A little restraint

Legislators already have a mechanism to control the growth of state government: It's called self-discipline.

There's no question that spending on state government in Missouri was out of control during the 1990s economic boom. State spending swelled despite two control mechanisms: the so-called Hancock Amendment, and the voter-approved amendment requiring statewide ballots on any significant increase in state taxes.

The Hancock Amendment -- named for its chief proponent, Mel Hancock of Springfield, Mo., who later was elected to Congress -- capped state revenue. The amendment says that if state revenue grows faster than Missourians' average personal income, the excess has to be refunded. That's what happened in the late 1990s when Missourians received checks from Jefferson City based on the state taxes they had paid.

In 1996, voters approved another constitutional amendment that mandates voter approval of any major tax increases. (The current amount, based on a formula, is about $75 million.) This followed the 1993 Outstanding Schools Act that created one of the largest tax increases in state history for public education -- a tax increase that was approved by the Missouri Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Mel Carnahan.

In spite of the Hancock Amendment and the voter approval required for big tax increases, state spending has more than doubled over the past decade. Why? That's how good the economy was before the recent recession hit the state.

And that spending spree is why state officials are having such a difficult time now balancing the state budget. The money spigot is no longer wide open, but the demands for services and programs added during the spending spree are still with us, and efforts to eliminate any of them affects some constituency or special interest.

So now Missouri is stuck with a large number of expensive programs that were added when the economy was good. Meanwhile, the state's general fund -- the money over which officials have control but which amounts to just over a third of the total state budget -- is being drained by funding needs for education and social services.

In response to the budget struggles that have resulted from a soft economy, some legislators want yet another tool to control the budget: a cap on state spending. Under this proposal, spending would be limited each year to the rate of inflation plus 1 percent.

While another constitutional amendment -- which would require voter approval in November -- to limit state spending would hold down the growth of state government, a mechanism already exists to keep spending in check. It's called legislative restraint.

The only reason state government has grown so much and so fast in recent years is because legislators were more than willing to appropriate money for new programs. All it takes now to maintain the growth of state spending at some reasonable level is for legislators to act responsibly.

A proposal by legislators to control the very spending over which they have the final say anyway sounds like more unneeded government regulation -- another facet of government, at every level, that seems to be out of control these days.

The aims of the proposed amendment are good: holding down the growth of state government. But that's something the legislature can do right now, and it doesn't take an amendment. It takes common sense and the will to make hard decisions.