Independence, MO — Today, Lucas Kunce is responding to reporting in The Kansas City Star that Josh Hawley is refusing to direct federal tax dollars back to our communities. The report comes after coverage revealed Josh Hawley’s law-breaking has cost Missourians hundreds of thousands in taxpayer dollars. Hawley has refused to pay that money back to Missourians, despite making even more by spending his time selling books (like “Manhood“) instead of doing his job as U.S. Senator.
Lucas Kunce’s statement:
“While Josh Hawley’s kept himself busy in the Senate by selling books like ‘Manhood’ to rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars more than his congressional salary, he’s neglected his actual job and let hundreds of millions of dollars a year get sucked out of Missouri and sent instead to states like New York and California. Josh had already refused to pay back Missouri taxpayers for the $250,000 he cost them with his lawbreaking. Now, if Josh gets another six years in the Senate, his negligence will add up to a multi-billion dollar liability for Missourians.”
Hawley’s former colleague in the U.S. Senate, Roy Blunt (R-MO), secured more than $350 million for Missouri in his final year in office. With no effort to replace that, the amount of money Missourians would lose from another Hawley term in the U.S. Senate could add up to $2.1 billion or more.
Reporting in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch confirmed that “Missouri taxpayers paid more than $250,000 for Josh Hawley’s open records violations.”
And while Hawley claimed to the Kansas City Star that he thinks doing the work to secure these funds for Missouri was “lazy legislating,” other members of the state’s Congressional delegation have kept on providing for the state, including Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, who secured funds for a maternity home for pregnant and new moms between the ages of 12 and 21.
Some highlights from the Kansas City Star’s reporting:
- “The reduced funding [for Missouri] comes after Missouri Republican Sens. Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt refuse to participate in congressionally directed spending to steer federal money back home.”
- “In his last year in office, [U.S. Senator Roy] Blunt secured more than $350 million for Missouri.”
- “Cleaver was able to get $1 million for Mother’s Refuge, a Kansas City area organization that operates a maternity home for pregnant and new moms between the ages of 12 and 21. The money will go to help the group renovate and convert a former hotel in downtown Independence into apartments. When it’s finished, the site will include 12 apartments for mothers and their babies. Without the money, said Mother’s Refuge executive director Angel McDonald, ‘…we really wouldn’t have the funds to be able to do something that’s really necessary for the moms and the babies to live in a home like you and I live in and give them that step up.’”