Senate Leaders today said they support the continued advancement of the large jobs and tax credit reform bill the Missouri Senate advanced to the House last week. Senate Substitute for Senate Bill 8 and Senate Substitute for Senate Bill 7 were heard Monday in the House Committee on Economic Development. A hearing scheduled for today to vote on the measures was cancelled.
Senate Leader Robert N. Mayer, R-Dexter, said he and fellow Senate leaders believe the legislative process should be allowed to work, publicly determining whether or not the bills they support should advance.

 “Unemployment remains high and it has become more and more difficult to fund the critical functions of state government,” said Mayer. “These bills are too important to the people of Missouri and our state budget’s future to circumvent the legislative process.”

 Senate Majority Floor Leader Tom Dempsey, R-St. Charles, said he hopes the bills will have the same opportunity to move forward as they did in the Senate.

 “We understand these are complex issues that take time to digest and debate,” said Dempsey. “We hope members of the House will continue to push forward. I am committed to continue negotiating with our colleagues in the House to put Missourians back to work and put our budget on a long-term path we can sustain.”

The two bills, introduced and considered as part of a Special Session called by the governor, are aimed at creating performance-based tax incentive programs that will help spur job creation while requiring mandatory reviews and caps to dramatically reduce the amount of funding dedicated to tax credits annually. Senate Bill 8 is estimated to save taxpayers up to $947 million over the next 15 years.

Now that the bills have been heard in the House committee, the natural progression would be for the committee to vote on any changes to the bills as well as take an up or down vote on the bills. If approved by the committee, the measure would next move to the House Rules Committee, where they would decide whether or not to advance the bill to the full House for consideration. If a majority of the House ultimately passes amended versions of the bills, both chambers could agree to iron out any differences in a conference committee.

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