Dear Editor:
I just came back from a week of traveling and was catching up on the news, otherwise I might not have noticed this apparent inconsistency.
Saturday, July 1 Front page headline, "Governor signs budget, cuts $250M in spending." In the second paragraph of the story, "The Republican announced the cuts Friday while signing the state budget, saying they are necessary because of lagging state revenues and rising health care costs."
Sunday, July 2 Page B1 story, "More than 63K Missouri seniors to lose prescription aid." The first paragraph of the story says, "More than 63,000 low-income Missouri seniors on Saturday will be cut off from state aid that helps pay for prescription medications after lawmakers this year slashed the program in response to sluggish state revenues."
Thursday, July 6 Front page headline, "State appears on track for income tax cuts." Second paragraph, "Data from State Budget Director Dan Haug show net general revenues hit more than $9 billion during the fiscal year that ended Saturday, a roughly 2.6 percent increase compared to the year before." Further in the story the article notes, "The state faces tax cuts despite the fact Republican Gov. Eric Greitens cited sluggish revenue growth and rising health care costs when he cut more than $250 million to balance this year's budget."
I have only lived in Missouri for a few years but it appears to me that governors "cutting" budgets is a routine event. A June 2014 KOMU story discussed hundreds of millions of dollars of "budget vetoes and spending restrictions" imposed by then Gov. Jay Nixon. In June 2011 kshb.com reported that "Nixon announced $172 million in cuts from the budget." It seems to be an annual event, even thought the "cuts" don't result in reduced spending.
MO spending increased by 1.04 percent from FY2013 to FY2014, 4.0 percent from FY2014 to FY2015, 2.17 percent from FY2015 to FY2016 and was projected to increase 12.45 percent from FY2016 to FY2017. It baffles me how the words "spending cuts" could have been associated with any of those years.
If Net General Revenues hit $9 billion for FY2017 they will have increased by 11.3 percent since FY2013, and 12.5 percent since FY2008, at the start of the recession. They are projected to be $9.4 billion in the FY2018 budget.
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