil for a police center and $10mil for a public safety access point in STL City… in addition to the $5.2mil he vetoed for youth crime prevention, violence intervention and respite housing, and so many more budget vetoes. Mostly one time costs,” Merideth said on Twitter.
“With a multi-billion dollar one-time surplus we’ve never had before…. Just sitting in the bank. Saying we can’t afford these things because of the billion $ tax cut he signed last year that mostly benefits wealthy people and does literally nothing for the bottom third of earners.
www.stltoday.com/…
Despite signing bill, Missouri governor never funded program probing radioactive waste
The superfund site at the West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton on Friday, Oct. 16, 2020. The area covered by a tarp, bottom, mark the location of a sub surface smoldering event, or an underground fire. Families in the area are worried about radioactive waste at the site.
Five years ago, Gov. Mike Parson signed legislation aimed at providing state funding to help investigate areas of the state exposed to radioactive waste.
But, despite ongoing concerns about the presence of radioactive material left over from the St. Louis region’s role in creating the nuclear bomb, the program championed by former Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, D-University City, was never funded.
Although the state is now sitting on a significant revenue surplus due to the post-pandemic economy, Patterson said officials will not speculate whether the program will be funded in next year’s budget.
A new report this week from The Missouri Independent, MuckRock and The Associated Press shows the federal government and companies involved in nuclear bomb production and atomic waste storage sites knew of risks to workers and the public early on.
Mallinckrodt, based in St. Louis County was involved in the Manhattan Project in WW2.
From 1942 to 1957, Mallinckrodt processed uranium ore into weapons-grade uranium at a factory north of downtown St. Louis.[11] Nuclear waste from the factory and other locations was buried in steel drums at a 21.7-acre site near Lambert Field.[12] Radioactive waste from the site seeped into Coldwater Creek.[13] The area was designated a Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1989.[14]
