• Publications
    • Essay
    • Case Study
    • Policy Study
    • Report
    • Testimony
    • Other
    • Newsletter
  • Blog
    • Daily Blog
    • Podcasts and Radio
    • Video
    • Infographics
    • Commentary / Op-Eds
    • Events
  • Events
  • Donate
  • About
    • Our Team
    • Show-Me Institute Board of Directors
    • Fellows and Scholars
    • Our Authors
    • Jobs
  • Contact
  • Explore Topics
    • Education
      • Accountability
      • Education Finance
      • Performance
      • School Choice
    • Health Care
      • Free-Market Reform
      • Medicaid
    • Corporate Welfare
      • Special Taxing Districts
      • Subsidies
      • Tax Credits
    • Labor
      • Government Unions
      • Public Pensions
    • State and Local Government
      • Budget and Spending
      • Courts
      • Criminal Justice
      • Municipal Policy
      • Property Rights
      • Transparency
      • Transportation
    • Economy
      • Business Climate
      • Energy
      • Minimum Wage
      • Privatization
      • Regulation
      • Taxes
      • Welfare
      • Workforce
Show Me InstituteShow Me Institute
Show Me InstituteShow Me Institute
Support the Show-Me Institute
  • Publications
    • Essay
    • Case Study
    • Policy Study
    • Report
    • Testimony
    • Other
    • Newsletter
  • Blog
    • Daily Blog
    • Podcasts and Radio
    • Video
    • Infographics
    • Commentary / Op-Eds
    • Events
  • Events
  • Donate
  • About
    • Our Team
    • Show-Me Institute Board of Directors
    • Fellows and Scholars
    • Our Authors
    • Jobs
  • Contact
  • Explore Topics
    • Education
      • Accountability
      • Education Finance
      • Performance
      • School Choice
    • Health Care
      • Free-Market Reform
      • Medicaid
    • Corporate Welfare
      • Special Taxing Districts
      • Subsidies
      • Tax Credits
    • Labor
      • Government Unions
      • Public Pensions
    • State and Local Government
      • Budget and Spending
      • Courts
      • Criminal Justice
      • Municipal Policy
      • Property Rights
      • Transparency
      • Transportation
    • Economy
      • Business Climate
      • Energy
      • Minimum Wage
      • Privatization
      • Regulation
      • Taxes
      • Welfare
      • Workforce
State and Local Government / Budget and Spending

Marking-Up And The Funky Bunch

By Michael Rathbone on Feb 27, 2014

In last Saturday’s blog post regarding the disagreement between the Missouri governor and the legislature about state revenue estimates, I mentioned marking-up legislation. Marking-up basically means that members of a Missouri House committee are taking an introduced piece of legislation and amending it to fit their preferences (e.g., the Budget Committee and the Budget).

Usually, when crafting the budget, the House Budget Committee starts with the governor’s executive budget as introduced legislation. It then assigns these introduced bills to different appropriations committees depending on the department being funded. However, due to the disagreements about expected state revenues, the House is not doing that this year. Instead, the House is working off of last year’s budget and making changes based on that.

The House is doing this mainly for the sake of appearances. Representatives don’t want to be seen as cutting spending in popular areas such as education when compared to what the governor introduced in his budget. That’s understandable, but unnecessary. The House should fund education at the levels it believes are proper given the constraints that limited state revenues impose. If that happens to be less than what the governor suggests, then so be it. If it’s less than what was spent last year, that is fine as well. Don’t spend more just because you want to be seen as spending more.

The chairman of the House Budget Committee, Rep. Rick Stream, has asked appropriators to go line-by-line through the budget and find items to cut in order to free money for other, more important programs. The Show-Me Institute has highlighted several areas which appropriators could cut, such as ethanol subsidies. Hopefully, we can see some cuts to non-essential areas.

Creating a budget is arguably the most important task the legislature has every year. Being informed of how that process works is something worth knowing. The House really wants you to know that it plans to increase spending, just less than the governor does. Hopefully, representatives will get to a point where they can justify the spending levels they set, whether it is more or less than last year.

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Share
  • Email
  • Print
About the author

Michael Rathbone

More about this author >
    Footer Logo
    Support the Show-Me-Institute
    Showmeinstitute.org is brought to you by Show-Me Institute and Show-Me Opportunity.
    • Publications
    • Blog
    • Events
    • Donate
    • About
    • Contact

    Reprint permission for Show-Me Institute publications and commentaries is hereby granted, provided that proper credit is given to the author. We request, but do not require, that those who reprint our material notify us of publication for our records: [email protected]

    Mission Statement
    Advancing liberty with responsibility by promoting market solutions for Missouri public policy.

    © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved