Susan Pendergrass speaks with Josh Bandoch, author of “How to Get What You Want: Mastering the Art and Science of Persuasion,” about why leading with data and logic is often the wrong approach to changing minds. Drawing on more than a decade of research across psychology, neuroscience, economics, and political science, and experience writing speeches for senior government officials and advising executives, Bandoch explains how the human brain feels before it reasons, why persuasion is about shared action rather than winning, and what policy advocates get wrong when trying to move legislators. They also discuss the Granny Test, how to frame arguments around your audience’s moral values, the role of storytelling, and more.

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 Episode Transcript

Susan Pendergrass (00:00): So excited today to talk to Josh Bandoch, author of the soon to be out — or maybe by the time this airs, out — book “How to Get What You Want: Mastering the Art and Science of Persuasion.” I want to say it correctly, which is awesome. I was thinking about this topic — we were talking about this a little bit before we started recording — because we’re both right in the middle of legislative sessions. And in addition to being an author, you work in the policy advocacy space. Is this book meant to sort of address that space, or is it for a more general audience? Because we all want to get what we want, right?

Josh Bandoch (00:37): Absolutely. The book is written for a general audience. It will help folks in the policy space, but also in business, sales, or marketing. The goal of the book is to help people get what they want through persuasion. And for me, persuasion is the difference between having a good idea — whether it’s a good policy idea or a good product idea — and having others embrace that idea.

Susan Pendergrass (01:02): Yeah, I think that’s so important because oftentimes — well, speaking for myself — I come up with policy ideas that I think are great ideas, but I come from data, evidence, research. Let me write a 20-page paper on it and do a statistical model to convince you. And I think that based on what I’ve read in your book, you would say that might not be my strongest approach.

Josh Bandoch (01:24): Well, those things are necessary. Data is necessary, and folks who work at think tanks are paid to do research. I work at a think tank — the Platte Institute — and that is what we’re paid to do. But when I think about persuasion, I start by trying to understand the contours of how the human brain actually operates.

The challenging reality for a lot of folks in the think tank space who are paid to think — maybe you’re a consultant or whatever — is that since we’re paid to think, we think that means logic, data, and reasoning are the way to get what we want. The most challenging reality I’ve encountered is that this is how the human brain is wired — not just my brain or your brain, Susan, but all 8 billion of us on this planet. We feel first, then reason. Sometimes it’s feel, and we never even get to the reasoning. We’ve all been there. That means persuasion actually starts with feelings.

I know the folks in your audience who love the work you do — and you guys do great work — and love the research are going to say, no, that can’t be true. Well, it’s what all the neuroscience says. So it actually means that the logic-first approach to persuasion, whether in policy and think tank land or in sales or anything, is actually illogical — because that’s not how the brain works. The brain works feel first, then reason. We do reason. It’s just that we have to start with feelings.

Susan Pendergrass (03:06): So give me an example. We’ve been working for several years on a policy in Missouri that would allow parents to choose where their kids go to public school — just public school, open enrollment. And we get so much pushback from legislators and others who say this is going to lead to basically the destruction of the public education system. That’s their feeling. And I can provide a lot of evidence from other states that have done it for decades — even our neighbors in Kansas, not so much Illinois — and say it hasn’t happened, but they still believe it. I feel like I can’t put the words in the right order to make them understand what I’m trying to do. So what do I need to do differently?

Josh Bandoch (03:47): Yeah, so there are two parts here. First, you just observe what somebody’s feeling. Because if somebody’s feeling great and they’re inclined to do what you want to do, it’s easy, right? In this case — this is a perfect example — they have negative feelings towards the policy you want to advance. So the first thing you have to do is observe, understand, and address those feelings directly. When you’re in these conversations, what is an example of a raw, visceral negative feeling that somebody expresses?

Susan Pendergrass (04:19): They’ll say in our small rural communities, the high school is the center of it — it’s the heart and soul of the community. And if we let kids out — even though it’s the heart and soul — they’ll all want to leave. And if that happens, not only will the school close, but that will kill the community. That’s what they believe. It’s not reality, but I struggle when I go to testify at a legislative hearing to not sound like I’m just putting facts in front of them and ignoring what they feel. I don’t know how to counter that with reassurance and say, that’s just not true.

