Thursday, March 22, 2007

Blunt Bullets


  • Governor Matt Blunt signed a supplemental budget bill today to fund a potpourri of projects, including education, ethanol and agriculture. House Bill 14 authorizes a $122 million dollar supplemental appropriation for the 2007 fiscal year. $38.7 million goes to public schools. $8.7 million goes to antivirals in the event of a flu pandemic. $5.1 million goes to ethanol.
  • The Governor also signed legislation allowing statewide cable franchise agreements, that supporters say will increase competition for consumers. Under current state law cable companies must work with each individual municipality to provide service in the area. The new bill simplifies the process by allowing companies to work directly with the Missouri Public Service Commission to enter several local markets at one time without going through each individual city. Look for AT&T to try to compete with Mediacom here as a result.
  • Gov. Blunt will also sit on a national panel to improve healthcare nationwide. His office announced he will sit on the National Governors Association new Health Care Working Group. The group was established to develop a report recommending federal action.
  • The Governor has also directed the Missouri Task Force on Children's Justice review the state's progress on the "Dominic James Foster Care Reform Act of 2004." He wants recommendations and areas of improvement from the panel by the end of September.
  • Blunt will be in Springfield tomorrow and headline an event at Missouri State University at 9 a.m. to highlight his plan to provide more scholarships to schools.

(Photo Credit: Doug Magditch, KY3)

2 comments:

KateBristow41 said...

Is this Blunt's campaign site? This looks like it was taken directly from a press release. Dave, you are better than this. How about some reporting....

David Catanese said...

Ouch Kate! Reporting is what I do all day, for my TV job. It has to be my first priority. Every free moment not working on my usual dayturn is spent on the blog. And the blogging is something I thoroughly enjoy. Sometimes it involves new, fresh, original reporting and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it's about linking you to other great reporting. Sometimes it's to convey info. from a press release. But that's the point of a blog. The idea is to get you more non-stop, up-to-date political information than you'd ever get in our half hour broadcast at 10 p.m. I don't publish every release, but if I think the information is pertinent or interesting, I pass it along to you. You can decide if it's worth your while or not. And apparently you did. And that's the beauty of the blog!