Show Me Progress: How do you feel the session has been going? Representative Jill Schupp (D): Well, actually, this year’s session is a bit of a disappointment to me. Um, there are so many important things we need to be doing for Missourians, including creating jobs. And I haven’t seen really any bill come through that’s a job creating type of bill. Uh, that’s disappointing.
This session we are not funding higher education the way we need to be, we’re not funding elementary, uh, K through twelve education the way we need to be. Uh, we have a lot of problems in the State of Missouri we need to tackle and we are not tackling those tough issues. Show Me Progress: Uh, the, uh, the budget moved through the, uh, House yesterday. Uh, how do you feel about the, the general make up of the way things have gone? Representative Schupp: Well, once again, when we start off from a place where, uh, the majority party is not willing to consider revenue increases in a balance we start from a place where we’re gonna underfund a lot of important programs. And, in addition to that, I heard certain things on the floor yesterday that, to me, give me pause. Things like, well, I’m mad at this department, so I’m gonna take two hundred fifty thousand dollars out of their budget. You know, that’s, uh, that’s playground stuff. This is real money that matters to people. This is money that creates jobs and provides, uh, this, this happened to be with regard to some state employees, it provides employees who can help people of Missouri with their services. Uh, I think that when we do things for petty political reasons we’re not doing a service to the constituents of the State of Missouri. Show Me Progress: Now, has there been any consideration of anything on the revenue side. Uh, some discussions have been, uh, about Internet taxes or, uh, uh, things like, uh, reform of, uh, tax credits. Representative Schupp: Right. Well, as you know, many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have signed a no tax increase pledge. So something like the Main Street Fairness Act, which is so important to raise revenue in this state and to put us in line with all the surrounding states around us, to allow us to collect sales tax from Internet sales, uh, that’s already being paid; we’re just not collecting it here in Missouri. Uh, that’s off the table except in one kind of a version. And it’s a version that says, well, we’ll collect those, but then we’ll give corporate, uh, corporations a tax break instead of bringing that money into the budget so that we can, again, create jobs, fund higher education, fund public education, K through twelve, fund mental health and health services, fund things like Alzheimer’s, uh, uh, support for people who are, uh, caring for people with Alzheimer’s. Again, we have a lot of needs and we’re not willing to create this balance and raise some revenue.
You will hear from certain people that we need to balance our budget. That’s constitutional. At the end of the day, no matter what, we’re gonna have a balanced budget because we’re required to do that. So, raising revenue and adding to the programs that we have that we know are important to Missourians is really important to me. But, we have, we’re road blocked. Show Me Progress: When, when it comes to, um, higher education, where we are now, um, where we have been in the past, uh, what are the implications of, um, what happens to the higher education budget and, and the K through twelve education budget. Representative Schupp: Well, the K through twelve education budget there are certain bills that are, that are moving through the house and, and I don’t know exactly where they stand now, through the House and the Senate, we don’t know where they are, but basically, um, we’re gonna have to change the foundation formula because there is a budget shortfall in K through twelve education. So how we distribute money to, uh, the school districts, the five hundred twenty-four school districts throughout the state, will change and every district will receive less money. We just have to determine which districts receive greater percentage of, uh, uh, decrease in their funding. And, um, so that’s gonna move around but we have to change the foundation formula because we don’t have enough money to fulfill the promise that we made back when we put this foundation formula into place about seven years ago.
Uh, in terms of higher education I, I’ve just heard that, you know, I don’t know if we’ll be able to get back to the levels that we used to, uh, fund higher education at in today’s dollars for the next two decades. So, uh, if we aren’t able to do that then here’s what happens. Either we increase tuition, which keeps a lot of, uh, students from going to, to, from attending college or higher education, uh, uh, facilities and keeps them out of the job market because we know that what it takes to get a job in this kind of economy and in this kind of global economy is a good strong higher edu, a good strong education post high school. So, we’re just creating problems for ourselves that look like we’re saving money now, but that have terrible long term ramifications for the people of Missouri. Show Me Progress: All right. Thank you very much for your time. Representative Schupp: Thank you. I really appreciate it.
Representative Jill Schupp (D) in the House chamber.
Representative Jill Schupp (D) in the House chamber.