Josh Bandoch (05:09): So let me briefly walk you through the process so your audience can follow along. Start with feelings — and what you have to do is generate persuasive feelings. What feelings are persuasive? Ultimately, I think it’s positive feelings. Every time I ask an audience who the most persuasive people they can think of are, a couple of people come to mind: Ronald Reagan, Martin Luther King Jr., JFK. They generated positive feelings. And you do that especially by appealing to your audience’s moral values, which in this case might be different from yours. And then the most effective way to wrap it all up is a story.

So how do you start this process? When you’re talking to folks in the community, or to lawmakers, or to local elected officials who you’d like to see change their stance, start by asking them how they feel. It just unlocks a totally different pathway in the brain.

Susan Pendergrass (06:05): But when you’re saying this — and when I was looking through your book — I was wondering: in today’s political environment, I feel like persuasion is being used a lot less, and people are just making statements and not really defending them, just saying that’s the fact because I said it. Especially with how vitriolic our politics has become in the last decade since you started this research, do you think there’s still a good solid place for the art of persuasion? Or are we just going to stand with our arms crossed and agree to disagree?

Josh Bandoch (06:35): So at one level, the answer is absolutely yes, because humans haven’t evolved radically over the last 10 years. Everything in the book is backed by a tremendous amount of research, largely based on how the human brain works, and then lots of practice. At another level, we do have real reason to be concerned, which is what you just pointed to — is persuasion still possible in today’s political environment?

Look, there are only two paths forward. One is that we continue to relish in all the negativity, toxicity, and polarization, or we step back from it. I don’t think, aside from a couple of folks who spend their lives on X, that anybody is really going to say our politics are healthy. So it’s incumbent on us to have better methods to walk back from that, as opposed to just running down that toxic lane even further.

Susan Pendergrass (07:41): So in addition to what happens in state and federal legislative bodies, where I spend a lot of my brain power, how does somebody take the principles of your book and apply them in their personal life? Is this about manifesting goals, or how do they apply those same principles?

Josh Bandoch (08:00): Well, maybe I can sketch out briefly what some of the principles are so we can talk about them. The first step for persuasion — well, I guess two things. One is understanding what persuasion actually is, and I think even this is a mindset issue. We oftentimes think persuasion is about winning. And Susan, if I win against you, what does that make you?

Susan Pendergrass (08:17): A loser.

Josh Bandoch (08:18): That’s terrible, right? You’re a loser and you don’t want to work with me. So persuasion isn’t about winning. It’s not just about launching your logic at people — we’ve discussed that already. It’s not simply about convincing somebody. The Latin root of the word “convince” means to vanquish or to conquer, and conquest is barbaric. So what is persuasion? It’s about shared action — something we voluntarily do with others. That’s the shared part, and it’s action — it’s about getting things done. That’s already a much different understanding of persuasion.

When you bring that approach to your personal and professional endeavors, it’s different because you’re really trying to work with people and figure out how to move forward together. The first step of persuasion for me is adopting what I call the persuader’s mindset — it’s about them, not you. That’s why when we talked about school choice in the community, it’s like, okay, what are their concerns? Take their concerns seriously. That applies in your personal life too — maybe you’re having a debate at home with your spouse or a friend or a child. You have to understand who they are and what they care about, and to the extent possible, proceed on their grounds, because they’re much more comfortable there. This applies to any situation you’re in, no matter what it is.

Susan Pendergrass (09:32): That’s awesome. And you mentioned professionally — sales. I feel like there are a lot of books on how to sell. How does your book differentiate from what’s come before?

Josh Bandoch (09:47): Well, a lot of folks — keeping it in the policy space — are trying to corner people into saying yes to something they otherwise wouldn’t say yes to. What I’m really trying to understand is what would motivate and excite somebody to work with me on something. And that requires generating the positive feelings I talked about, appealing to their morals, telling great stories, and some of the other things I get into in the book. But those are some of the big ones. And it all has to happen simply.

