THE MISSOURI GUBERNATORIAL RACE: AN INTERVIEW WITH BILL WEBSTER

On Saturday, Oct. 18, Republican candidate for Missouri Governor, Bill Webster, was interviewed by Southeast Missourian Editor Ken Newton; Managing Editor Joni Adams; Political Editor Jim Grebing; Perspective Editor Jon Rust, and Publisher Gary Rust. A similar interview with Democratic candidate, Mel Carnahan, will be printed in Thursday's paper.

MR. WEBSTER IS ATTORNEY GENERAL OF MISSOURI. FOLLOWING IS THE TRANSCRIPT OF THE ONE HOUR INTERVIEW

WEBSTER

What makes you distinctly different from your opponent, Mel Carnahan?

Well, I think we have two different visions for the state of Missouri. Mel Carnahan's vision, I think, is an obsolete one. Every problem has one answer for Mel that's more taxes and more spending.

I have traveled for the better part of a year and have been on over 100 platforms with respective candidates. As you travel from group to group they each have their own interests, but one common thing I hear from Mel is, "I'll raise taxes and I'll give it to you," these special interest groups.

This whole concept to tax and spend your way into prosperity, I think, is something we should have learned by now isn't the path to success. I think that is the main difference.

There is also a very clear difference in what we advocate. For instance, for education my opponent advocates and recently said at a convention that the first bill he wanted to sign was collective bargaining for public employees. He wants to unionize our schools, our local government services, the state government, the local police department, the fire department.

All you have to do is sit in Cape Girardeau and look at the students in Harrisburg who went for over a month without class, or the other 15 states and hundreds of districts that have been on strike this fall. I have vowed not to sign a bill which would unionize our schools.

Another difference is our vision of Welfare. We have set forth a very specific Welfare proposal with over 250 changes in the current system. Carnahan's response to Welfare is essentially two sentences in The Kansas City Star, "It ought to be changed but I'm not sure how."

Capital punishment: Here's another issue. It is on the books, we support it, we have defended it. My opponent has said that he supports it but it ought to be changed. Now, I'm not sure how you change it, what that means, but again he seems to be someone who wants to have it both ways.

There are many differences, but if we can put labels on it, I think fundamentally the positions that have been taken by my opponent are liberal positions of more government programs, more government spending, unionization of government with collective bargaining for public employees, and finally, although again he's bounced back and forth on this in the last two weeks, totally giving in on the request of the Kansas City Missouri School District.

There's obviously been a lot of discussion back and forth, lots of lobbing of media shells on the Kansas City Missouri School District. But the bottom line is, Mel has adopted a very naive view that this will all go away if you just give the Kansas City Missouri School District what they want. And what they want is such a huge sum of money there would be very little money left for the rural school districts in the state of Missouri.

There is a lot of talk about the need for government in the '90s to do more with less. Do you agree with that? How will state government do that in a Bill Webster administration?

Again, rather than just saying we'll do more with less, we've set out very specific ways that we propose to get there with what we call our Blueprint for Missouri's Future.

First, it has to do with how we budget. We propose that we establish zero-based budgeting. Essentially, this means that on a periodic basis, at least every two years, you prepare your budget from scratch.

The second thing that has to be done is to institutionalize a mechanism for examining rules, regulations, agencies, commissions, boards, etc. I advocate some form of sunset rule, and that means at least every four or five years these entities have to be reauthorized. As the old saying goes, the hog won't butcher itself.

The third thing I'd do has more to do with funding. I think it is appropriate for the governor to appoint acting directors and say I want you to prioritize from top to bottom, every employee, every program in your agency. I'd like you to do it in 60 days. I'd like you to do it operating on the assumption you will have 5 percent, 10 percent, 15 percent less to work with. It doesn't mean we're going to come in and implement those cuts, but you at least have to have the contingency plan from top to bottom.

Too often in government, there is a tendency to empire build. There is a tendency for agencies to come in and say, well, we can't cut anything, we can't change anything.

