The governor used the time to ask for additional funding in many different places, and those proposals will total more than 450 million dollars. Blunt asked lawmakers for $121 million in funding for public schools, $40 million for public colleges and universities, an additional $301 million in funding for health care in Missouri, and $14 million to the Department of Corrections.

This year's address was an especially important one for Governor Blunt. His approval rating has been low and he is up for re-election in November.

Blunt's opponent in that race is State Attorney General Jay Nixon. Nixon, like last year, delivered the democratic response to the State of the State after Blunt finished.

In the 2007 State of the State, the governor focused on health care, which resulted in Missouri Healthnet. He also discussed creating better after school programs for Missouri students to give them something supervised to do in the afternoons.

You can watch Blunt's State of the State address and Nixon's response by clicking on the links on the left.