[Missouri-l] [Education and Welfare] House Budget Chair Argues With Those Who ' Buy Ink By The Barrel'

[dauidr at juno.com]

I have a real novel suggestion here. First, so we can avoid pockshots at REp. Silvey, let's focus on the vast ocean of REpresentatives. I know that the media wants to demonize Rep. Silvey. Yet, a more constructive constructive approach is concentrating on all the Representatives. I think Chris Gray's letter is better worded than the media's latest attack against Rep. Silvey and his character.

SEcondly, REp. Silvey himself is not going to make a cut happen or not happen.
Let's look at it in terms of basketball. A star player can get his scoring average. But, if the opposing team's defense shuts down the rest of the folks on the court, that star player wil wind up on th elosing team.
So, here, let's focus on getting the majority of votes instead of aiming unnecessary rhetoric at REp. Silvey, who is other a great representative and will make an even better MO Senator.
David Rosenkoetter
Kansas City, MO

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House Budget Chair Argues With Those Who 'Buy Ink By The Barrel'

By: 

Dick Aldrich - Missouri News Horizon

Updated: March 15, 2012

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo.--

Nobody knows who said it first, but there's an old adage in politics that
goes, "never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel."

 

State Rep. Ryan Silvey doesn't want to argue with newspaper publishers, he
just wants to take away the tax exemption on the ink they buy.

 

It's all part of the argument over how much the state should be helping out
the state's institutions of higher education. 

 

Gov. Jay Nixon cut more than $100 million from them in his version of the
state budget, then said he would support the restoration of $40 million of
that

money, given to the state in the nationwide mortgage settlement.

 

Silvey, the House Budget Committee chairman, wants to go the extra mile and
restore all higher education funding.

 

As he and other house budget writers cobbled money together from various
funds, they found a $28 million program that provides medical services for
blind

people who make too much money to qualify for Medicaid.

 

The move sounded a little bit hasty to many members of the committee,
including budget hawk and veteran budget architect Rep. Chris Kelly,
D-Columbia.

 

 

While saying the program needed looking into and a means test was necessary,
he said the cut went too far. 

 

Kelly proposed taking $2 million from the Department of Economic Development
and plugging it back into the program.

 

Silvey also chipped in. He sponsors a bill, 

House Bill 1835,

which would do away with the state and local sales tax exemption on
equipment and supplies bought by newspapers. Silvey said that would free up
$4 million

that could go back into fund for blind medical services.

 

"We have a special tax exemption for the newspaper industry," said Silvey in
a news conference following his committee's final meeting on the state
budget.

"The newspaper industry has been particularly vocal about the need to end
corporate welfare...and I figured they should be the first in line."

 

Let the ink slinging begin.

 

"I can't characterize the tax exemption as corporate welfare," said Doug
Crews, executive director of the Missouri Press Association. "We're not
doing

anything that any other industry in Missouri isn't doing."

 

Newspaper publishers collect and turn over to the state sales taxes on
newspaper subscriptions and single copies. 

 

Since a 1989 Missouri Supreme Court case that ruled newspapers were a
manufacturing industry and therefore eligible for the state's tax exemption
on sales

tax when buying equipment for the industry, such as printing presses, ink
and other manufacturing materials.

 

In 1998, the state legislature expanded the list of materials newspapers
could purchase without having a sales tax, spelling out specifically items
such

as computers, toner, film and other materials used in the publishing of a
newspaper.

 

"The state can't have it both ways," said Crews. "We can't be taxed on our
input and our output."

 

Crews said if Silvey's legislation would go through the legislature, many
newspapers would be irreparably harmed.

 

"We are many small businesses," said Crews. "We have anywhere from 250 to
260 newspapers in the state and the vast majority of them employ very small
staffs,

anywhere from five to ten, all the way down to one. 

 

And then there are the major metropolitan newspapers that employ hundreds of
people. People that work in the pressrooms, people that sell advertising,

people that throw the newspapers in your yards. Many people around the state
depend on newspapers for their livelihoods."

 

Crews said he's not sure of the fate of Silvey's bill. It hasn't yet
received a hearing in a legislative committee. 

 

In the Senate, most members say the idea of cutting the blind medical
program out of the budget is not going to happen, so all of this may be much
ado

about nothing. Still, Crews said he remains vigilant as the newspapers' main
lobbyist at the State Capitol.

 

It's possible that Silvey has proposed his bill, and indeed pushed the blind
medical services cut, to bring the issue of funding for higher education
into

the public spotlight. 

 

Indeed, when Nixon appeared at a rally for the medical services restoration
in Columbia on Tuesday, Silvey issued a press statement, saying he had
written

the governor a letter inviting him to sit down and talk about higher
education funding. 

 

In the meantime, Crews said his members are caught in the middle. 

"We have nothing against the blind getting their services, but we're
watching out for our industry," said Crews. 

 

 

____________________________________________________________________________
_

Denny Huff- President

Missouri Council of the Blind

P: (636) 262-1383

TF: (888) 362-1383

F: (314) 558-0298

Phone Cast: (816) 298-8969

 

DHuff at MoBlind.Org

www.moblind.org

The purpose of Missouri Council of the Blind shall be to promote the general
well-being of our members and legally blind people in Missouri, and to
support

or participate in other programs promoting the best interests of legally
blind people everywhere.

 

 

ENCOURAGEMENT FOR THE JOURNEY

Your host: Denny Huff

Listen live,

SUNDAY MORNINGS AT 8:00 AM CST

WWW.KLPW.COM

 

 

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