As already mentioned at the mother ship in a story by our D.C.. bureau’s Jonathan Cooper, a national report gives Missouri a B+ for governance.
The survey, by the Pew Center for the States and Governing Magazine, praised the Show Me state for showing some innovation to save money. For instance: offering bonuses to contractors that keep costs down and deviating from “obsolete rules,” such as a regulation that requires more than a foot of pavement to be poured on state roads. That rule, says the report, does not make sense in places like the Ozarks.
“Less pavement does not necessarily mean less durability if you’re building on top of rock,” MoDot chief Pete Rahn said in the report.
Gov. Matt Blunt’s administration fared significantly better in the report than his counterpart to the east, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
The report criticized Blagojevich’s inability to create a political consensus, with House and Senate leaders ignoring his call for an “emergency” legislative session this year.
Blagojevich’s administration has been “troubled from the start,” the report said.
“It can’t be easy to manage a state such as Illinois, with huge outstanding bills and troubled revenue streams,” the report says. “But when the state’s leaders are effectively stuck in the mud, the difficult becomes all but impossible.”
Blunt’s administration doing better than Blagojevich
Right…..keep blowing snot.
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Nick:
Like me you just can’t help it, can you? Bringing facts into things and all.
FACT: Gov Blunt has run a GREAT state government, as judged by a LIBERAL think tank.
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PS – Regarding the original story – The difference between Missouri and Illinois is, in fact, more than the story on “the mother ship” would lead you to believe. Missouri government received one A, 2 B+s, and one B-. Illinois received a C+, a C, and two C-s. Well, once Blago is in prison, Illinois can take another stab at electing a decent governor.
PS – The liberal mecca of Massachusetts received a C+, 2 Cs, and a D+.
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Garrison – It grieves me to say that your ignorance continues to amaze me. Yet I must first question whether you intend even to mislead: You post a quote, with reference to an article in the Wall Street Journal, saying that Pew’s “founders derived their wealth from Sun Oil Company and were all Republicans (still are).” But the “still are” does not appear in the WSJ article.
Beyond that, however, it takes but a moment to look at Pew’s own website to see what groups they support. Among 2007 grant recipients, there were three that I could identify as seriously liberal:
National Public Radio – $600,000
Physicians for Social Responsibility – $120,000 (http://www.psr.org)
Union of Concerned Scientists – $382,000 (http://www.ucsusa.org/)
So far as I could tell, the rest of their grants went to politically neutral groups. No grants went to organizations which had conservative leanings.
To be fair, a million dollars is chump change to Pew. During that same year, they gave six million for a Ben Franklin museum, seven million to Ducks Unlimited for a forest preservation project, and nine million to Oceana, an ocean preservation group.
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Garrison:
Do you actually READ what you post? I Think not… as if you did, you would have read:
“Pew’s most recent evolution makes explicit what was long implicit: In 2004, it transformed itself from a foundation into a giant nonprofit. It can now use 20% of its budget for lobbying. Last fall, Pew combined seven of its public-policy shops into the Pew Research Center–Washington’s third-largest liberal think tank, after Brookings and the Center for American Progress. Clearly Pew intends to be a major player in Washington political debates, even as it pretends to nonpartisanship.”
Key point:
“third-largest liberal think tank”
l.i.b.e.r.a.l.
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Not surprising to me. I think Blunt has been a terrific governor. No thanks to the PD for ripping the man to shreds.
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Looney, I’m typing with one hand…No smart comments please.
I can’t believe the conservative “think tank” known as ‘Pew Reasearch’ gives Blunt a high score….”What is Pews agenda? It’s founders derived their wealth from Sun oil Company and were all Republicans (still are)….”When I speak of the free enterprise system, J. H. Pew said..”I mean when it’s entirely free from government interference…J. H. Pew hated unions and called FDR ” a suffering and crippling infringement on capitalism”….The origianl “Compassionate Conservative”.
GOP….Grand Oil Party.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110006499
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Raise your hand if you didn’t know this already.
Put your hand down Garrison.
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