Charlie Dooley, the incumbent, was defeated by his challenger, Steve Stenger, in the Democratic Party primary. The highlighted candidates will face each other in the general election.
Kirkwood, an upscale suburb of St. Louis, is not Tea Party territory. Most of the local Republicans would be offended to be represented by a class clown like Ed Martin. They’d prefer instead to have a class act, and they figure that their Republican rep, Rick Stream, is that. He showed tact and a gentle sense of humor when he opened the recent candidate forum with his opponent, Deb Lavender, with a compliment:
As Deb mentioned, she is a physical therapist, and several of my supporters have gone to her for help. And they say she’s good. So, one of my goals in winning this election is to keep Deb here a hundred percent of the time, so that she can continue to provide services to people who need them.
What a nice fella.
And reasonable, too. Someone not knowledgeable about the issues could have listened to the two of them at the forum and come away believing that their differences were not huge. ‘They’re both nice people with our interests at heart, I guess,’ this uninformed listener would think. ‘Stream says that he’s concerned about job growth. So does Lavender. No big difference there. And Stream agrees with Lavender that green jobs are a good thing–as long as those businesses pursue growth without depending on our limited government resources. That sounds reasonable.’
The Kirkwood state rep is, on the surface, pleasant and moderate, no nutcase like Ed Martin. After all, how threatening does tort reform sound or the idea of letting insurance companies operate across state lines? Our imaginary average Joe would be puzzled to be told that those are red herrings, not solutions.
Nor would Joe understand that Stream’s scientific sounding phrase, “market driven health care reform”, means, loosely translated, ‘let the insurance companies ride roughshod over us and drag the economy down with exorbitant premiums.’
But Joe, did you notice that Stream claimed that insurance companies make “very low” profits compared to corporations in other industries? Did you notice that many in the audience gasped and then laughed? That’s because they understand how greedy those health insurance companies are. Deb Lavender, on the other hand, said that insurance companies make the second highest profits, next to oil companies, of any industry in the country.
Here’s the bottom line about that exchange: Stream gives big business a pass. Lavender cares about what big business is doing to people.
In fact, as reasonable as Stream can make himself sound, he is worse than just a defender of corporate malfeasance; he is cold. Oh yes, sure, I heard him say Tuesday night that after we pay for education:
We need to take care of those that can’t help themselves–the mentally ill, the handicapped, the very very poor, mothers with young children–those are the people we should take care of first, and then work our way up the scale.
The Missouri Hospital Association is willing–nay, wanting–to give the state more than fourteen million dollars ($14,150,000 to be precise) to be used for health care for Missourians making less than half the poverty wage. That investment would bring in another $91.7 million in federal dollars–almost $104 million altogether. But the Republicans oppose giveaways to those church mice.
Although Stream doesn’t protect the poor, he does well at protecting his political career, even if that means being unscrupulous:
Stream is respected in his home town as a man of integrity. But he has allied himself with Jetton by hiring the Rodfather as a political consultant. Until Jetton hit the skids this year, he was at the center of dealings that worked like this: Jetton had most of the Republican leadership signed up as clients of his political consulting firm, Common Sense Conservative Consulting (CCC). That way, when supporters of an issue brought a bill forward, it would be defeated. But then those supporters would be encouraged to make sizable campaign contributions to the right Republicans (aka, Jetton clients) and bingo, the next year, that issue would pass.
It was pure sleaze. And anyone who wanted to be part of the inner circle in the House was expected to sign on. Stream signed on.
Lavender, on the other hand, promised Tuesday night to take no gifts, no meals, and no trips from lobbyists.
So, Mr. Average Joe, let me just point out that your supposedly even handed, high minded state rep wanted no cheese for those church mice, but he was knee deep in cheesy deals to help himself. I don’t care how gentlemanlike he appears. Actions speak louder than words.
At the town hall forum in Kirkwood last Thursday, the audience was more than polite to Republican Representative Rick Stream, vice-chair of the House Budget Committee. He was there to defend Republican budget cuts to an unsympathetic audience, but they were gracious. Three or four different people characterized him as a man of integrity, and no one even got near an insulting tone. Four panelists from different faith organizations spoke for five minutes each, appealing to his sympathies for the most vulnerable people in Missouri, those affected by the budget cuts. Their tone was deferential.
Politeness will get you only so far, however, when what you’re saying is beside the point, and as far as Stream was concerned, the speakers’ pleas were not germane to making a budget. They were only saying what he had already heard (too) many times. He, on the other hand, believes that hard headed fiscal policy is critical to good state government, and liberal sympathies don’t fit that mold. He told us that because Republicans cut 100,000 Missourians off Medicaid in 2005, the state is in better financial shape now than lots of other states. To his mind, you do what you have to do.
But Stream was not crass in his dismissal of the speakers. He was patient and courteous. He tried to make them understand that there are only so many cherries in the pie, no matter how many people want a bite of it.
