What a week. We finally passed the budget out of the House. The debate is always difficult but this year was especially so. In fact led to tempers flaring during the final votes.

On a lighter note I got the MP3 file of Ingrid singing in the House to open the session St. Patrick's Day.

This coming Tuesday is a major Political holiday. It is the final day to file for election to office. At 5:00 P.M. on March 30th filing closes and the final lineup for who is running this year will be set.

And this week we voted the final Ethics bill out of the special committee to draft the bill..

Budge draft voted out of House is NOT balanced

In spite of being out of balance the House voted to send the budget on to the Senate

State Government, unlike the Federal, must balance the budget. The Feds can print more money and create more deficit but Missouri can only spend money we have and like everyone else the State is having a very hard time. The budget process is that the Governor recommends a budget then the House, through the committee system, creates and votes on a budget which is then sent on to the Senate. The Senate then changes it as it sees fit then the two versions have to be agreed upon. So the budget then set can spend only what money is available. The process and debate is very complicated and time consuming but the outcome is clear this time. The budget we sent on to the Senate will not fly. There is not enough money to cover it. We did cut but cutting expenses alone will not balance the budget.

Unfortunately, House Republicans will not even discuss any change of the money MO gives away each year in tax credits. These tax giveaways now total $600 million of the 23 billion. Some of the credits do things to create jobs. But we should evaluate which of the programs work and which do not and tighten our belts on these giveaways just like we do with expenses. We cannot cut our way to a balanced budget. There are over 60 tax credit programs that should be looked at. But the Repubs refuse to even discuss it.

We are cutting education in the budget that passed. The Governor recommended an $18 million dollar increase. First the House Budget Chair bumped that figure by 87 Million to make a total of 105 million increase to Education. Dems warned that this level would not fly and sure enough the entire increase was stripped out on the floor and now there is zero increase for education.

The MO Constitution requires that the first obligation is to the pay the public debt then fund education. But that is not what is being done. What is happening is that the $600 million dollars in tax credit giveaways comes off the top before a dime is spent. So the top priority for MO is to fund tax giveaways. Small wonder that tempers flare in this discussion.

St Patrick's Day in Jefferson City

Ingrid Burnett singing "Wearing of the Green" in the MO House

On St Patrick's Day Ingrid visited in Jefferson City and brought our Grandson Jonathon, a fourth grader, along. Usually we begin each session with first a prayer then the Pledge of Allegiance but on St Pat's day Ingrid performed a song that she has sung every year since we first met. It is an ancient Irish song from 1798. Here is the link to the Wikipedia page explaining the song.

For me it is a moment that I will never forget. I did not know that it was being recorded and when we got the MP3 file it took some help to get it here but here is the link to the audio file. The first voice is Speaker Pro Tem Bryan Pratt followed by the song:

Ingrid Burnett MP3 audio file click to play
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Ethics reform bill comes out of House Committee