… over the next couple of months expect Missouri to get
spotlighted by the national media for its extreme legislation as well as a
budget crisis.
We can’t expect to regain respectability until that day when the GOP establishment loses their hold on state government.
From 1970 to the present, the number of people incarcerated in the United States has grown 500%, and this is the result of bad policy at all levels. The percent of the U.S. population in prison today, is six times greater than the next closest country. The percentage in Missouri is even higher than the national average. In fact, Missouri is now #1 in female incarceration in the country…We cannot continue on this trajectory.
Your homework is due April 2. That’s when Missouri holds its next round of elections for public school boards. The candidates are non-partisan, which means that the weight is on you to figure out who best represents what is important to you, your family and your community when it comes to public education.
The opiate crisis, school board candidates and the proposed St. Louis City-County merger are among the topics that you can learn and converse about over coffee and doughnuts at the Wednesday Night Breakfast Club started by Kevin FitzGerald.
Alas, it is hard to imagine an economic scenario where enough business activity migrates to small Missouri towns to reverse the current trend. As bad as things are now, the future for rural Missouri includes continued loss of folks and funds.
Still, that pastor’s theme parrots conventional GOP wisdom claiming Missouri is a predominately rural state and that rural life is best.
Just as in Ray Bradbury’s bleak future where firemen start fires, today the primary duty of staff at the Department of Social Services is to deny help to the needy.