Family Recovery Plan - Plank 1 - Jobs

When Governor Nixon delivered his first State of the State address one topic of concern was job loss. With 219,000 Missourians out of work, this number represents the highest unemployment figure in 25 years. He said, “We believe in the value of a hard day’s work. But too many Missourians are unemployed – or fear they may soon become unemployed.” This is a concern shared by all members of the General Assembly regardless of party affiliation.

The first plank of the Family Recovery Plan is about job creation and retention, but as I have stated before government doesn’t create jobs, people do. In recent years, Missouri has benefited from an innovative program called the Quality Jobs Act, a program that is measurable and accountable, and it focuses incentives on family supporting jobs.

This past week the House passed legislation intending to expand this proven, successful program responsible for thousands of new jobs and billions of dollars of new investments in Missouri.

The nation’s economic downturn has stymied the healthy job growth Missouri enjoyed just a few years ago. Since its creation in 2005, the program provided incentives for more than 22,000 jobs in more than 65 municipalities. It has also helped our state retain nearly 2,500 jobs. As the name implies, the jobs that have been created and retained are quality jobs that pay above-average wages and provide health insurance. According to the Missouri Department of Economic Development, the average wage of the jobs created by the program is in excess of $53,000 annually and the average annual wage of those retained is nearly $74,000. In total, Quality Jobs projects contributed more than $2.5 billion in new investment in our state in the first three years.

The results produced by the program have been impressive. The legislature increased tax credit caps in 2007 and again in 2008 to allow more projects to be approved and demand has continued to exceed supply. The bill approved this week removes the tax credit caps in order to approve projects all across the state. The Quality Jobs Program has proven to be the most powerful economic development and job creation tool in Missouri.

An additional piece of this legislation also targets small businesses and entrepreneurs. Our small businesses create two-thirds to three-quarters of all new jobs and in economic downturns we generally see a spike in new business starts. This legislation creates the Small Business and Entrepreneurial Growth Act which provides incentives for the smallest of Missouri’s small businesses to expand and grow. These incentives will assist small businesses that grow beyond the four person size and assist them to take on new employees.

The Family Recovery Plan is intended assist Missouri not only in these difficult times, but in good times as well. The House has now sent the first piece of the Family Recovery Plan to the Senate. I look forward to getting the tax relief, health care, and energy bills passed by the House in the weeks to come.

Here We Go Again

This past week Governor Jay Nixon delivered the annual State of the State address to the Missouri General Assembly, the Missouri Supreme Court, Missouri Cabinet heads, and to the people of our great state.

This annual address has become the vehicle for a governor to outline his vision for Missouri and present the executive branch’s budget recommendations for the next fiscal year. It is also the event that adds definition to the agenda boundaries of each body in the legislature and the governor’s office for the current session of the General Assembly.

Last week the consensus revenue estimate (CRE) was staked out at 1% or approximately $7.7 billion. The CRE is the amount of growth in general revenue that the state expects to collect in the next fiscal year. Once that number is determined, the House and Senate use that number as the ceiling throughout the appropriations process.

Unlike Congress, we must have a balanced budget. The state of Missouri can’t print money to satisfy unrestrained and politically motivated spending habits. To have a balanced budget, the General Assembly and the governor’s office must build a state budget at or, preferably, below that target.

Governor Nixon’s budget proposal would spend $8.8 billion of general revenue, a number that exceeds the agreed upon CRE by $1.1 billion, or 14% - this is not a balanced budget proposal. The governor would pay for these excessive increases with federal “stimulus” money, which I contend is federal “dependence” money, that Missouri is expected to receive which is about $809 million dollars.

After four years of fiscal discipline, a budget is now being proposed that relies on significant one-time monies that may or may not materialize. Our budget difficulties earlier this decade stemmed from uncontrolled spending that relied on one-time monies. This can’t be done, but politicians are often afraid of making the difficult decisions that require discipline, because they fear unpopularity. The disciplined decisions of the past four years have put Missouri in better financial position to weather this economic downturn than most states.

The Missouri House has pounded its first stake in the ground. We will not balance our state budget on monies that may or may not come in the mail - we refuse to rely on a federal welfare check to meet the needs of our state. It may be considered good politics by some, but it is lousy fiscal policy. We can’t allow the federal “stimulus” to lead us down the path to ever more federal dependency.

How out of touch with our existing economic situation can we be to accept a budget that requires a 14% increase in economic growth knowing that we average 3.5% growth in Missouri in typical years?

