SIMON SAYS PUT ASIDE PARTISAN POLITICS

Congress needs to put aside partisan politics and Americans need to reach out to one another to solve society's problems, says former U.S. senator Paul Simon.

"We have party-line votes on just about everything in Washington these days," Simon told a crowd of more than 100 at a noon meeting Monday of the Cape Girardeau Rotary Club at the Holiday Inn.

Simon was accompanied by his wife, Jeanne. The couple make their home in Makanda, Ill.

Sporting his trademark bow tie, Simon received a standing ovation.

A former newspaperman, Simon served 22 years in Congress. He retired from the U.S. Senate in 1996.

Simon said it isn't the political parties that should matter, but the candidates.

"I have never voted a straight party ballot," he said. He pointed out that he recently voted for a Republican candidate for a road commissioner job in Southern Illinois.

"I don't know a Republican way to fix the streets and a Democratic way to fix the streets," he said.

Simon has retired from the political spotlight but remains interested in government. He has joined the Southern Illinois University faculty and heads up the new Public Policy Institute at the Carbondale school.

Simon said members of Congress make too many decisions on the basis of public opinion polls and are too partisan.

The Southern Illinois Democrat said the nation desperately needs campaign finance reform.

Simon said big money is driving politics. "It distorts what we do," Simon said of huge contributions to political candidates.

Simon spent millions of dollars to win re-election to the Senate in 1990.

"We are not really paying that much attention to poverty and disease in our country," Simon said.

He said the poor and the sick aren't big political donors so their issues are seldom heard.

Washington won't take the lead in campaign finance reform, he said. "I think the leadership on this is going to come from the states."

Simon hopes his Public Policy Institute will make a difference.

"Almost one-fourth of our children are living in poverty," he said. "That is not an act of God. It is flawed policy. We ought to be facing up to the problems. We ought to be reaching out to one another," he said.

Simon wants his institute to offer concrete solutions to problems rather than philosophical viewpoints.

Simon and three other retired U.S. senators have recommended ways to assure the long-term solvency of Social Security. They want to reduce the cost-of-living index and remove the cap on the taxable amount of income.

He said the world could face water shortages in the next 50 to 60 years as the population doubles.

"You can go to war for oil, but there are substitutes for oil. There is no substitute for water," he said.

Illiteracy remains a major problem, said Simon. Twenty-three million adult Americans can't read a newspaper or fill out an employment form, he said.

Illiteracy is a huge drag on the nation's economy, said Simon.

He said the nation needs to spend more on education. In 1949, 9 percent of the federal budget was spent on education. Today, less than 1.5 percent of the budget is earmarked for education, he said.