The Kansas City Star, April 13
Missouri Senate budget plan a crisis in the making for the poor:
Once again, politicians in Jefferson City are trying to score political points by targeting the poor.
Ignoring an optimistic revenue picture, the Missouri Senate last week passed a budget that singles out social services for dangerous and unnecessary cuts.
“I’m adamant in the fact that we’re going to rein in welfare growth,” declared state Sen. Kurt Schaefer of Columbia, the architect of a plan to cut funding to the departments of social services, mental health and health and senior services.
Schaefer’s actions in office are all geared to promoting his 2016 run for attorney general. And rhetoric about getting tough on “welfare” would no doubt resonate on the campaign trail. But his proposals amount to a callous attack on low-income senior citizens, foster children, Missourians with disabilities and people with mental illnesses.
They also are puzzling from a political standpoint. The legislature has taken extreme measures to wrest control over spending from Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon. Now, Schaefer and other Republicans are proposing to give the governor more authority than ever over how money is spent - albeit less money.
Instead of allocating money for specific programs, the legislature would give money to the departments in the form of block grants. Together, the three departments would lose $130 million. But because state monies are needed to draw down federal funds for some of the programs, the total loss would be closer to $300 million, officials said.
Services that could be affected include funding for foster care families, support for Missourians with disabilities, energy assistance for low-income families and treatment for abused and neglected children.
There are a host of reasons for the legislature to deep-six this plan. Among them:
- Contrary to Schaefer’s assertions that the three targeted departments are flush with money, all three have already cut their operations drastically. The Department of Mental Health, for instance, has absorbed almost $30 million in budget cuts over the last five years.
Cuts to the Department of Social Services have contributed to bureaucratic chaos and a near-breakdown in the processing of applications for Medicaid, food stamps and child care subsidies. In one month in 2014, the department logged 250,000 calls for assistance, and 150,000 of them disconnected because the wait was so long. People have reported filling out applications and receiving no response.
Delays like this leave people without needed medical care or food assistance in times of need. Working parents may have to patch together unsafe child care arrangements. The department is working on the problems and says it is making progress. Further budget cuts will only set back those efforts.
- Missouri continues to refuse to expand Medicaid eligibility, thereby turning away millions in federal dollars that could be used to serve mentally ill individuals and other low-income populations. If Schaefer and others really want to reduce the state’s responsibility for “welfare” costs, they would expand the limits and take advantage of federal funds to pay most of the cost.
The proposed cuts, coming on top of the stalemate on Medicaid expansion, reveal the Republican majority’s disregard for low-income working families.
- The legislature has done nothing again this session to rein in Missouri’s most insidious form of welfare - the more than half a billion dollars a year that the state forfeits with its runaway tax credit programs.
Tax credits allow recipients to keep tax revenues they would normally return to the state. The programs have become a favorite way for the legislature to award favors. And unlike the money the state spends to protect children, help developmentally disabled citizens lead productive lives and provide summer jobs for low-income teenagers, tax credit programs aren’t subject to annual legislative review or restraint.
Lawmakers know they should curb the unending giveaways to the powerful, but they haven’t mustered the political will.
Instead, they are targeting people who are in no position to protest - like children, elderly Missourians and people struggling with developmental disabilities and mental illness.
These people need and deserve competent and compassionate treatment from their state government. The plan from the Missouri Senate aims to replace that with callous contempt.
___
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 9
Too many black men sent to death by white juries:
The Missouri Supreme Court’s decision Wednesday to stay the execution of Kimber Edwards gives hope to those seeking an investigation into the exclusion of black jurors from St. Louis County death penalty cases.
The court did not explain why it made the move. But questions recently have been raised as to why three African-American panelists were removed from the jury pool in Edwards’ trial. Similar questions have been raised in the case of Andre Cole, 52, of Normandy, sentenced to death in 2001 for the 1998 butcher knife murder of his ex-wife’s boyfriend.
Because Cole faces lethal injection next Tuesday, four weeks before the May 12 execution date the court postponed for Edwards, 51, it may be that the court’s decision had more to do with accommodating lawyers than with the exclusion of black jurors. Edwards’ lawyers had objected to the May 12 date saying their schedules would make it difficult for them to mount timely appeals. Edwards was convicted in 2002 of first-degree murder in the pay-for-hire slaying of his ex-wife, Kimberly Cantrell, 35, of University City.
A letter signed by dozens of elected officials, attorneys and death penalty opponents was sent recently to Gov. Jay Nixon asking him to convene a Board of Inquiry to examine the exclusion of African-Americans from juries in St. Louis County death penalty cases.