And in fact, he maintains that Republicans are not guilty of “budget cuts.” He says they have increased funds for health care, the social services, and education. The Mental Health budget, for example, is up $9 million, from $1.159 billion to $1.168 billion. The Health and Senior Services budget is up $12 million, from $855 million to $867 million. And the Social Services budget has increased to $7.07 billion from $6.89 billion. He cited these figures in such a modulated accountant’s voice that it was well nigh impossible to disbelieve him.
And I don’t disbelieve him. I’m sure his figures were accurate. But there were some points he neglected to bring up. The rate of inflation is about 5 percent a year–and higher than that for Medicaid and some social services. But the percentage increases of the items he cited work out to be only:
up .78 percent for Mental Health funding.
up 1.4 percent for Health and Senior Services funding.
up 2.61 percent for Social Services funding.
Representative Stream sounded so trustworthy, even generous, when he cited all those increases. But he did glide right by the fact that the budgeted increases are staring at inflationary pressures from the bottom of a well. And we owe even those skimpy increases to reliance on federal funds and deep slashes to state funds, such as the cuts to Mental Health Services, affecting thousands of children and adults with severe mental illness or developmental disabilities.
The cuts to state funds in all three categories stacked up this way:
State Mental Health contributions went from $616.6 million (see HB 2010 pdf) to just shy of $582 million.
State Health and Senior Services funding went from $243.6 million (see HB 2010 pdf) to $238.3 million.
State Social Services funding went from $1.6 billion (see HB 2011 pdf) to $1.5 billion.
What can I say? Beware of Republicans bearing budgets. And such parsimony is unnecessary, what with federal stimulus funds for just such purposes on the way.
Tsk! Rap my fingers with a ruler for being so unfair. As Stream was quick to mention, nobody knows yet exactly how much federal funding we’re going to get, when we’re going to get it, what strings may be attached and when we’ll be allowed to use it. One cannot build a state budget on ifs and maybes. One needs the hard data.
But, as Ruth Ehresman of the Missouri Budget Project pointed out to me, legislators know that they will be getting in the neighborhood of $167 million in the next two years. The funds are to be used to “prevent cuts to critical services during an economic downturn when larger numbers of people are vulnerable, and to maintain and create jobs that will stimulate the economy.”
True, that promise is not the same as having the check in your account, but this is a budget not a bank register we’re dealing with. Say your company regularly does business with a reliable firm that is slated to pay you $120,000 by a certain date. You’d feel safe putting at least $90,000 of that in your budget. You wouldn’t call Laclede Gas and cancel your account–and all of your heat for next winter–because you didn’t have the $90 thou in hand. You’d budget on a reasonable expectation.
The word that’s been floating around–and take this for what it’s worth, but it is consistent with Republican ideology–is that budget chairman Allen Icet wants to use the stimulus money for tax rebates for everyone. Talk about surrendering hard headed fiscal policy in favor of being nice to people! As W discovered last year, tax rebates don’t stimulate much of anything.
Still, reasonable people might disagree about whether it makes more sense to help Missourians pay off their credit card debt or to prevent 70,000 of the most vulnerable from losing state services–like, say, the abused and neglected children of the state who’ve had $1.5 million cut from the funds that help them. But since our Republican budget-meisters pride themselves on being practical, here’s an unsentimental fact for their consideration: cutting services to 70,000 poor people also means cutting something like 3700 jobs at the clinics and offices that provide the aid. Most of those 3700 will then lose their health insurance, thus deepening the job losses in the health care industry in Missouri. Furthermore, cutting services to the 70,000 makes it less likely they’ll be healthy enough to work and contribute.
Pardon me for being a hard nosed pragmatist, but using that calculus, I think helping people pay off their credit card debt should come in second to helping the helpless.
Stream also used the “we didn’t have the details” defense when asked about why the committee did not increase Medicaid funding, considering that the Missouri Hospital Association is volunteering to raise its own tax rate. The additional millions the Association will contribute each year will draw down almost $93 million in federal funds, for a total of an additional $104 million in absolutely free Medicaid funding.
As I said earlier, this is a budget, not a bank register. The committee knew enough to include more Medicaid funding in the budget. Stream asserted that Nixon made the announcement about the Hospital Association’s offer without actually talking to Republican budget committee members. If so, that’s an oversight on Nixon’s part, but his lapse doesn’t excuse the committee’s stubbornness. I call it stubbornness because the Republicans have, with their shifting justifications, made it plain they don’t want to help people earning less than half the poverty level. When asked about the committee’s decision, Icet said nothing about not having the figures in hand yet. His excuse was that the state couldn’t assume those free funds would be there again next year. Actually, they almost surely will, but hey, if you fix someone’s broken wheelchair this year so that she can take care of herself, it might continue to function next year–so that she can continue taking care of herself, even without Medicaid, thus saving the state the expense of caring for her. (The only speaker that night who came even within shouting distance of being irate was the woman who described just such a case.)
