RICHARDSON: HANCOCK FORCES RECONCILIATION, NOT CUTS

Amendment 7 opponents are misleading voters by warning passage of the amendment would trigger immediate, massive cuts in state programs, said Rep. Mark Richardson.

The Poplar Bluff Republican agreed the impact would be significant.

"What we create is not a forced tax cut, but a forced reconciliation of what has been approved by voters and what we are spending," he said. "That reconciliation is between $900 million and $1.3 billion."

If Amendment 7 passes, Richardson said legislators will have plenty of time to submit some taxes to voters as constitutional amendments that would reconcile the problem without cutting the state budget.

"It forces a reconciliation between what has been constitutionally approved and what has not," he said.

That reconciliation can be made by taking the Proposition C sales tax for education, which brings in more than $560 million a year, and the Proposition A gas-tax increase that generates about $150 million a year, and sending them to voters as constitutional amendments.

Proposition C was passed by voters in 1982 and Proposition A in 1987 as statutory changes.

That would expand the new revenue limit on Hancock II by more than $700 million.

An additional $320 million could be reduced from what must be cut by getting voter approval of a hospital reimbursement allowance, funds contributed by hospitals to match federal allocations.

"You can give the people what they are asking for -- a chance to vote on taxes," Richardson said.

If voters reject those taxes as constitutional amendments, then cuts would have to be made.

But the second-term legislator believes all three would stand a good chance of passing if voters were given the opportunity and realized the money would go for highway projects, education and to match federal dollars in health care.

Jim Moody, a paid consultant for the group Citizens to Protect Missouri's Future that opposes Amendment 7, admits Richardson's scenario would work.

"The problem with that argument is the people have already approved both of them," he said. "That is the illogical purpose of this whole amendment."

"It works if it passes, but what are the chances of voters approving $1 billion worth of taxes?" asked Moody.

Rep. Mary Kasten, R-Cape Girardeau, is also skeptical about voters approving that much in taxes

"I think people might be reluctant," she said. "I don't think people would vote for that again, given the climate out there right now."

Kasten said the state would have to pay the costs of the new elections, and if the taxes were defeated, programs like education and highways would be devastated.

Kasten opposes Amendment 7 because of the cuts she fears it would bring to many essential state programs.

Moody also doubts whether legislators would even re-submit the gas tax and Proposition C to voters in the near future.

Voting for Amendment 7 could be seen by lawmakers as voting out those taxes, and Moody thinks they would be reluctant to rush the measures back on the ballot.

"Voters have already approved them as statutes," he said. "Why are we doing this? To make Mel Hancock feel good, I guess."