By Marshall Griffin, KWMU
Jefferson City, MO – Missouri House leaders are urging Governor Jay Nixon to not veto capital improvement projects that would be funded with federal stimulus dollars.
Nixon wrote lawmakers a letter this week announcing his desire to draw down more federal dollars through a bonding program.
House Speaker Ron Richard (R, Joplin) says he hopes the governor won't use the federal program as an excuse to veto spending bills.
"I just don't know if I'm ready to include highways and some other things that's going to be trimmed, and making this just an excuse for cutting and adding on to the taxpayers," Richard said.
The projects in question include new college buildings and various other construction projects.
The governor indicated this afternoon that some items will have to be vetoed.
"I've said all along that this was a budget designed originally, in essence, (in) a flat-growth year...(the numbers have) clearly gone down, putting me in a difficult situation to face these choices, but I'm not complaining about that, it's just my job...it doesn't have anything to do with partisan politics," Nixon said.
A spokesman for the governor says he will likely sign the state budget for Fiscal Year 2010 into law by next Friday.