I know better than that. So I say that if you have an acting director that can't do it, then 60 days later you have a new acting director. I mean, some people say you can't really do that. Yes, you can. You can, but you have to have people in place who are not just interested in protecting the turf.

Privatizing services is another area that a number of states are now examining. As a matter of fact, I spoke at a lunch here about a year ago and some of the people in the audience were so stunned about a story I told that I sent them the magazine that carried it. It happened recently in the state of Massachusetts, where they took the most tedious and mundane sort of service you can imagine, the collection and delivery of lottery tickets and lottery receipts, and privatized it.

State employees in Massachusetts had collected an average number of 22 locations a day, in a state car, getting pension, health care, and all the state's expenses. And they were going to 22 convenience stores. The state put the bid out and it was taken by UPS. UPS, who runs up and down the driveway. Collections increased sevenfold for the same amount of money.

If we can change topics. There seem to be two distinct approaches to school desegregation in this campaign. When you boil it down, it looks like the Webster/Steelman plan is to fight. The Carnahan/Nixon plan is to back off and settle. Can you explain...?

I would love to see the Carnahan plan. I would love to see the Nixon plan. We have a plan in St. Louis. It was filed last October.

What our plan says in St. Louis is that you phase out the state's responsibility. We ask the court to declare that we have fulfilled our constitutional responsibility based on what the U.S. Supreme Court has recently said in Oklahoma City and Atlanta, that these cases have an end.

We have put in this motion a proposal that says we will continue to fund the schools for a period of time. Magnets in the city of St. Louis school district would continue to be funded if they attract 12 percent. Now today, 85 percent of the magnets don't. We said that if you can get them to attract 12 percent, and that's the court's percentage, 12 percent, we will fund it for a period of time. We will fund some transportation, as well.

That is not saying fight, fight, fight, we'll never give a penny, we'll never discuss what is fair and what is appropriate. Our point is, Mel Carnahan has said he'd settle. And I am so sick and tired after ten years of having political candidates who don't know what they're talking about say they'd end it. And having the newspaper in St. Louis say this would be over if the state would just end it. It is absolute hogwash.

It will be over when the federal district court says it's over. We have to give them reasons and opportunities to say it's over.

The reasons and opportunities are here. The U.S. Supreme Court now says these cases do have an end. But it doesn't end because wishing makes it so. It only ends because you have a cogent plan. We have one. Mel Carnahan doesn't.

Turning to health care, what do you see as the state's role in dealing with the problem of availability and affordability of health care?

I think the state has a role but again this is a pretty clear difference. I've watched my opponent waffle all over the universe.

The reality is there has been only one state able to develop an intrastate, broad-coverage system, and that's Hawaii. The reason is they're an island. If we enact a broad universal kind of coverage here we are going to be providing health care for Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas. We are bounded by eight states and 85 percent of our state's population lives within 30 miles of those eight states. The price would be horrendous. We've got school districts that can barely keep their doors open, and it is not something we can do.

What can states do? I think we need to look into developing a uniform claims billing form. We have hundreds of agencies, hundreds of different kinds of forms of paperwork. We need to work toward a universal form.

The second thing we could do is craft requirements that companies in the state of Missouri have some portability with their policy. If you go from one employer to another, you have the opportunity to buy that coverage and take it with you.

The third thing, and we're already moving toward this now, is requiring carriers to offer a basic stripped down policy. I recently saw an ad, and I don't want to give a plug to Blue Cross necessarily, but they've got a $35 policy offering basic essentials. This is a stripped down policy, but it would cover the catastrophic medical bills that would wipe out a family in most cases. I think we ought to require the carriers in Missouri to write that kind of coverage.

We also have to focus more on prevention.

My wife is a dietitian for a county health department and their women and children nutrition program is a very cost effective program. But we have continued to cut back eligibility. That is a decision that costs us money in the long run.

We discuss in my plan increasing access to care by getting more doctors into rural Missouri. We do this by extending their tuition assistance and by helping with a legal expense fund, which we have already done.