This is a time for restraint, a time to prioritize, and a time to drive efficiencies into the state bureaucracy. It is a time to shed the hindrances that hold back innovation and invention, a time to empower Missourians to build dreams, not sustain them where they are.

This is a time when doing what is right is far more important that doing what is popular, because what is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right.

Lessons Learned - Or Not?

“History in par, repeats itself”. I’m sure Mr. Kuhlman would be pleased to know that I was listening and learning in his World History class in high school. It is to our detriment that Congress and the old and new administrations have not learned the same.

In 1939, the Secretary of the Treasury under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Henry Morgenthau, acknowledged after 10 years of economic depression and slightly fewer than that of the New Deal, “We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work… After eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started . . . . And an enormous debt to boot!”

The numbers are enormous, so large that it is difficult comprehend their magnitude. An additional federal stimulus package that could top $1,000,000,000,000 – that’s a trillion – is now under consideration in Washington. The predominant thought is that government can spend us out of recession, but at what cost?

The Great Depression years, which were also the years of the New Deal, where not times of plenty. Unemployment remained stubbornly high ranging from 15% to 25%. Prices and wages were falling, not growing. The response was more government programs which crowded out private enterprise and elongated the pain.

The New Deal resulted in more government, higher taxes, and less Liberty. It hurt businesses, especially small businesses, stifled innovation, drove competition from the marketplace, dictated how to buy and sell chickens, and wreaked havoc with our monetary policy with global consequences.

History in par, repeats itself and today America looks at the black and white images of the Great Depression/New Deal Era and I have to ask – Why would we want to go back?

The New Deal Era saw the top marginal tax rates go from 25% to 79% with corporate income taxes increasing from 12% to 24% (today they are 35% - the highest in the world). There were also excess profits taxes – sound familiar? – and undistributed profits taxes, taxes on dividends and new payroll taxes, aka, Social Security.

The New Deal simply reallocated money from the private sector to the public sector. The New Deal sought to create “work”, instead of family supporting jobs that create “wealth”. It effectively took resources from one part of our economy to redistribute them to another leading to a planned economy – an economy where oligarchs rule and the citizenry suffers. America is a land of opportunity, not a land of subsistence.

As it stands today, the federal stimulus package has about $550 billion in new spending and $275 billion in tax relief. This spending includes $79 billion to bailout states that made bad decisions (Missouri was not one of them), $87 billion to states to pay for Medicaid – a program they can’t afford anyway, only $30 billion for highway infrastructure, and billions more for a cadre of government expansions.

We know what works. Broad based permanent tax relief works. Money should stay with the people who earn it. It inspires them to innovate further, take more business risks, creates more jobs which, in turn, creates more wealth.

Doesn’t the Preamble of our U.S. Constitution begin “We the People” and sets out to define why we “ordain”-ed and “establish”-ed the Constitution stating among those reasons that it was to “…secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity”? Or has Washington relegated you and me to become Sumner’s “Forgotten Man”?

Shouldn’t Congress, the Federal Reserve, and the Executive branch seek solutions to empower individual liberty, instead of dictating individual actions? Shouldn’t they leverage American’s ingenuity and rugged individualism to help solve our problems, instead of harnessing our insecurity to fundamentally alter each American’s relationship with the State?

As we move forward in 2009, we must be mindful that 1939 was not a pinnacle of successes for government “solutions”. No government program can replace, or replicate, the American will to succeed. Government does not innovate, people do, government does not create jobs, people do, unshackle them from repressive tax policies and burdensome regulations and we will succeed.

The resiliency of the U.S. Constitution and the American people who are hard working, honest, and devoted to their families and communities will ultimately bring us out of these economic times in spite of what takes place in Washington, DC. Where Washington has faith in itself, I have faith in the American people, in other words, the Forgotten Man lest we forget that, “…he works, he votes, generally he prays – but he always pays…”

Rep. Doug Ervin Selected to Chair House Small Business Committee

JEFFERSON CITY – House Speaker Ron Richard, R-Joplin, today selected Rep. Doug Ervin, R-Kearney, to serve as chair of the House Small Business Committee for the 95th General Assembly. Rep. Ervin also served as chair of the committee for the 93rd and 94th General Assemblies.

“Rep. Ervin has done an outstanding job in leading this committee during the course of the last four years. He is the only choice to continue to serve as chair and I have every confidence in his abilities,” said Speaker Richard. “Our small businesses are the lifeblood of Missouri’s economy and we must do everything we can to ensure they are given every opportunity to grow and thrive. I know Doug will be a strong voice for Missouri small businesses as his committee addresses the issues they face.

