Nixon focuses on fiscal discipline to keep AAA ratings
Missouri Watchdog
August 9, 2011
By Brian R. Hook
As the global markets are still digesting the downgrade of the U.S.'s credit rating, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon said that it is important to hold the line on taxes and focus on fiscal discipline to keep the state's AAA credit ratings.
"What we try to do, and what we have done, is to maintain our focus on what we can control," Nixon said during a press conference on Tuesday.
"I can control, working with the legislature, how much money we spend and keep fiscal discipline."
Missouri is one of only a handful of states rated AAA in the U.S. by all three major credit rating agencies.
Nixon avoided blaming politicians in Washington D.C. for the U.S. downgrade by Standard & Poor's.
"I don't think it is just Washington," he said, noting debt problems in Europe. "I think you've got problems in Athens and you've got problems in Lisbon."
The governor stopped in Creve Coeur, a suburb of St. Louis, to announce the creation of 80 new jobs.
The Missouri Technology Corp. provided a $250,000 low-interest loan to help lure SyMyCo, a research and development plant sciences company, which is working on ways to increase crop yields, to the Show-Me State.
Missouri will also provide $1 million in tax credits after the company creates the required number of jobs.
Nixon was in Chesterfield, another suburb of St. Louis, last week to promote economic development. Last month, in Creve Coeur again, he unveiled his priorities for an upcoming special session in September.
Lawmakers, meanwhile, are getting their first look at a compromise economic development plan prepared by leaders of the Missouri General Assembly. The 356-page draft bill provides a framework, Nixon said Tuesday.
"We are working on details... working with members of the legislature to iron out those details. Hopefully in the next few weeks we will have those worked out," Nixon said. "It has fostered a good bipartisan discussion."
St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley briefly spoke before Nixon, mentioning the county issued nearly $23 million in new bonds on Tuesday.
The county received a rate of 0.632 percent for the tax anticipation bonds, used for cash flow purposes.
"That's outstanding," Dooley said.
"So, we are alive and well, my friends."
St. Louis County has AAA credit ratings on $37.9 million in outstanding general obligation bonds.
S&P, meanwhile, announced that it does not directly link ratings on state and local governments to the U.S. credit rating, according to a new report.
States and local governments with low levels of funding interdependencies with the federal government, according to the statement by S&P, "should be able to retain ratings above the U.S. sovereign rating."
