Missouri Primary Budget May Turn Into Political Football

FOX ^ | 6/16/06 | Steve Brown

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Missouri is getting ready for its presidential primary next February, even though right now the state has no money to pay for it.

Funds for the primary have been stripped from the state budget, now facing a $1 billion deficit.

[Just another Joe]

Oh yeh, a vote now, pay later approach.
You notice they say nothing of a Republican primary?

[Just another Joe]

OK. Use a **

[cardinal4]

Im not sure I understand how Missouri got into this mess, the taxes we pay here should be more than enough to cover any budget shortfall.

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

How many states aren't exceeding budgets, overspending revenue, and penalizing their source?

[cardinal4]

Good point.

[OREALLY]

I am from Missouri. I hope they have a primary. Missouri tax payers are asking Gephardt to refund their tax dollars because he has missed 85% of his votes in the house.
Gephardt is not highly esteemed here.

[YadaYada]

Im not sure I understand how Missouri got into this mess, the taxes we pay here should be more than enough to cover any budget shortfall.

We got in this mess because we went from a 9 billion dollar budget to a 20 billion dollar budget. He raised our taxes. We were 46th and now we are up around #12 (tax rate comparable to the liberal state of Mass. Then businesses left because of the high tax rate and Carnahan spent, spent, spent.

[YadaYada]

Whoops, I forgot to tell you that was Mel Carnahan who got us in that mess.

[Missouri]

You notice they say nothing of a Republican primary?

This of course is all Gephardts idea. I would think he'd rather have a caucus instead of a primary. In a caucus, he's win easily. In a primary he'd win but lose his hometown of St. Louis to Al Sharpton which would be kind of humiliating.