Blunt touts change during State of the State
Higher ed. funding was a key issue he discussed.
Jan. 16, 2008
When Gov. Matt Blunt took center stage Tuesday evening to deliver his State of the State address, nearly the entire House chamber stood to applaud his arrival.
But when the address began, with Blunt laying out his plans for the budget, including higher education and health care, claps roared from the left of Blunt—the Republican side of the chamber—while Democrats on the opposite side slumped in their cheers with dissatisfied looks on their faces.
In the midst of the presidential races, "change" has become a slogan used by many of the candidates, and Blunt followed the lead.
"Missourians demanded change," he said. "Change is working."
In a House Democratic press conference following the address, Sen. Maida Coleman, D-St. Louis, said Blunt was giving a "campaign speech" and accused him of making cuts to health care in 2005 to come back in 2008, an election year, with a surplus.
"He needs something to stand on because he can't stand on his records," Coleman said.
One of the most talked about issues during and after the speech was higher education.
"Missouri colleges and universities were neglected by the failed priorities of the old budgets," Blunt said.
Blunt touted his past accomplishments with higher education, including the controversial capping of tuition increases and the Lewis and Clark Discovery Initiative, which invested $289 million worth of capital improvement projects for higher learning establishments in Missouri. The money was attained through a sale of assets of the state student loan agency, the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority. The final version of the sale left MU without any funding.
This year, Blunt requested $31 million for construction and renovation of the Ellis Fischel Cancer Center at MU and wants to budget $100 million for Access Missouri scholarships.
Minority Floor Leader Paul LeVota, D-Jackson County, said Blunt was manipulating money "stolen" from MOHELA, and that more could be done to aid higher education in Missouri.
"This is the biggest budget we've had," LeVota said. "But we're still not spending on things we should—health care and higher education.
UM system Interim President Gordon Lamb praised Blunt's call for higher education investments in a new release.
"These are investments in Missourians, by Missourians," Lamb said in the release. "Our fellow citizens expect the University of Missouri to prepare students for a competitive future."
Other major issues Blunt touched upon were health care, taxes, illegal immigration and abortion. Despite praise from many, LeVota took Blunt's continuous message of change in a different direction:
"Oh he's made changes," LeVota said. "Tuition was a bit more affordable—he's made changes."
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