Susan Pendergrass (10:31): In a simple way, right? I’m not going to hold this against you, but I am a grandmother. And I did see the Granny Principle in the book — so explain what that is, because I want to remind myself of this principle a lot. I have a PhD in public policy. I’ve put a lot of years into studying what’s good and bad public policy. And every single year in the halls of Jefferson City, I just see bad public policy happen in the hallway. They’ll say, well, we’ll just give that part up and add this part. And I’m like, no, no, no — you basically just blew up the quality of what you were trying to do. And I see that if I’m coming from up here and things are happening on a completely different level, I’m spinning my wheels. I’m not furthering my goals of getting good public policy passed — which I believe, no matter who’s in the governor’s mansion or the White House, good policy is good policy. And I struggle to make it happen in Missouri. I think the Granny Principle could be part of my problem, so would you please explain what that is?

Josh Bandoch (11:32): Totally. The last chapter of the book — in some ways the least exciting but the most important — is called “Ace the Granny Test.” And what’s the Granny Test? Would your granny understand what you’re saying? You assume granny is a smart lady who is not an expert in any particular thing. So you have to explain things with clarity, simplicity, and precision.

One of the troubles we encounter in think tank land is that we love to dump tons of data and logic and reasoning and examples on people, and it’s overwhelming. We also encounter the curse of knowledge — we know so much that we kind of assume our audience does too. And we oftentimes think, well, they just don’t understand me, that’s their fault and their problem. No, no, no, no. It’s your fault and your problem, because they don’t understand you and they just move on with life.

When you talk to an elected official, you have about 60 seconds to capture their attention. Maximum. So if you’re not crystal clear and simple in how you explain things, they say in that typical apologetic way, well, thank you so much, I’ll take that into account — and then they move on. Clarity and simplicity are premium virtues in communications, and they require a lot of hard work to achieve. Can you distill your 30-page white paper into 30 seconds?

Susan Pendergrass (13:01): Yeah. I’m trying to do cards now — the most simple four-by-six with colors. And in their defense, I’m not coming down hard on legislators — they’re not specialists, they’re generalists. It might be education committee and transportation committee and appropriations, whatever. They have to know a lot of different areas, and even though Missouri and Illinois have long sessions — like five or six months a year — they have other lives much of the time. It is hard for them to grasp things in a short amount of time. I’ve had some back and forth with my colleagues who say we should still write high-level academic papers. I’m like, I’m doing four-by-six cards now. I’m sure there’s a middle ground there, but it’s hard to find.

Josh Bandoch (13:59): Well, the four-by-six is a great place to start. What’s your thesis? What are you trying to say? Can you get that into one sentence? Do you have a couple of key points you’d like to make? But then how do you turn that into something compelling? I would say you do at least one of two things. Ideally, you would have a story. If you’ve got 30 seconds to pitch school choice, you might start by saying, let me tell you a story about little Bobby or little Sally — this is what it meant to him, he was here and now he’s here — and you condense that story. Or you make a moral claim that’s going to grab their attention. People’s morals differ based on, roughly speaking, their politics, but you have to make a moral claim that’s going to resonate with them.

So if you’re talking to somebody on the left, their morals are sensitive to claims over equity. If you were talking to somebody in an urban school district and you wanted to get them to support school choice, and let’s say they’re on the left, you might say, look, our school system is deeply inequitable and we need to fix it. And they’re like, huh, yeah, it is — tell me more. You’ve got to figure out what you want to say, but then make sure you’re framing it in a way that is compelling for your audience.

Susan Pendergrass (15:15): So if folks want to find your book and learn how to get what they want, when and where will it be available?

Josh Bandoch (15:22): It’s available April 21st, and it’s available anywhere you can buy books — Amazon, Barnes & Noble.

Susan Pendergrass (15:24): And you said you spent 10 years researching this — tell me about it.

Josh Bandoch (15:33): Yeah, a combination of research and practice. Ten years of on-and-off reading as much as possible — psychology, neuroscience, primarily.

Susan Pendergrass (15:41): Yeah, that’s fascinating. It is — surprisingly, for what I do full time — an easy part to forget. I’ve always felt like if I just lay out facts and fair arguments, the rest will take care of itself.

Josh Bandoch (15:58): Well, those things are necessary, but they’re not sufficient. They’re necessary because our job, working at think tanks, is to make sure the foundation is strong. We have a policy recommendation, and we have to make sure we have really good reasons to think it’s going to be effective — that it’s been tested elsewhere, or all the data indicates this is probably going to work. That’s necessary. It’s not sufficient. The persuasion layer on top of that is what takes your good idea to a good idea somebody else wants to embrace.

