Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (pictured at UMSL last month) gave his annual State of the State address last night. UMSL political scientists provided analysis of the speech today via several St. Louis media outlets.

Last night, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon gave his final annual State of the State address of his first term. And today, political scientists from the University of Missouri–St. Louis weighed in on the speech.

Dave Robertson, Curators’ Teaching Professor of Political Science, and Terry Jones, professor of political science, provided their analysis through a trio of St. Louis media outlets.

“Nixon emphasized that the state needs to find ways to balance the budget without raising taxes and mentioned some things that need to be done more ‘efficiently,’ which is a code word that means do as much as you used to do but with less money,” Robertson said in an extensive Q&A this morning with St. Louis Magazine.

Robertson also spoke with the St. Louis Beacon for the publication’s story on the State of the State address.

Jones was part of a four-person discussion about the speech on “St. Louis on the Air,” a program on St. Louis Public Radio | 90.7 KWMU. Other guests included Marshall Griffin, capital reporter for St. Louis Public Radio; David Stokes, policy analyst for the Show-Me Institute; and Amy Blouin, executive director of Missouri Budget Project.