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MO Senate Tackles Budget Matters This Week

(KWMU File Photo)

By AP/KWMU

Jefferson City, MO – The Senate Missouri is expected to begin debate this week on a plan to raise $200 million dollars in new revenue.

But the plan has many shortcomings and faces so many pitfalls that even supporters say it's unlikely to emerge intact the rest of the budget process.

The plan is a shaky mix of hoped-for savings, lower expenditures.

The list of savings and revenue measures would be grafted onto an already rickety budget propped up with $185 million in loans that lawmakers approved earlier this year.

But officials say the biggest problem is that the plan does nothing to address the cause of the state's $1 billion shortfall: The fact that Missouri's tax system no longer generates enough money to pay for all the programs that lawmakers want to offer.

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