ALL ABOARD, AND BRING LOTS OF MONEY

Like straw hats and Hoola-Hoops, governmental programs designed to serve the public come and go, like fads and fashions that quickly make their appearance and then disappear almost overnight. Sometimes, both fads and programs even make a reappearance, being greeted as if they were new and innovative. This perfectly human predilection to embrace the trendy can and often does extend to all kinds of institutions, even large ones such as entire states. Missouri, unfortunately, is not exempt.

Only five years ago, while seeking to meet citizens' increased demands for public services, Missouri embraced a fad that had even then spread to many other states. Entreating citizens to gamble their earnings on games of chance that offer odds that would embarrass even Las Vegas casino operators is hardly a noble function of government, at least the kind envisioned by the nation's founding fathers. If this were a singular lapse, it might be overlooked. Unfortunately, it is not.

There are others, including the fad of expanding welfare to a degree that crowds out human initiative, under the guise of helping, with the end result being not assistance but dependency. And there are still others, including the fad of expanding governmental bureaucracy without increasing human services, as well as the fashion of underwriting civic projects that fail to attract local support and financing.

Unless Missouri is extremely cautious and deliberative, it could embrace yet another fad, perhaps as early as the current session of the 87th General Assembly.

Like several of its predecessors, this potential Missouri Hoola-Hoop has its origins in the state's city halls, and in this case the jurisdictions were urban. St. Louis city officials started this ball rolling a few years ago when they got in line for free federal cash to supplement the existing urban bus system with a new rapid-rail transit network, extending initially from East St. Louis, Ill., to Lambert Airport in St. Louis County. Utilizing these federal funds, the folks at 1400 Market Street in downtown St. Louis quickly started building 18 miles of track, encountering the usual obstacles such as a cemetery that no one wanted to move and underground tunnels that had a tendency to collapse. The project could have been a pilot for the Three Stooges.

Sometime during the expenditure of all this Uncle-Sam-pays-all-the-bills fling, it occurred to the St. Louis sponsors that another source of income in addition to commuters' fares would be required to move their trains and meet the payroll of their employees. Up to this point, St. Louis had been able to "develop" a rapid-transit system without expending much more than travel expenses for important dignitaries to fly back and forth to Washington to gather up Uncle's largess. Then it was discovered, there was no money available from a bankrupt federal government to pay the operating costs of these gleaming new trains unless a new source of revenue could be discovered outside a bankrupt municipal government. Heaven forbid that local citizens should pay for a local transit system.

Hey, if Jefferson City could be persuaded to kick in half the cost of a new football stadium and added convention facilities, why not send the bill to the state Capitol? If state officials could be conned into building a football field for fast-talking private entrepreneurs, who could enrich themselves to the tune of millions of dollars, they can probably be conned a second time. Never give a sucker an even break. Enlisting its partners-in-crime in soliciting state hotel and stadium subsidies, the Boys at Bi-State geared up a new demand for a state urban transit program, a process that had to begin with a series of hearings around the state by a legislative committee. This is known as subsidy foreplay. And what do you suppose was the result of all this activity?

Why, dear taxpayer, can't you guess? There are elaborate plans now being drawn to hook up another state revenue pipeline to troubled municipal projects, this one to operate transit trains that cannot possibly be funded by commuters whose numbers were greatly inflated to secure the initial federal millions.

These plans are so elaborate and so expensive that they include a proposal for a statewide sales tax increase to cover the soon-to-be operating deficits of a transit system that the public never asked for in the first place. The proposal is so outlandish that there are already plans to expand the as-yet-unfinished tracks to even wider areas in the St. Louis metropolitan area. Bi-State officials are so generous that they envision running the system over to St. Charles County, and then along a line that cuts through the most affluent area of the state, and eventually another set of tracks that rambles down south to Jefferson County. If you have no money to operate the first set of trains, it certainly makes sense to these same sponsors that you plan on building still more track to operate even more trains in the future. It particularly makes sense if the whole idea can be funded by additional revenue from the remainder of the state.

Along about the time Hoola-Hoops were popular, St. Louis had a rapid transit system known as streetcars. They didn't travel at 50 miles an hour, but they did speed commuters from St. Louis County to downtown in about 20 minutes. That beats cars any day of the week. The reason these streetcars aren't still running can be traced to one fact: fewer and fewer St. Louisans were riding them, preferring the convenience of their own automobiles when it came time to go to work or go out shopping. And that was even in the day when many in the area still went downtown to make purchases. These days the city goes to the county, for the most part, when residents want to buy clothes, appliances and automobiles, and even Hoola-Hoops and straw hats.

We're talking big plans, folks, running into the billions of dollars. So, all aboard, taxpayers, there are plans to take all of you for a big ride on a transit system that can't operate without outside assistance, and lots of it. And, incidentally, taxpayers, when you get on board this train, bring lots of money. You won't believe the cost of the fare.