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Nixon Tells Media: In First 100 Days He’ll Raise Taxes, Bypass Legislature

February 11, 2008

JEFFERSON CITY – Jay Nixon went public with his disturbing vision for Missouri when he told a Hannibal-area television station that he would bypass the people’s elected representatives to achieve his goals, raise taxes and halt health care reforms.

“By his own admission, Jay Nixon’s frightening vision for Missouri includes a massive tax increase, an end to health care reform and a dictatorship in which the governor can approve economic initiatives without the approval of the Legislature,” said Paul Sloca, communications director for the Missouri Republican Party. “Jay Nixon doesn’t speak very often, but when he does, it is clear what his misguided vision for Missouri really is and what it will do to the hard-working people of this state.”

In an interview with KHQA-7 in Hannibal last weekend, Nixon said his first 100 days in office would include seeking $1 billion in federal funding to restore the old broken Medicaid system that would require matching state funds raised through a massive tax increase. Nixon failed to mention Republican programs such as Insure Missouri and Mo HealthNet that have helped make health care more affordable to Missourians while ensuring that the state operates within its means.

Nixon also told the television station that he would magically boost the state economy within the same 100 days even though the Legislature would be far from completing its work on a state budget, which means Nixon is quite willing to circumvent the constitutional authority of the people’s representatives. Or maybe he’ll use executive orders in the same way Bob Holden did when he authorized collective bargaining for state workers. Nixon seems to forget that under Republican leadership, the state budget has gone from being $1 billion in the red under Democrats to being hundreds of millions of dollars in the black under Republicans. Then there is the matter of the 90,000 new jobs created in the last three years under Gov. Matt Blunt and Republican lawmakers after years of job losses under Democrats.

The Nixon interview is at http://www.khqa.com/news/news_story.aspx?id=94262