Susan Pendergrass (16:30): Yeah, I think it’s great. Like you said, it’s helpful in so many parts of your life. It comes right up to the very edge of manipulation, but pulls back a little bit. It is helpful for getting what you want — whether you’re buying a car or agreeing with your spouse on the paint color for the wall. It’s a really smart approach.

Well, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast and telling us all about it. It’s fascinating stuff and I really appreciate you taking the time. Thanks, Josh.

Josh Bandoch (16:58): It’s a pleasure, thank you so much.

Produced by Show-Me Opportunity

The post How to Think About Persuasion in Public Policy with Josh Bandoch appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Many Americans don’t know that anti-miscegenation laws—laws prohibiting certain races from marrying one another—were in effect well into the 20th century, including here in Missouri. They were odious laws affecting the marriages of not just the first generation, but of their children, their children’s children, and their children’s children’s children. The generational injustice of such laws was breathtaking.

For the better part of a century, Americans tried to move past this sort of thinking. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream that his “four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” is the American dream, of a world defined not by who your family was but by who you are. It’s the dream of families of all colors that their children will not suffer because of the stations or sins of earlier generations.

It is right and proper that America’s tumultuous racial history is taught in every American classroom. Yet the line between racial understanding and racial grievance can be a thin one, so it’s unsurprising that there has been so much debate recently over the issue of critical race theory (CRT) and whether it should be taught in our schools.

While the precise contours of CRT vary from adherent to adherent, CRT as a belief system posits that white supremacy serves as the foundation of American institutions and government, and that white supremacy is advanced by whites as a class and who, individually, are definitionally racist regardless of their personal views. If the use of “class” sounds vaguely Marxist, it’s because CRT indeed has roots in Marxism, and some of its adherents are plain about their support for the suspension of private property rights and redistribution of wealth on the basis of race. Additionally, CRT (again, generally) gives great weight to ideas of race essentialism (that the color of our skin drives our value system,) neo-segregation (that racial groups should be regularly separated to develop their own identities), and collective guilt (that the wrongs of the past are assignable to racial groups today.)

In other words, it’s a belief system that is in direct contradiction to King’s dream. That, to me, is intolerable, and promoting such a worldview in public schools would be an alarming throwback to the bad old days of legally-enforced and culturally-accepted racism.

Some may feel differently, and that’s their right. But do Missouri parents even know whether their kids are learning this content? Have Missouri schools been transparent about whether and to what extent they agree with the principles of CRT? Parents have a right to know what’s being taught to their children regardless of the subject, but that’s especially true of contentious curricula that use CRT concepts.

For my part, I’d like to think that Missourians will reject critical race theory for themselves and their kids. Maybe that’s because of my own background and upbringing. Above all else, I think most Missourians believe we are all really part of an “American family,” with shared successes, shared disappointments, and shared history.

But being American isn’t about who our parents were or what we look like. It’s about what we choose to be . . . and what we choose to be together. As we look back at our American story, I hope we don’t lose sight of that; otherwise I fear we won’t just be looking back at the past, but falling back into its errors, as well.

The post Yes, We Should Be Concerned About Critical Race Theory appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NibOUrzzwho&t=5s

The post Patrick Tuohey Discusses Local Issues on KCPT’s Ruckus appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The report examined “the severe civil disturbance that occurred in Kansas City during the week of April 8, 1968 and [made] a report to the people of Kansas City.” Among other things, the report contained recommendations for avoiding future riots and “for the establishment of harmonious relations among the people of this city.”

One of the areas examined was Kansas City’s police—their number, recruiting, training, and tactics. At the time of the report, Kansas City had 932 police officers and was facing reductions. On page 48 the report offers:

Instead of its police force being reduced, this city needs a total of at least 1,500 police officers. Even the existing statute contemplates two police employees for each 800 persons in the population. Since 1961 Kansas City’s population has increased by approximately 15%, and its land area has been nearly doubled by annexation. Expected police service has increased by 58%, but the number of law enforcement personnel has remained approximately the same as it was in 1961.