The House Small Business Committee considers and reports upon bills and matters referred to it relating to the establishment, growth, development, expansion, retention and operations of small businesses in the State. As chair of the committee, Rep. Ervin will preside over committee hearings and be responsible for all legislation referred to the committee.

“It’s an honor to be able to continue my service as chair of this committee and I thank Speaker Richard for the opportunity,” said Rep. Ervin. “During this current economic downturn, it is vital that we find ways to promote job creation and provide opportunities for our small businesses to grow and expand. I look forward to working with the members of my committee to address the issues faced by our small business owners as we work to revitalize our economy.”

In addition to his chairmanship responsibilities, Rep. Ervin was selected as the Vice-Chair of the Special Committee on Children and families. He was also appointed to the Healthcare Transformation Committee and Ways and Means.

The Healthcare Transformation committee is tasked with covering such issues as consumerism in health care, transparency, health banking, the role of information technology in health care, patient safety, and examining the cost drivers in health care.

The Ways and Means committee is a new assignment and one that I am particularly looking forward to. This committee considers bills and all matters relating to taxes, tax credits, revenue and public debt, and the administration of the taxation and revenue laws.

Opening Day

Today, the First Session of the 95th General Assembly was convened and I am looking forward to tackling the challenges before us on your behalf. It is also with great regret that I inform you that yesterday, January 6th, the U.S. Congress also convened to work tirelessly on their behalf.

At the beginning of each new General Assembly which occurs every two years, the first order of business after the legislators are sworn in is the election of a new Speaker of the House. I am very pleased to have supported and voted for Rep. Ron Richard from Joplin to this important post. He takes this position at a challenging time in Missouri and our Nation.

While Congress has frittered away opportunity after opportunity and readies our descendants for untold trillions of dollars in debt to a seemingly endless line of special interests representing about every industry our Nation has to offer, Speaker Richard outlined a new vision.

Instead of rewarding the poor decisions of individual business leaders and lining the pockets of favored industries under the guise of “the greater good”, the Republican majority in the Missouri House recognizes that the bedrock of the economy, the bedrock of every community, is you and your family. So, today Speaker Richard outlined a four point plan known as the Family Recovery Plan.

The Family Recovery Plan starts with continued efforts to make Missouri a job-friendly state. We recognize that the oldest social program known to man is a family supporting job. This plan calls for a modest tax cut that will keep more of your hard-earned dollars in your pocket where they belong. The plan pursues free-market solutions to promote ownership, better access, affordability, and privacy in health care while making it more transparent and ensuring that it is free of the waste, fraud, and abuse that has plagued it in the past. Finally, this plan will explore ways to promote the development of our alternative energy sources such as clean coal, wind farms, hydroelectric, and nuclear power.

The Family Recovery Plan is essential to provide Missourians with the assistance they need during these tough economic times. The plan, along with sound budget planning, will be the cornerstone on which our legislative successes will be built. It is time for government to quit trying to pick winners and losers. Where our federal government has failed to act, the Missouri House will remain committed to seeking solutions to the problems faced by Missourians from all walks of life.

A Christmas Message

In just a few days people around the world will be celebrating Christmas and families will gather bearing gifts for one another and likely sharing a bountiful feast. Families will come together from across town, across the street, another state, and the far corners of the earth to celebrate together, and forty years ago this Christmas Eve the world even celebrated from the heavens.

This Christmas season has become a time of economic unrest, bailouts, and dwindling 401(k)’s. It is a time when the Federal Reserve can’t make up its mind whether its function is central banking or central planning, where monetary policy could easily be confused with the whims of weather vane, a Congress more intent on approving its own stimulus package, and a new administration just on the horizon with the promise of “change”.

Forty years ago the national mood wasn’t any better. America and the world were rocked by war, racial violence, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy. President John F. Kennedy had called for America to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, only to have suffered the tragic loss of three astronauts (Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee) during a ground test in 1967. To complicate matters the CIA believed (wrongly) that the Soviet Union was about to launch a manned lunar mission that, if successful, would beat the United States to the moon after first beating the United States into orbit.

The importance of Apollo 8 could not have been greater. It was the first mission to send a crew – Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders – from the Earth to orbit the moon and return to the Earth. It was not without its challenges. The big Saturn V rocket needed to propel the Apollo 8 to the moon had suffered a number of setbacks and instrumentation problems during its test flights.

