Our Policy Pulse site has a good story with some detailed links to the recent budget cuts announced by the governor. I hope and plan to have more thorough work on these proposals released soon, but I don’t want to rush anything — and many of us will be out most of next week at a conference. So, I just want to quickly take the opportunity to commend Gov. Jay Nixon for his willingness to make the hard fiscal decisions that are necessary, including laying off state employees and cutting budgets, rather than trying to raise taxes. He deserves a good deal of credit for that.