February 22,  2012

In a Budget Committee meeting, after grilling representatives from the Department of Social Services and receiving pitiful responses, Rep. Ryan Silvey declared that the $50 M federal grant that clearly could be used to set up an Obamacare Exchange WILL NOT be in the Budget he takes to the full House.

Silvey had some good help from Reps. Mark Parkinson, Jeff Grisamore, and Chris Kelly, who asked what strings were attached to the grant, how the money would be spent, and why out of state contractors seemed to get the computer system development jobs when we had some of the best talent available right here in Missouri.  No answers from the bureaucrats.

Neither the folks from DSS nor the author of the amendment, Rep. Tom Flanigan, could even tell the committee the name of the federal grant they were promoting.  Silvey asked if it was, perhaps, the "Affordable Care State Planning and Establishment Grant".  The answer from DSS:  Ummm... I don't think so, well... maybe it could be...    Silvey said he was pretty sure that was the name.

Since DSS couldn't answer the tough questions, Silvey tried to find some state agency who would admit to being the originator of the request to add the $50 M budget item and called for them, one agency at a time, from the crowded hearing room -- there were no takers.

It seems that supporting Obamacare Exchanges is out of vogue!

Silvey's final edict is that he will not even consider adding the grant money to the budget until the governor specifically makes a request for it.

I think the governor's too smart to do that, considering 71% of the voters rejected Obamacare.

What's more, after talking to them, I'm confident that key senators would kill anything that smells of Obamacare, so savvy members of the House won't want to take a political beating supporting a dead cause.

We've cut another head off the Hydra, but don't think for a minute it won't attack again.  We need to remain vigilant!

To the 405 of you who sent witness forms and made phone calls with only hours of notice -- THANK YOU!

Together, we're making a difference!

Specal thanks are due to:

Rep. Ryan Silvey
Rep. Mark Parkinson
Rep. Jeff Grisamore
Rep. Chris Kelly

For liberty,

Ron Calzone, director
Missouri First, Inc.

What is Mercantilism?

“Mercantilism, which reached its height in the Europe of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was a system of statism which employed economic fallacy to build up a structure of imperial state power, as well as special subsidy and monopolistic privilege to individuals or groups favored by the state.”

From “Conceived In Liberty” -- Murray N. Rothbard

More From
Frédéric Bastiat
https://bastiat.org

Free Audio Downloads
Bastiat, Locke, Rothbard, and more