There are a number of proposals in our plan. But I do not support the state trying to craft their own national health insurance because we can't do it. It's a bankrupting proposition.

Do you feel like the state needs more money for education or more education for the money or a combination of the two?

Well, yes, yes, yes. I supported Proposition B. I held my nose. I thought there were lots of things in there that were important, especially on the reform side. It did bring in some additional money for higher education. But when the voters in 113 counties say no, that is a wake-up call.

There were a lot of reasons why it failed and my opponent loves to say it didn't fail because people don't want higher taxes. I say that's bunk. It failed because people didn't think it was going to get to the district. It failed because they didn't trust Jefferson City to get the money back to Cape Girardeau or to Sikeston or Marble Hill.

But the number one reason it went down was because people didn't want to pay higher taxes. I've seen the polling. I mean, let's not pretend that's not it. The day after Proposition B was defeated, I was on a platform in Kansas City at the Hilton Plaza Inn, at the state NEA convention where I'm sure I thrilled them by saying I'm against collective bargaining for public employees and I will not support a tax increase. Mel Carnahan followed me and he stood up and said Missourians are not opposed to a tax increase, they want a tax increase, they want it now.

Now come on. I heard what the voters, 70 percent of the voters said the day before. Maybe Mel just interpreted it differently. Maybe Mel was drinking out of a different bucket than I was. But that is a fundamental difference between us.

Do we need more money for education? Well, I think we need to look at where the money's going. We're spending $300 million on buildings, last year $222 million just in Kansas City. Another significant amount in St. Louis. There are two parts to the issue. You cannot talk about our education spending in Missouri without talking about where the money is going.

First, there is capital improvements, the bricks and mortar. The courts have said you've got to build the buildings. The second piece is the operation costs, the funding of the magnets, remedial programs, transportation, staffing, those sorts of things.

To the extent we have to build the bricks and mortars, which has been what has caused this dramatic dislocation of the state budget since 1988, I believe it is prudent to do what most school districts do and that is to pay for public school buildings with bonds.

Now, my opponent says, well, you're mortgaging the future. Again, that's silly. There are some things that are hard to explain in a 30 second commercial but there is something called inflation and something called the present value of money.

You can either write checks for the next two years, cash out of the state general revenue, pay it off as you go, or you can pay it off over 20 years. If there is any inflation down the road, with the present value of money as it is, it is far cheaper to float bonds at 6 percent today. Instead of having this massive dislocation in fiscal year '93, fiscal year '94, and fiscal year '95, you spread that out, with the savings being earmarked to education.

Now Mel says, I want to be straight with the people. I want to raise their taxes. But then he says of course I won't do it myself, I'll just put it to a vote of the people. If he does that it's not going to pass, so he's not really going to get any money for education. So it is false hope.

I say, if we've got to pay it, let's pay it out over time out of the general revenue. Of course, when I say this Mel always says, well gosh, that might cost more than $24 billion. That's a phony figure, first of all because you aren't adjusting it for the present value of money, and also it's a phony figure because these are tax exempt and are floated at a very low rate.

This is the most practical way to go, it is realistic, it does not require a vote, it could be done immediately, it could have an impact on public schools in the state this fiscal year.

As far as reforms being talked about, what do you see as the future of public schools?

I think people are concerned about accountability. They didn't vote against Prop B because they didn't want accountability. They want to know how their schools are doing. I think they are interested in their children learning certain core curriculum, certain fundamentals.

We looked at over 1,100 education studies. I've read more books on education and there are more experts on education than there are books in the library, I think. Terence Bell did this in "A Nation at Risk," and after they looked at all these studies they came up with some "earth shattering" conclusions.

The most important ingredient in successful schools are, first, good teachers. Isn't that a revelation? Children learn more if you have good teachers, a good, strong school principal and an orderly environment so the children can learn and the teachers can function.

The second thing they discovered as being very important is parental involvement. It's tougher today than it used to be. Finally, community support.

