Submitted
Dear Editor
After giving corporations another huge tax break, the Missouri GOP took opposite steps in making working families lives a little better and our kids a little safer. The proposed cuts: $357 million from K-12 education; $79 million from childcare providers; $56 million from pay for early education, and Rep. Cody Smith (R) followed through with stripping public libraries of state funding. And if those aren’t bad enough, they voted against $15 million in federal funds for school safety such as metal detectors, school resource officers and mental health support. To help put this in perspective, they voted against the school safety funds a day after the shooting at The Covenant School in Tennessee. Ironically, the funding was allocated by Congress in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act passed in June 2022 in response to the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
They also moved $187M from general revenue and replaced with lottery funds, proving lottery money was never going to be extra funds for education. For those who may have forgotten, in 1992, Missouri voters agreed to earmark lottery ticket proceeds to help fund public education.
A bright spot - the MO GOP Senate finally recognizes the doctor-patient relationship must be respected and left alone by lawmakers — as long as the doctor is a veterinarian, and the patient is a cat. That’s right folks, Republican state senators feel “it’s inappropriate for lawmakers to decide what’s medically necessary or not if It interferes with the patient-client relationship between a vet and the owner of a pet.”
The GOP continues to prove they have no interest in making our lives better.
Jacqueline Farr
Chair
Benton County
Democratic Party
