Democratic Governor, Republican lawmakers share stage at signing
Republicans and Democrats shared the stage at Eagle Picher Industries in Joplin on Wednesday as Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon signed a new job-creation bill.
The bill was pushed by the Democratic Governor and passed by the Republican legislature as an expansion of tax incentives for job creation already on the books and enhancement of training programs to get displaced workers into new jobs.
“This is going to be, we hope, a jump start for Southwest Missouri and the state in general,” said State Rep. Tom Flanigan, who watched with other Republicans as Nixon ceremonially signed House Bill 191 into law in Joplin.
“We hope it does everything it can do,” Flanigan said. “This is a revamping of House Speaker Ron Richard’s Quality Jobs Initiative that he passed years ago during Matt Blunt’s administration. This is an enhancement and refinement of that same theory and we hope it continues in that same vein.”
Nixon outlined the goals of the bill in remarks to a crowd of reporters, Joplin City Leaders and Eagle Picher employees.
“Frankly the numbers are stark,” Nixon said. “We’re at a 25-year high in unemployment, more than 250,000 Missourians are unemployed. It’s unequivocally and abundantly clear that the status quo will not do. To jumpstart the economy of Missouri we must take bold, direct action to transform Missouri’s economy for the 21st century.
“To achieve that transformation, we must help existing Missouri businesses grow and expand. We must attract new high-tech employers to our state and we must train our workforce for the cutting edge jobs of tomorrow.”
Nixon outlined the three parts of the new bill.
• “We’re going to expand our Quality Jobs Program. This is a program that provides incentives for businesses, but only provides those incentives for jobs that are created that are above the county average wage point as well as have health care. We also don’t pay those benefits until after those jobs are created and consequently it’s an economic development tool that we’ve been bouncing on the roof of and running out of. Consequently this expansion of that particular program will help us meet the new demands that we have.”
• “We’re expanding our Missouri Build program to support businesses that are undertaking large-scale expansions. It’s also very important that we got rid of a very old-fashioned and anachronistic part of that process that required Missouri companies that have businesses here to get a bid from another state before they could move forward on their project. Obviously we need Missouri businesses to work in Missouri, not go to other states and consequently getting rid of that, I think, will be very helpful.”