So the question is, how do you build those things that are important? Well, you build community support by showing accountability, that things are improving, and that the children are learning. You focus in on Parents as Teachers.

What courses are we teaching our children? Are they relevant? Are they what they need? Are they going to give them the kinds of skills, traditional skills that can be measured. And, are we going to have good teachers or mediocre teachers?

That means you've got to have flexibility. We advocate as much decentralization as possible, as much flexibility in the local district to be innovative because that tends to encourage community involvement as well.

One of the most pressing problems facing education in the state now is the need to draft a new school foundation formula. Describe the role you will play next year in providing leadership to get a new formula during the 1993 legislative session.

I'll try to answer this briefly. I am still the attorney general. There is a lawsuit in front of the courts right now so I can't comment on the legality or constitutionality while it's pending.

I have for the last couple of years urged the legislature to acknowledge that the court challenge was imminent. Look folks, we've got to put another $100 million in to correct concerns we have about the foundation formula and to remind them that our traditional experience of courts running schools has not been a positive one, or ultimately, a very effective one.

As usual, we had a lot of people put their heads in the sand. But also there is such a ... I don't know if parochialism is really the right word, but there's such a geographic mentality.

These districts have such different reimbursement schedules that it's hard to develop a consensus. Obviously, we want to craft the program where there's no net losers and that is going to take more money. I think the governor can take the lead in this.

One of the challenges that we face is that the foundation formula is not fully funded. We are funding it at about 50 percent. And, for reasons that only experts can explain, the formula doesn't work as well until you fund it at about 75 percent. So, there is a question as to whether the current formula is flawed or not, or is it that we are not funding it?

You'd rather fully fund the formula than change it?

I think we have to address that.

Do you support an overall review of the state's tax structure? Looking not only at the standpoint of generating more revenue, but to insure the tax burden is distributed fairly and properly?

Well, I believe Missourians are not under taxed. In contrast, there's my opponent, who favors a tax increase. In addition, as part of his $296 million tax plan, he wants to make it easier for local citizens to pass $100 million in taxes. Yet in almost the same breath that he talks about the local taxes, he says that sales taxes are over-utilized.

During our debate, I said, well okay Mel, there are only two local ways to raise taxes. Property tax. Do you want to raise property tax $100 million? Well, I don't know, he says. Well, do you want to raise sales taxes? I don't know, he says.

So, I don't know what that $100 million in local taxes is unless you all are going to enact an income tax. I don't think the tax burden in the state of Missouri is too low. We're 22nd in the United States of America. I'm weary of seeing these studies that say, oh we're 48th, 49th. Again that's bunk.

You look at the total tax burden, and we're number 22. And let me tell you, there's no glory in being at the top. You can ask California about that. You can ask our neighbors. We lose jobs in Missouri as it is because it's cheaper to do business with some of our neighbors. We do not need to aggravate that difference by raising taxes.

What do you see as the state government's role in the issue of abortion?

First of all, I'm pro-life. I think there are too many abortions, I don't think that comes as a surprise to you. The U.S. Supreme Court in the Casey decision this past summer in Pennsylvania has essentially said what states could do. You cannot create an undo burden on abortion but you can adopt certain restrictions.

Health and safety standards, I think that's appropriate. Parental notification, I think that's appropriate. Informed consent, I think that's appropriate. Waiting period, if the legislature passes it, I'll sign it. Telling the patients of all alternatives, I think that's fine. I support those sorts of provisions. I think that's currently what the Supreme Court has said states could do. We have many of those on the books right now.

Again, this issue is a classic example of my opponent trying to have it both ways. In 1988 he wrote Missouri Citizens For Life and said he had always been adamantly opposed to abortion. Two weeks later he told the NARAL group, the National Abortion Rights Action League, he had been historically a supporter of abortion rights since the '70s. I've got both letters. It's fascinating to read.

Last week he was with Kate Michaelman of NARAL at the Arch in St. Louis saying he supports their agenda, which of course is to wipe the restrictions off the books.