But I can’t resist pointing out that Republicans could have spared themselves looking like skinflints if, when this story broke a week and a half ago, they had at least announced their willingness to accept the Hospital Association’s offer at a future date. And if they had considered raising taxes on wealthier Missourians rather than dumping Medicaid recipients down the cistern three years ago, our state would be just as solvent–more so, in fact, because we wouldn’t have had to forfeit $1.5 billion dollars in federal Medicaid funds. Keep in mind that turning down that 1.5 billion raised health insurance premiums for all of us, and that’s a back door tax, imposed by those who supposedly hate higher taxes. One way or another, Missourians were going to get taxed.
Aside from these practicalities, think of the religious implication for those Republicans who consider themselves devout: if they had helped the poor, their consciences would be more in line with Biblical admonitions to do so.
The audience members who praised Rick Stream’s integrity were quite possibly correct about that. I don’t presume to judge. But I challenge any of them to convince me that he and his party are hard nosed and sensible about budgeting. Fiscal restraint is good and necessary. I’m in favor of it. But fiscal parsimony in a deep recession is not only not humane, it’s not smart.
Last Tuesday evening, I tagged along as Dev Lavender, running for state rep in Kirkwood, H.D. 94, knocked on doors. We started at 5:00 on a hot, muggy evening–but with a breeze, thank goodness. As we drove to the spot where we met two other volunteers, Deb explained her concerns about finding spots on main thoroughfares for her yard signs. And she talked about the challenge of being a first time candidate and not knowing things that would be obvious to old pros. For example, she thought ordering yard signs a week and a half in advance would be plenty. No-o-o. She should have ordered them at least three weeks before she needed them.
We set off with the VAN list, skipping the houses that had been identified as strong Republicans. Most people didn’t greet us like company they’d been expecting, but more like we might turn out to be Jehovah’s Witnesses–and we were guilty until proven innocent of that charge. Most of them eased up a little once they realized we weren’t proselytizing (well, not proselytizing for Jesus anyway), but we still weren’t the company they’d been expecting.
Their coolness is so understandable, and it’s no predictor of what will happen in the conversation. One man stood on the sidewalk, holding his cig till it died but not inhaling–considerate of him, I thought. He was a yellow dog Democrat and liked to talk about his experiences. He talked for ten minutes or so, then he told us to be sure to visit with Julia, two doors up. “Now she might not answer, cause she’s blind, and if Bill ain’t home, she might not feel comfortable. But he usually gets home around this time. He’s still workin’ at 72. Me, I got outta Chrysler when I couldn’t take them bosses no more.”
Two doors up, Bill answered, came outside, listened to Deb’s pitch without much expression one way or another. Then Deb mentioned that his neighbor had told us about his wife’s vision problems and asked if she was home. Bill invited us in. We weren’t expecting that.
I made over their two Maine Coon cats–what beauties!–while Deb and Julia got acquainted. Turns out that Julia was the first woman in Kirkwood to run for the City Council. This was back in the seventies. She lost that race, but Marge Schramm, who ran for mayor in the eighties and won, said that Julia had broken ground for female candidates in Kirkwood. Before Julia retired, she ran non-profits, and in fact at one time headed an organization with 6,000 volunteers to oversee.
Deb invited her to help with her campaign, but Julia said, “I can’t see anything.” Deb’s response was that her experience would be very valuable, and I chimed in that Julia would have told her to order those yard signs earlier than she had.
Julia wasn’t interested in working on the campaign, though. On the other hand, she did offer to put up a yard sign for Deb. Julia and Bill are on Geyer Road, a major thoroughfare in Kirkwood–AND right across from a polling place. A plum location.
That, as it turned out, was the house of the night. We soldiered on.
One young mother opened her apartment door with a sweet smile. Deb gave her the opening patter: “Hi, I’m Deb Lavender, and I’m running for state rep. I’m getting out and meeting the neighbors. Do you vote Democratic, Republican … or it depends?” The young woman’s smile broadened: “I work for the Republican Party.” Anyone who’s ever used a VAN list knows they’re not perfect. Deb returned her smile and said that the lady probably wouldn’t be voting for her, then. She shrugged. “They pay my bills, and I don’t bite the hand that feeds me.”
Another man listened to Deb’s intro, took the literature, told her that he was a Democrat and that he’d vote for her. And stopped short of saying, “Now that’s all I want to hear. You can go away.” But we got the idea and left him to his life.
Deb is running against an incumbent, Rick Stream , who is more conservative than most Kirkwood voters. He is pro-voucher in a school district that places high value on its schools, anti-stem cell research, anti-choice, pro-death penalty, and pro-abstinence only sex education.
Deb mentioned none of that at the doors, however, unless someone asked, preferring to focus on her passion, as a physical therapist and a small business owner, for health care reform. I’ll have more to say tomorrow about her conversations with constituents about health care, as well as about her belief that legislators should quit bickering and start looking for common ground.
