CARING STATE, OR MEANDERING RIVER?

KENNETT, Mo. -- How Missourians perceive their state, whether as a system of unified communities or as an accidental geographic conglomeration, will in the immediate present and approaching future determine how they participate in its affairs.

Putting the subject differently, do we share a sense of community with fellow Missourians who live 500 miles from our doorsteps? Or do we view them as strangers whose lives have no impact on ours?

If, as many suggest, Missouri is a separate state with separate individual needs and ambitions, then it is not hard to argue that the problems of tiny Worth County in Northwest Missouri have no connection with the threatened family values of the city of St. Louis.

Many argue our differences are too great to overcome, that our traditions are so vastly opposite that agreement, much less reconciliation, is all but impossible.

The problem with this detachment of satisfactory solutions in a democratic system is that in order to administer what the vast majority of us perceive as being essential services, elected representatives of both Worth County and St. Louis city must come together to divide both the cost and the benefits of state government.

The optimists among us say this shared responsibility shouldn't be difficult since the mutual commonality of seeking the best from government is equally shared. As a realist, let me offer a dissent from what I believe is mistaken trust in the human condition, kindly known as empathy or mutual concern and responsibility.

The belief that men of goodwill can come together to resolve vastly different needs will only take us so far before it begins to collapse.

For example, when elected legislators representing Worth County and those representing the city of St. Louis come together, they are faced not with differing solutions, but with the diametric needs of their constituents.

Worth County's officials annually go through a funding crisis that can only be resolved when its courthouse is closed during the winter months to conserve fuel and limited revenue.

This crisis occurs not because the county commission has invested thousands of dollars on a plan to expand the area's economy, but because the relatively small area of the county and its dwindling population don't provide sufficient revenue to maintain what is called a traditional unit of government.

The dilemma facing elected representatives of the state's largest urban area, however, is totally different. County offices are kept open both winter and summer, essential services are maintained and streets are repaired from a core budget that is beyond the imagination of smaller governments. St. Louis' problem concerning population provides a whole new set of challenges: how to meet citizens' needs and maintain adequate numbers of taxpayers to assure long-term stability.

If these were the only problems facing officials we elect to hold offices in Jefferson City, then perhaps reasonable if separate responses could be generated for both areas of the state.

Unfortunately, there are so many additional divisions between Worth County and St. Louis that core differences are never ever discussed, much less resolved. The state has bigger problem-fish to fry, and this includes requests for new projects, even if they may be at the expense of some of its constituents.

One is able to declare without contradiction that state government's problems must receive the highest priority or the greatest number of Missourians will be harmed, so individual concerns are almost always unresolved, even as they continue to multiply through benign neglect.

Most Missourians can agree that the maintenance of our systems of public education, health, corrections, transportation, conservation and safety are all the proper responsibility of government.

We also need to recognize that even at its best, the American free-enterprise system is not able to include everyone, that there will always be those left out.The irony is that government at its best meets its expected goals even as it ignores other pressing needs of its constituents.

Gov. Bob Holden's budget calls for total state government spending right at $19 billion in the fiscal year beginning July 1. This represents a 12 percent increase over the revenue available for the current fiscal year, so the increase is hardly insignificant.

Before the various appropriation groups in the General Assembly could begin studying the governor's recommendations, there were cries that the state was facing a financial crisis, which may or not be true. The point is that many of the real, earth-shaking needs of the state's jurisdictions will once again fare poorly, pushed aside for more immediate concerns of vested constituencies oblivious to equally serious problems outside their interest.

Needed solutions demand not more units of government -- we already have too many but for a broader role perspective of those we elect to existing public offices. An elected representative from Vernon County must be willing to consider remedies for public governance wherever it is found. Urban lawmakers must get over their astigmatism and recognize the importance of remote areas, even those without golf courses and country clubs.

As John Kennedy observed while in the oval office, "Our political debates and issues too often bear little or no relation to the actual problems of our society." These words are as true in 2001 as they were 40 years ago.

The long-term needs of all of its citizens must be met or otherwise the word Missouri only means not a meandering river but a meandering government.

~Jack Stapleton is the editor of Missouri News and Editorial Service.