The commissioners’ call for more police to reduce crime is borne out by subsequent research. Yet Kansas City today has 1,283 sworn law enforcement officers, down 121 from the 1,404 officers they had in 2010. The city never achieved the 1,500 mark recommended by the commission’s report. Nor has the city successfully adopted the commission’s recommendation to rely more heavily on foot patrolmen—but that may be a function of not having enough officers.

Based on 2017 data, Kansas City has the sixth-highest homicide rate in the United States per 100,000 population. Based on FBI statistics, of the ten cities with the highest homicide rates, Kansas City has the fewest officers per 10,000 population.

A years-long, nation-leading spike in the number of homicides is arguably as “severe” a “civil disturbance” as one can imagine. Numerous factors are causally linked to crime, including education, poverty, and income inequality. Yet when it comes to the one aspect of public safety that policymakers can control, policing, Kansas City has fallen short of its 1968 goals.

The post Kansas City Fails to Meet Goals Set by 1968 Report appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

On the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it is suing to block the Louisiana school voucher program. The Louisiana program provides mostly poor, minority children with access to private schools. The DOJ claims the voucher program may be in violation of desegregation orders, essentially claiming that the voucher program is hurting desegregation efforts. This is an empirical claim, but the claim is false.

Using student-level data, Anna Egalite and Jonathan Mills, Doctoral Academy fellows at the University of Arkansas, examined the impact of each student’s “switch” on the racial composition of each school in a recent article in Education Next. They concluded:

Our analysis of the Louisiana Scholarship Program reveals that the vouchers used by the subset of recipients for whom information is available have supported public-school desegregation efforts. By leaving schools in which their racial group was overrepresented relative to the surrounding communities, voucher users have improved integration in Louisiana public schools….Based on this evidence, we conclude that the LSP is unlikely to have harmed desegregation efforts in Louisiana. To the contrary, the statewide school voucher program appears to have brought greater integration to Louisiana’s public schools.

In response to the DOJ lawsuit, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal remarked, the “Department of Justice is attempting to use old rules designed to prevent discrimination against minority children to try and keep these children trapped in failing schools.” Egalite’s and Mills’ research demonstrates that those “old rules” most likely are not being violated, because the data actually show that the voucher program is improving racial integration.

The post Louisiana Voucher Program Improves Desegregation Efforts appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Dr. King was a tireless advocate of civil rights and I am happy to say that most of my students could not even grasp the concept of discrimination based on race.

In recent years, many have begun to call school choice the civil rights issue of our time. This has led many to ask whether Dr. King would have been a supporter of school choice. In a 1997 article, his niece, Alveda King, remarked, “I can’t presume to know exactly what my uncle would say about the current debate over school vouchers and choice. But I know what principles he taught . . .”

Those principles have led her to become an ardent supporter of school choice, including private school vouchers. She writes, “Is it moral to tax families, compel their children’s attendance at schools, and then give them no choice between teaching methods, religious or secular education, and other matters? Is it consistent to proclaim, meanwhile, that America is a nation that prides itself on competition, consumer choice, freedom of religion, and parental responsibility?”

I agree with Alveda that we cannot presume to know what Dr. King would have thought about school choice. Nor can I say whether school choice is indeed the civil rights issue of our time. I can say that school choice works because it gives options and hope to individuals who otherwise might not have them, and opportunity and hope certainly are worthy of our support.

The post Dr. King And School Choice appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

So far, the arguments for and against capping tax credits has circled around the issue of whether tax credits encourage economic development, job growth, and other activities that are in the best interest of the state. Proponents argue that tax credits are beneficial: The state gets more than what it pays out (because of the so-called economic multiplier), they say, and so capping tax credits would hurt the state as a whole. Those who oppose targeted tax credits argue that the loss of revenue given away by the state to a few recipients — but collected from the rest of the state’s taxpayers — far outweighs any benefit accrued from the activities that such credits encourage. Furthermore, as Show-Me Institute Research Analyst Christine Harbin has written, when state legislators create targeted tax credits, they are favoring one industry over another, frequently because of political pressure.

