Saturday, March 10, 2007

Remember . . . they said it wouldn't cost Missourians a dime?

I'm sure it's been prudently taken down from the Clone & Kill website now that they've won, but you'll recall that one of the grand lies that Jim Stowers' mouthpieces repeated ad naseum during the Amendment 2 campaign was that Amendment 2 wouldn't cost Missourians any money--there would be no public funding for scientists who created and then ground up babies for medical experiments.

Of course, that's 180 degrees from what Amendment 2 actually said (see Sec. 38(d)5) but of course, one isn't expected to be truthful in political campaigns, and if you have the right judge, and you've promised big bucks to the Secretary of State's future gubenatorial campaign, one isn't even obliged to be truthful on ballot language.

Now, of course they're all up in arms over there in the Missouri legislature, because some members really had the audacity to hold the cloners to their word. Blunt's plan to sell off state university assets to build cloning labs has been stymied.

And our own State Senator, Jolie Justus, towing the line of the party of death, is of course posturing her outrage.

Because you see, if it isn't about cloning, it also isn't about funding.

Of course not.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is from the Question and Answer section of the Missouri Cures Website:

Does the Initiative require any state or taxpayer funding for stem cell research?
No, that’s a false claim made by opponents. The Stem Cell Initiative does not ask for any funding and does not require the state, local governments or Missouri taxpayers to fund any stem cell research. It simply prohibits Missouri politicians and officials from arbitrarily cutting off some other funds (unrelated to stem cell research) that an institution normally receives, simply because the institution is involved in lawful stem cell research. For example, it prohibits the legislature from cutting the Medicaid funding a hospital receives simply because it is associated with a medical school that conducts stem cell research with private funds.

Will the Initiative benefit our state budget, taxpayers and our economy?
Yes. By allowing Missouri’s medical research institutions to compete on a level playing field with research institutions in other states and countries, the Initiative will help keep and attract millions of dollars in private and federal research funds to our state. That, in turn, will generate more state tax revenues and quality jobs for Missouri. In addition, the development of stem cell cures for costly diseases like diabetes could significantly reduce health care costs for many Missouri patients and their families – and could also help to reduce state-funded Medicaid costs.