This mission, among all of the Apollo missions, was the most important. Its success, or failure, could determine the fate of the American space program and Kennedy’s challenge to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade - and give hope to a Nation.

It launched on December 21, 1968 and reached lunar orbit on Christmas Eve as millions watched and listened around the world.

After the third lunar orbit the spacecraft was turned slightly and gave the astronauts the first view by human beings of the Earth rising over the lunar surface.

The broadcast that night ended by the crew taking turns reading from Genesis, a stark contrast to the Soviet Union’s Nikita Khrushchev engaging in atheistic, communist propaganda saying, “Why should you clutch at God? Here is Gagarin who flew into space but saw no God there.”

The reading began in Genesis 1:1:

[Bill Anders]
"We are now approaching lunar sunrise. For all the people back on Earth the crew of Apollo 8 has a message we would like to send you."

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness."

[Jim Lovell]
"And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."

[Frank Borman]
"And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called the Seas: and God saw that it was good."

Frank Borman later recalled of the lunar sunrise, “It was the only thing in space that had any color to it. Everything else was either black or white, but not the Earth." Jim Lovell said that Earth was "a grand oasis in the vast loneliness of space."

Apollo 8 was a triumph of our understanding of astrophysics, gravity, trajectory, combustion, aeronautics, engineering, and American “know how”. America ended a troubled year with great achievement and presented her with three more heroes.

Christmas gives us hope in good times and in bad regardless of the economy, Washington, or the Federal Reserve. It is a timeless message of love and mercy born in manger, a young child that changed the world and continues to change hearts today.

Frank Borman concluded that Christmas Eve broadcast saying, "And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you - all of you on the good Earth."

Merry Christmas!

The Miraculous Missouri Turnaround

Amidst the daily dose of bad news about gas prices and food prices along with a debate about whether we are, or are not, in a recession it is easy to overlook just how far we have come. In the past four years Missouri has improved itself and fares better than at least 40 other states in the Union.

This month I would like to share with you some of the advances made in our state that you probably won’t hear from the mainstream media.

Cutting Taxes: The Senior Tax Justice Act
Tax cut on Social Security and public pension benefits (teachers, veterans, policemen, and firefighters). Over 300,000 Missourians will benefit from this $153.8 million tax cut.
Missouri has been able to cut taxes and still produce surplus revenue.

Helping Missouri’s Most Vulnerable Citizens
Here’s a sample of increased public assistance made to our most vulnerable citizens:
Funding for the Autism Program has increased by $7,369,240.
Funding for SCHIP has increased by $30,290,680.
Funding for the First Steps Program has increased by $1,140,000.
Funding for Utilicare has increased by $6,440,785.
Funding for Sheltered Workshops has increased by $2,600,000.
The General Assembly has been able to increase funding for these vital programs, something that was unheard of when our economy and budget situation were poor just a few years ago. These programs go far to help protect and aid some of Missouri’s most important and vulnerable citizens.

Decreasing Methamphetamine Production
Legislation limiting the sale of methamphetamine producing drugs has resulted in a dramatic drop in methamphetamine-related incidents:
2003: 2,860
2004: 2,807 -53
2005: 2,170 -637
2006: 1,288 -882
Missouri went from the number one methamphetamine producing state in the nation to a 55% drop in methamphetamine related incidents – now that is real progress!

Improving Transportation
Missouri has gone from having the 3rd worst pavement on major roads to the ninth best.
The $5.7 billion spent on transportation has resulted in $20.52 billion in economic activity creating family supporting jobs throughout the state.
Safety improvements on major highways have resulted in 161 fewer people losing their lives in 2006 compared to the previous year.
Missouri leads the nation with the largest drop in traffic fatalities.
Missouri has the 3rd lowest administrative costs per mile.
Bottom line - MODOT went from politics and broken promises to putting money towards improving roads – now let’s hold them to it.

Since 2003, we have gone from losing jobs to creating jobs, from cutting programs to cutting taxes, and for the first time in anyone’s memory the state bureaucracy is not growing, but is now shrinking.

That is what I have set out to do by representing you in Jefferson City. By making myself available to discuss the issues that are important to you, I will continue to work towards restoring trust in state government, lowering taxes, improving access and affordability in health care, fighting wasteful spending, encouraging and building up the traditional family, and removing barriers so that business can flourish so that we will be able to provide excellence in education, continue to improve our roads and bridges, help the most needy in our society, and make government accountable to the people.