I will defend the restrictions that are on the books. I will comply with the laws of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Ultimately, I think abortion is a moral issue and I think it has to be dealt with by the families, the churches. People have to deal with it that way, but I will defend the laws of the state and I've done so and I've done so successfully.

Can you briefly outline your strategy for bringing more jobs to Missouri?

We have a very substantial plan on this, which I won't be able to give but a part. Much of my Blue Print for Missouri's Future is on economic development.

Let me put it to you this way, as simply as I can. The state of Missouri has to have a good story to tell. Secondly, you have to have an aggressive salesperson to tell it.

Frankly, our economic development tool kit is not where it needs to be. I have talked to hundreds of businesses all over this state from Southwestern Bell and McDonnell Douglas to the smallest industries in Caruthersville, Portageville and Poplar Bluff. You name it I've pretty much been there. And, up and down the line I ask, have you ever heard from the state of Missouri? Usually not.

What I propose to do for the first 100 days of my administration, and I now have hundreds of volunteers who will work with us, is to contact every employer of let's say 50 or more and ask them what's right with Missouri and what's wrong with Missouri from a business standpoint. What would they like to see? Whether it's job training, vocational training, pollution control assistance, worker's comp rates? What are the biggest barriers to expansion? In essence, an inventory of our assets and liabilities. We've never done it.

We know a lot of our growth is in Perry County, Cape County, businesses like to be here. So we have very specific strategies but it begins by making sure we have a good client. And then I think the governor has to get personally involved.

The first time we had the opportunity to hear you discuss the Second Injury Fund was at a Missouri Press Association meeting. You didn't choose to answer your opponent's charges at that time. In many people's opinion, you still haven't. What is your perspective on this issue?

Actually the Missouri Press was a strange forum because I walked in late, with it already in progress, just as Mel went into this attack against me. I made a strategic decision in about 20 seconds whether I was going to respond to his charges, or whether I would talk about some other issues as well. So, I made a categorical denial, but I didn't go through item by item. In hindsight, it was probably an error. It was his whole plan just to get headlines and essentially say outrageous things.

As far as the fund, what is so obnoxious about these criticisms is that we said as early as 1987 that they needed to give us enough people to represent the fund or they were going to have to house it in the division. As the claims grew, as they have in every state of the country, we repeated our plea louder.

But the legislature wouldn't give us money. And the claims continued to grow, because the definition of a second injury had been expanded. The new law meant additional legitimate claims.

As the legislature didn't want to give us the necessary money, we said fine. So, these individuals became contracted to the division. Some were hired by others.

Some of them have turned out to be bad apples, you do admit?

Yes. But we're prosecuting them. We fired one and we prosecuted another. Actually we're doing a number of things.

But you've got to remember, it's a system that wasn't even under our control. To suggest we benefited from it is just obscene. We're the ones who want to reform it.

What I think is most offensive is the irony in this issue. The trial lawyers want to keep this situation exactly the way it is, and that's the reason they're giving Mel Carnahan and Jay Nixon hundreds of thousands of dollars. Hundreds of thousands! There's a line in the sand, because we want to change it. That's why the State Chamber is supporting us. We're supposed to be funneling money to lawyers, but it's the lawyers who support Mel Carnahan and the businesses who support us.

The State Chamber hasn't gotten into the governor's race in 30 years. They're doing it now, because we're talking about really doing things.

In the debate in Kansas City, we said Mel, here are our 14 proposals, real proposals. Cap the claims, change the definition of recovery, etc. Are you for any of them? Absolute silence. The problem is, as frustrating as it is from someone who used to own a weekly newspaper, public impressions are based on thirty second television commercials.

The reality is when all the hundreds of thousands of dollars come pouring in from labor unions and trial attorneys to keep the system the way it is, we didn't have the financial firepower to respond in September, when Mel's television ads hit.

Here are the main points. The fund was not a fund under our control. We don't hire the judges. We didn't review the claims. These attorneys were paid by another agency of state government. I think what Mel Carnahan is doing with this is absolutely offensive.