Rep. Charlie Davis on Nixon budget plan: The dollars aren't there

In a portion of his latest report, Rep. Charlie Davis, R-Webb City, offered his thoughts on Gov. Jay Nixon's State of the State address.

The State of the State address was on Tuesday night and I will have some raw numbers from the governor’s budget next week.

 I can tell you that there is about $500 million dollars that we would have to come up with to pay for his budget. The dollars simply aren’t there to pay for everything.

We in the legislature want to fund all our programs the best we can but to be over optimistic is the wrong thing to do. To present a budget that goes way beyond what the economists predict our growth will be is irresponsible.

 Our University of Missouri economists and our house and senate budget committees had predicted a 4.2% growth this nest fiscal year (I believe that to be too high.) The governor decided, for the first time, to go out on a limb and use HIS numbers, refusing to listen to the economists. He says we will have a 6% growth in Missouri’s economy.

I just hope all our departments don’t get their hopes up and start spending money we don’t have. We will budget a 4.2% increase in general revenue but will not put our citizens and our state’s fiscal house in jeopardy.