The letter specifically asked the governor to stay the executions of Edwards and Cole, both of whom are black and both of whom were sentenced to death by all-white juries.
Mr. Nixon’s office said he had received the letter but did not comment further.
The letter says that a St. Louis County prosecutor in Edwards’ case removed a black panelist from the jury pool fearing he would be anti-law enforcement because police had treated his niece unfairly. But the prosecutor kept a white juror whose nephew was in prison for burglary and who complained about the harshness of the criminal justice system.
Prosecutors used what is known as the “postman gambit” - in which postal workers are routinely stricken from juries - to strike another black person from the jury pool, according to the letter.
There is no comprehensive data on how often African-American defendants have been sentenced to die by all-white or predominantly white juries in St. Louis County. The Post-Dispatch’s Alex Stuckey reported last week that Joe Luby, an attorney for Cole, compiled information at the request of the Post-Dispatch on six of the seven black men from St. Louis County currently scheduled to be executed.
That information showed that one of the men had four black jurors and the rest had fewer. In the Cole case, where his divorce had been an issue in the killing, prosecutors eliminated a black juror for being divorced but kept a white juror who had the same background. A black alternate juror said in an affidavit that other jurors had made racist comments about Cole in her presence.
Neither state nor federal laws guarantee a racially balanced jury. But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1986 that it is unconstitutional for prosecutors to strike a potential juror on the basis of race, ethnicity or gender but allowed jurors to be dismissed for such reasons as their attitude toward the death penalty or their demeanor.
Prosecutors often use these reasons as pretexts to eliminate blacks from juries. Missouri courts have found that county prosecutors excluded black jurors because of race five times since 2002, although Mr. Luby said it happens more often but is difficult to prove.
In January 2014, Herbert Smulls, 56, was executed for the fatal shooting of a jewelry store owner in a 1991 robbery. A mistrial was declared in his case in 1992, when he faced a panel of black and white jurors. Four months later, a new all-white jury in St. Louis County sentenced him to death for the crime.
Last November, in a similar case from Jackson County, Leon Taylor, 56, was executed for a 1994 killing during an armed robbery. He was convicted by a jury of eight whites and four blacks. When the jury couldn’t agree on punishment, the trial judge sentenced Taylor to death. The state Supreme Court, for reasons unrelated to the jury composition, ordered a new sentencing phase. Prosecutors used six of their nine peremptory challenges to strike six black potential black jurors. The new all-white panel sentenced Taylor to death.
This is a very disturbing pattern, particularly now that Missouri’s sorry record of racial intolerance has been revealed to the world, along with its flawed, desperately eager protocols for putting the condemned to death.
In 2012, the American Bar Association issued an exhaustive study into Missouri’s application of death penalty statutes. The 400-page report by a bipartisan panel of lawyers, judges, prosecutors and law professors, support the concerns of death penalty opponents, including this editorial page. Among key findings it showed that evidence rules are inadequate, that there is a lack of stringent protocol on witness identification and that the state’s woefully underfunded public defender system - 49th in the country - limits the effectiveness of counsel.
The racial composition of juries and their impact on the death penalty was not among the key findings in the report. Still there are significant questions, particularly related to juror exclusions in St. Louis County. At the very least, the court should place a moratorium on executions pending a Board of Inquiry. The court should stay the Cole execution immediately.
Staci Pratt, state coordinator for Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said the Department of Justice report on Ferguson is a “wake-up call in the state” regarding racial justice. The report found that African-Americans account for 90 percent of citations and 93 percent of arrests made by Ferguson police, but make up only 67 percent of the city’s population.
Prosecutors often use these reasons as pretexts to eliminate blacks from juries. Missouri courts have found that county prosecutors excluded black jurors because of race five times since 2002, although Mr. Luby said it happens more often but is difficult to prove.
In January 2014, Herbert Smulls, 56, was executed for the fatal shooting of a jewelry store owner in a 1991 robbery. A mistrial was declared in his case in 1992, when he faced a panel of black and white jurors. Four months later, a new all-white jury in St. Louis County sentenced him to death for the crime.
Last November, in a similar case from Jackson County, Leon Taylor, 56, was executed for a 1994 killing during an armed robbery. He was convicted by a jury of eight whites and four blacks. When the jury couldn’t agree on punishment, the trial judge sentenced Taylor to death. The state Supreme Court, for reasons unrelated to the jury composition, ordered a new sentencing phase. Prosecutors used six of their nine peremptory challenges to strike six black potential black jurors. The new all-white panel sentenced Taylor to death.
