RIGHT OF CENTER: REJECTION OF AMENDMENT 7 PROVES VOTERS' ABILITY TO MAKE TAX CHOICES

After Tuesday's stunning election, which will go down in history as the most sweeping rejection of 1960s-style, liberal collectivism, I am tempted to gloat. But I won't.

Or I could write about how the Republicans now face an enormous responsibility to introduce and adopt bold policies to castrate the monster of power that our federal government has become. But I won't.

Instead, I want to take a look at a single issue in Missouri. By soundly rejecting Amendment 7, voters undoubtedly mollified the otherwise seething liberal elite and status quo bureaucracy in Missouri.

Opponents of Amendment 7, known as Hancock II, waged an expensive, frenzied propaganda campaign to scare voters into thinking this ballot initiative would so decimate social agencies, school districts, prisons, highways and other state programs that an impoverished, 70,000-square-mile blight would replace what once was Missouri.

I reached Hancock overload by early October, and yet the whining persisted right up to Election Day. By then, I realized this cheddarhead Wisconsinite had become a full-fledged Missourian. Initially opposed to Amendment 7 -- it was an inferior solution to a problem that could be better addressed with a different law -- I had a change of heart.

With every new claim of disastrous cuts that would ensue if voters were ignorant enough to approve the measure, I heard myself saying, "Show me. Show me." After all, Amendment 7 would only have forced a reconciliation vote on most of the cuts. If these programs and agencies are so crucial, then make your case, and an informed electorate will gladly agree to foot the bill.

The failure of Amendment 7 on Tuesday only confirms my contention. Voters were convinced it was a bad law and rejected it.

But too many bureaucrats and state officials see voters as uninformed idiots who don't know what is best for them. That is why Gov. Carnahan and his buddies in Jefferson City passed Senate Bill 380 -- a huge tax increase that violated the spirit of the original Hancock Amendment. That amendment requires a vote of the people on state tax increases. Due to loopholes in the original Hancock, SB 380 didn't get such a vote.

Apparently Carnahan, his campaign pledge notwithstanding, didn't want to risk voters' rejection of his $300 million tax increase. He assumed they were too stupid to realize this was the best use of their money.

Thus Hancock II was birthed.

From the start, the law was flawed. Parts were too ambiguous, invoking a lawyers' feeding frenzy. Another troubling aspect was its apparent retroactivity, which would overturn tax increases already approved by voters.

And yet opponents -- particularly the vast covey of state employees and their families -- focused instead on the damage that $1 billion to $5 billion cuts in the state budget would bring. But even the projected cuts were suspect. One independent analysis suggested cuts would be more like $300 million to $500 million.

Even taking a higher figure of $3 billion in cuts in Missouri's $13 billion budget, I wonder: "When was the last time Missouri's budget was only $10 billion." Was it the stone age? No, just two years ago, the budget was about $9 billion.

How much has the state's population grown since then? How about the state's economy? What reason is there for the budget's growth save the nature of bureaucracy and government to always expand?

The most vociferous opponents of Hancock II -- from the statehouse to university campuses and local school districts, to highway and prisons officials -- are oblivious to the voters' rejection of expanding government at all levels.

Missouri's state employees can breath easier following Tuesday's election. But they shouldn't expect their comfort to last long. Be assured, Missouri voters will get another chance at binding this vast brute of dominion we call government, and it won't have the flaws of Hancock II.

As we saw on a national scale, citizens have closed the door on unbridled government growth. Missouri voters are no exception.

Jay Eastlick is news editor of the Southeast Missourian.