HANNIBAL, Mo. – Attorney General Chris Koster said Saturday that Democrats and Republicans, alike, should give ground on deeply rooted policy oppositions in favor of “big ideas” verses “business as usual” in Missouri’s politics.
Speaking at the Hannibal Inn, home of the annual Democrat Days gathering – the first of a series of local gatherings leading up to the Missouri Democratic Party’s annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in June – Koster unveiled a major campaign theme focused on using political institutions to build something, rather than getting hung up in seemingly endless debates.
“We are frustrated by a political system that accomplishes little, argues constantly, and too often panders to special interests,” he said.
He told a story that for about a year now, he has been working on a quest to visit each of the state’s 20 community colleges. The bulk of them — 16 — were built in the 1970’s following the passage of a single piece of legislation in 1961. They were built out of nothing, he said, “bricks and mortar, vertical out of farm land so that we could provide higher education degrees to the sons and daughters of the greatest generation.”
“When I travel this state, I see evidence of the great achievements of Missouri’s past,” he said, adding his belief that Jefferson City these days is seemingly incapable of handling such a challenge.
Koster said it should be Missouri’s goal to be “recognized nationally as a top 10 business friendly state” in the next decade. He pointed to his support for a gradual tax cut to lure businesses to the state. He said the “next step” should be Medicaid expansion, using federal funds to enroll more low-income Missourians into the health care program.
“My disagreement with the Republican Party over health care policy has deep roots,” he said, noting his disagreement over the party’s opposition to stem cell research when he was a Republican state Senator, a disagreement that ultimately led to his separation from the party. “Ten years later, my low regard for Republican health care policy has not improved.”
Koster said opposing Medicaid expansion — which Republicans, like Catherine Hawaway – the party’s only current candidate for the job following the death of State Auditor Tom Schweich – oppose because of fiscal concerns — amounts to “willful blindness” to the “economic benefits that come from participating in Medicaid expansion.”
Koster said he was puzzled by the fact that Republicans would “rush back to the capitol” to pass legislation that would exempt The Boeing Company from more than $1 billion in taxes to lure 7,000 jobs, while opposing Medicaid expansion which he said would boost the state’s gross domestic product by 1 percent and offer triple the amount of jobs that Boeing would.
Koster said Democrats should not be afraid of tax cuts in an effort to become the “top 10 business friendly state” in the next decade, but speaking with reporters after, he said it would be best to wait and see how the triggered approach passed by the legislature in 2014 works before cutting additional revenue from the state’s coffers.
As he readies to launch his campaign, Koster endorsed a proposal offered by Missouri State Treasurer Clint Zweifel that would raise the state’s lowest-in-the-nation cigarette tax to help students cover the costs of higher education.
“Surely we value higher education for our young people more than we value cheap cigarettes,” he said.
Koster said Republicans should be willing to fully fund the state’s K-12 foundation formula, and that Democrats, should, too, move out of the way of reigning in the state’s “educational bureaucracy.”