CUTTING TAXES

Gov. Mel Carnahan's surefire vote-grabber of a tax cut is attracting some opposition from, of all places, powerful legislative leaders in his own political party. More than that, thoughtful voters, from corporate executives to mill laborers to owners of service businesses also are questioning the proposal to lower the state sales tax by a quarter-cent.

On the one hand, the opposition of the Senate Budget Committee's chairman is for all the wrong reasons. Sen. Mike Lybyer fears the state might need the revenue to bolster future state spending, so he only wants to consider a temporary sales-tax cut.

On the other hand, taxpaying voters see the sales-tax cut as something least likely to make an impression in their checking accounts. Instead, they wonder why incomes taxes and corporate taxes aren't being eyed for reductions, given the rapid growth in revenue from those sources.

As a matter of fact, overall state revenue is so high that two years of refunds are due under the revenue-limiting Hancock Amendment -- even with the governor's planned sales-tax slicing. And state spending plans are mushrooming by millions of dollars. Even the record spending budgeted for the current fiscal year is in the process of being ballooned by another $45 million of supplemental spending -- outlays that were unanticipated or simply not covered in the gargantuan budget that was previously approved.

The governor's budget for next year, as widely reported and discussed, portends yet another giant-sized increase in state spending under the current philosophy of trying to find ways to spend every dime coming into the state treasury.

Clearly Carnahan perceives the vote-getting value of both spending lavishly and offering tax cuts. Why else would he have made so much of both in his recent State of the State Address? But a real tax cut is more than a token reduction in the sales tax. A real tax cut would analyze the runaway taxing and spending in Missouri -- while, it can be noted, more than 20 other states have already cut taxes and more are considering doing so -- and make carefully calculated adjustments in a variety of taxing sources so as to fund a reduced level of spending and avoid the Hancock refunds.

The governor, of course, hopes the glitter of spending and his little tax cut idea will continue to divert attention from the fact that he is to blame for major tax increases and the loss of untold business and manufacturing jobs in his first three years in office, during which Missouri has acquired a national reputation as a place not to do business.

Southeast Missourians can take little solace in knowing that half a dozen major industrial projects that considered this region have gone elsewhere, mostly to neighboring states, just in the past few months because of the business climate here.

The blame for spending too much, taxing too much and fostering a policy of more of both falls squarely on one man in Missouri: Gov. Mel Carnahan. No amount of fiddling with the sales tax or big budget bites for special interests should keep voters from remembering that.