urbanSTL

RockChalkSTL wrote: ↑

Jan 20, 2023

This seems like a way to keep only Republican names on our Missouri ballots. 

I'm very skeptical that this would be a good thing for the state. 

The Missouri House overwhelmingly approved a bill Monday to legalize sports wagering, with Republicans siding with casino companies to defeat Democratic amendments seeking higher taxes and limits on promotional costs. The bill needs a formal roll-call vote, expected later this week, to send it to the Missouri Senate. With all but three adjoining states allowing sports wagering, the failure of the General Assembly to follow suit in previous legislative sessions is an embarrassment, said Rep. Ashley Aune, D-Kansas City. As she campaigned last year, Aune said, the question of when lawmakers would pass sports wagering came up repeatedly. “It seems so simple and our constituents genuinely don’t understand why we haven’t got it to the finish line yet,” Aune said.

The Missouri House gave first-round approval to a $1 billion personal and corporate income tax cut Tuesday, as Republicans pushed the bill through despite Democratic warnings that vital services would be starved for funds.
The bill would cut the top rate on personal income taxes, cut the corporate income tax rate in half and exempt Social Security payments from taxation. State Rep. Dirk Deaton, R-Noel, said the bill would promote economic growth, noting that future tax cuts included in the bill only take effect when triggered by revenue growth.

“This is really just limiting the growth of government,” Deaton said.
 Democrats, however, said a tax cut — coming on top of a tax cut approved in September that has not been fully implemented — would put the state into a potentially precarious financial position. Despite recent pay raises and incentives, state employees are still the worst paid in the nation and teachers are near the bottom of the pay scale, said state Rep. Peter Merideth, D-St. Louis.

Bart Harley Jarvis wrote: ↑

Mar 21, 2023

If all the states are cutting taxes, none of the states are cutting taxes. And MO doesn't have the climate/geography of Sunbelt states. Iowa is trying to do the same thing and it's really stupid.

A bill that would incentivize film and television production in Missouri gained final House approval in a 104-50 vote Monday.
HB675, sponsored by Rep. Kurtis Gregory, R-Marshall, “authorizes a tax credit equal to 20% of qualifying expenses … associated with the production of a qualified motion media production project.”

Additional credits may be awarded if certain conditions are met, such as at least 50% of the production being filmed in Missouri, or at least 15% of the project taking place in a “rural or blighted area” within the state, according to the bill.
The total of the tax credits for such productions is limited to $16 million per year.

The chief Senate budget writer said he plans to restore state funding for Missouri’s public libraries that was stripped out of the House version of the state’s spending plan.
Sen. Lincoln Hough, R-Springfield, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Tuesday that the panel will place $4.5 million back in the budget, which covers spending for the fiscal year beginning July 1.
“There is no way that money is not going back into the budget,” Hough told the Post-Dispatch.
The restoration could mark the second reversal of a House budget priority that has stirred controversy under the Capitol dome. Hough and Senate President Caleb Rowden earlier said they oppose Republican language in the House blueprint that would prohibit the state from spending tax dollars on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

House Budget Committee Chairman Cody Smith, R-Carthage, unveiled the latest list of brick-and-mortar projects Tuesday, including $15 million for a pharmaceutical center in St. Louis, $3 million for Kirkwood's community center, $1 million for Powell Symphony Hall — and $859 million to upgrade the interstate near Wentzville, Columbia and Kansas City.

Earlier versions had taken some of that amount for projects on Interstate 44, but in the latest spending blueprint those also are funded at about $48 million.

All told, the construction spending outlined in the plan amounts to $2.8 billion.

The state is currently sitting on a surplus estimated at about $5 billion. And new revenue figures show the state could add another $1 billion in unspent tax receipts before the end of the fiscal year, giving budget writers even more of a cushion heading into the final weeks of the legislative session.

Baltimore Jack wrote:Well they can't fund libraries but 12 yr old can get married so there's that!

Missourah Republicans folks!

https://www.news-leader.com/story/news/ ... 107573007/

LArchitecture wrote: ↑

Apr 13, 2023

Baltimore Jack wrote:Well they can't fund libraries but 12 yr old can get married so there's that!

Missourah Republicans folks!

https://www.news-leader.com/story/news/ ... 107573007/

Citing a situation from 40 years ago is crazy. Times have technologically advanced so much yet this guy is nostalgic for the early 1900s when he wasn’t even alive.

Bart Harley Jarvis wrote: ↑

Apr 13, 2023

LArchitecture wrote: ↑

Apr 13, 2023

Baltimore Jack wrote:Well they can't fund libraries but 12 yr old can get married so there's that!

Missourah Republicans folks!

https://www.news-leader.com/story/news/ ... 107573007/

Citing a situation from 40 years ago is crazy. Times have technologically advanced so much yet this guy is nostalgic for the early 1900s when he wasn’t even alive.

Or, maybe, someone could counter with some same-sex couples that have been together that long, or some trans people who have been happily living their lives (and not molesting children) for that long.  Or maybe call bullsh*t on using one, possibly real, data point as the basis for making laws?