Nixon seeks to sustain line-item budget vetoes

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon sought to dissuade lawmakers Thursday from overriding millions of dollars of line-item budget vetoes, asserting bluntly: "We don't have the money for all this stuff."

Nixon's comments came as lawmakers are preparing to meet next week to consider overriding 136 line-item vetoes totaling nearly $145 million in general revenue spending and $131 million from federal dollars and other revenue sources. Lawmakers also will consider whether to override Nixon's vetoes on dozens of other bills, including ones offering tax breaks to businesses, imposing additional abortion restrictions and allowing specially trained teachers to carry guns in classrooms.

The Democratic governor said if the Republican-led Legislature votes to override his budget vetoes, it "would put Missouri on a permanent path to living beyond our means."

"Now is just not the time to grow government," he said.

The $26.4 million budget passed by lawmakers in May included numerous spending increases under an assumption Missouri tax revenue would continue to rebound from the recession, but revenue instead declined in 2014.

A week after lawmakers passed the budget, they also passed a series of bills offering tax breaks to particular businesses, such as electric companies, fitness clubs and computer data centers.

Nixon vetoed the tax breaks, saying they would bust a hole in the budget. And before the fiscal year began July 1, he announced the line-item budget vetoes and froze hundreds of millions of additional dollars of spending -- including for public schools and universities -- to guard against the potential that legislators would override his veto of the tax breaks.

Legislators have been discussing a strategy in which they would override Nixon's vetoes on some of the tax breaks and many of the of the line-item budget items.

"There's a decent chance that we would override a few of those [tax breaks] -- some of the lower-cost ones -- that have less of an impact on local taxes, and still be within our ability to fund a large portion of the appropriations" in the budget, Rep. Caleb Rowden, R-Columbia, a member of the House Budget Committee, said Thursday.

The vetoed items include increases in payment rates for, among other things, mental health-care providers and nursing homes, school safety grants and utility bill subsidies for low-income residents. Nixon said some items are worthwhile, but he criticized others as unnecessary earmarks -- such as $500,000 to try to control invasive Asian carp.

House Minority Leader Jake Hummel, of St. Louis, said he won't vote to override any vetoes but acknowledged that some fellow Democrats may want to on the budget vetoes.

"There are a lot of things that were vetoed that probably could help a lot of people," Hummel said. "So that makes it hard for people to not want to overturn that veto to restore some of that funding."

If lawmakers override the line-item vetoes, there is no guarantee the programs would get the money. Nixon still could use his gubernatorial powers to freeze the spending, and said Thursday he would consider doing that.

"If they dramatically continue to expand the size of government by their votes -- that it doesn't match up to the level of revenue that we have -- then I'll continue to have to make necessary restrictions," Nixon said.

------

Follow David A. Lieb at: http://www.twitter.com/DavidALieb