This is a very disturbing pattern, particularly now that Missouri’s sorry record of racial intolerance has been revealed to the world, along with its flawed, desperately eager protocols for putting the condemned to death.
In 2012, the American Bar Association issued an exhaustive study into Missouri’s application of death penalty statutes. The 400-page report by a bipartisan panel of lawyers, judges, prosecutors and law professors, support the concerns of death penalty opponents, including this editorial page. Among key findings it showed that evidence rules are inadequate, that there is a lack of stringent protocol on witness identification and that the state’s woefully underfunded public defender system - 49th in the country - limits the effectiveness of counsel.
The racial composition of juries and their impact on the death penalty was not among the key findings in the report. Still there are significant questions, particularly related to juror exclusions in St. Louis County. At the very least, the court should place a moratorium on executions pending a Board of Inquiry. The court should stay the Cole execution immediately.
Staci Pratt, state coordinator for Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said the Department of Justice report on Ferguson is a “wake-up call in the state” regarding racial justice. The report found that African-Americans account for 90 percent of citations and 93 percent of arrests made by Ferguson police, but make up only 67 percent of the city’s population.
___
Joplin Globe, April 10
Emphasis on making children safer in storms:
It’s hard to remain calm in the face of a storm when you realize that the Weather Channel’s Mike Bettes is reporting about storm outbreaks from Joplin’s Cunningham Park.
A number of residents pointed out his presence to us on Wednesday night. Some even rushed out to have their photos taken with the meteorologist and storm chaser.
Yes, tornado season is here, and when Joplin appears to be in the path of rocky weather, we attract attention. Our EF-5 is still one for the record books.
We have every reason to fear tornadoes. That fear is not irrational by any means.
Yet that fear is likely what has propelled us forward so that our area is far safer than it was almost four years ago. At that time, about 80 percent of the homes hit on May 22, 2011, were without basements or shelters.
What we have noticed since is that we have rightfully focused our concerns on making sure that our children are safer.
Consider that when our local school districts’ current and proposed construction projects are completed, more than 40,000 students, staff and community members across Southwest Missouri and Southeast Kansas will have a safe place available during severe weather. That’s according to our analysis based on projected maximum occupancy rates of the shelters.
In a story on today’s front page, reporter Andra Bryan Stefanoni helps answer questions parents may have about policies in place to protect their students while they participate in extracurricular activities.
Her story references a report from the National Weather Service radar station in Springfield. It typically issues between 200 and 400 severe thunderstorm warnings each year. Sometimes there are more than 100 tornado warnings a year for Southwest Missouri and far Southeast Kansas.
Parents need to talk with their children about the realities of tornado season. But they need not unnecessarily frighten their kids. Put a plan in place at your home. Know where your children will go to seek shelter when they are at school. Find out what they would do if they were participating in an after-school activity.
Stay calm, and most of all, stay safe.
___
St. Joseph News-Press, April 10
Maximize tax collections:
If you pay your bills in full and on time, it’s tough to get your brain wrapped around “tax amnesty.”
We never would favor simply forgiving taxes owed by a select group of people. This would create great unfairness for those who sacrificed to make their payments as the law requires.
We’re also not fans of amnesty programs that require payment of tax debts but waive interest and penalties, because we know other people have had to pay interest and penalties.
But government should do everything it can to maximize collection of taxes that are legally due. If offering a limited amnesty program once a decade helps, we think it has to be considered.
The General Assembly has sent Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon a proposal to offer amnesty to delinquent taxpayers owing income, sales or use taxes. The program would allow participants to escape interest and penalties if they pay their outstanding debts in full from Sept. 1 to Nov. 30.
These taxpayers would be required to comply with state tax laws for eight years or the interest and penalties would be reinstated. They would not be eligible again for amnesty for the same tax.
Proponents hope the state can bring in $60 million in additional revenue in the next budget year, including an estimated $20 million that otherwise never would have been collected. That is not a number that can be ignored.
According to The Associated Press, a similar amnesty program during the 2002 budget year brought in $74 million. One the following the year generated $42 million. In recent years, such proposals have stalled in the legislature, often due to the fairness concern.
This year’s proposal passed with a stipulation offered by state Sen. Dr. Rob Schaaf, a St. Joseph Republican, requiring the new receipts be spent for an expansion of dental care for adults on Medicaid.
This does not trouble us, as long as the money is put to good use. What would concern us is leaving $20 million uncollected and expecting the rest of us to make up the difference.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.