Yet another argument against state tax credits is the fact that state governments have demonstrated that they are often incapable of a substantive review of tax credit applications. As a negative consequence of this lack of oversight, these programs invite fraudulent activity. In Iowa, three film production companies have been charged with inflating the values claimed on tax credit applications, and the director running the state’s film tax credit program was fired because of the lack of oversight. From the Quad-City Times:

The invoices also included various sizes of step ladders that ranged from $900 each up to $1,125, and a 24-foot extension ladder reported to have been rented for $1,350.

There are many additional examples of fraudulent activity resulting from a lack of oversight. In March, the state of Michigan awarded a $9 million business tax credit to a convicted embezzler who promised to create 765 jobs in Flint. He did this all while living rent-free at a friend’s mobile home. Earlier this year in Louisiana, a man was charged with selling nearly $2 million in Louisiana film tax credits to members of the New Orleans Saints. He never filed for them.

I suspect that Missouri’s Department of Economic Development may also occasionally miss tax credit application discrepancies. Based on a cursory review of the recently approved application for $19 million in Distressed Areas Land Assemblage (DALA) tax credits submitted by a Saint Louis–area development company, NorthSide Regeneration, LLC, it appears that the company overstated its costs for at least five properties (third column of DALA tax credit application PDF documents contain the property’s reported purchase price):

These problems are inherent in a bureaucratic program tasked with awarding benefits, and operating with limited information. The paperwork accompanying a tax credit application is usually substantial, and even if the agency charged with administering a state’s tax credit program does due diligence, the information available can be limited to what the tax credit applicant supplies.

The tax credit fraud cases that do make the news are egregious. I am sure there are instances of companies padding their reported costs on tax credit applications that the state and general public have missed. Instead of using public dollars to attempt to pick winners and losers, while running the risk that the state may not have all the available information even to weed out tax credit fraud and application discrepancies, the state should let consumers and investors decide which businesses, developments, and films succeed.

The post Blindly Picking Winners and Losers appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The Kansas City Star blogs on the topic here. It’s amazing how much liberty they take in editorializing their coverage, by the way.

My favorite sentence: “Programs that could disappear include race-specific scholarships at public universities such as the University of Missouri-Kansas City […]”

Reread that sentence again. Was a society that judged people based on the color of their skin one of the goals of Dr. Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement? Imagine if the University of Missouri offered scholarships to white students only. Or, if the University offers race-specific scholarships, then why not create race-specific bathrooms as well? How far we’ve fallen from the original ideals of civil rights.

And, of course, the thing that is most ironic about affirmative action to me is that its strongest supporters are often upper-middle-class families with “white guilt” — the same class of people that affirmative action programs are supposed to, in theory, protect minorities from in the first place.

Personally, I think that this comment on the Star’s blog says it best.

The post “Nothing in the World Is More Dangerous Than Sincere Ignorance and Conscientious Stupidity.” appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Now all we have to do is expand MetroLink to Madison and St. Charles Counties, paid for by local taxpyers only, and we will be in good shape.   

The post Bridge compromise? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Both of the options being considered currently:

Under one plan, Illinois would shoulder the cost of building a companion bridge to the Martin Luther King Bridge. Under another, a private group would pay for and build a bridge and collect tolls ranging from $1 to $6.

are preferable to earlier proposals.  The toll road idea is excellent.  I believe the fears of Illinois politicians are overblown, as most of their voters will remain on the free bridges while many of the same trucks that so often tie up those bridges will choose the new toll road.  Time is money in trucking, and toll expenses are tax write-offs. 

The MLK  companion / addition is also a good idea.  As anyone who had crossed the MLK knows, it is a little tight in the turns.  Making the current bridge all eastbound and adding new westbound lanes on a connected bridge will significantly improve flow into north downtown and onto 70 westbound. 

The final option I like, not discussed in the article, is expanding MetroLink into Madison County.  St. Clair County residents in Illinois use MetroLink more than any other demographic group in the area.  Going north from Fairview Heights to add a line and stations in Collisville and Edwardsville would serve many commuters who work in Downtown St. Louis and greatly reduce traffic.   Any of these three proposals will cost Illinois a great deal of money and Missouri little to none.  So I can’t really understand why Missouri’s reps on the Council all voted against the companion bridge proposal when they are not being asked to pay for it. 

The post Ask not for whom the bridge tolls, it tolls for thee, not for free appeared first on Show-Me Institute.