CONTROLLING TAXES: MORE THAN A LID

There is a move afoot to scuttle a proposed tax-limit plan that would require Missourians to vote on any tax increase greater than $50 million. A Senate committee last week changed the proposal, which has been endorsed by Gov. Carnahan and the Farm Bureau. The changes would permit the General Assembly to approve tax increases up to $75 million without a statewide vote. Moreover, the changes would let the legislature approve any tax increase it wants with a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate.

This was to be anticipated. Legislators don't want to be accountable to the voters when it comes to taxes. More importantly, some skilled politicians know that as long as the focus of the debate is on how large a tax increase should voter approval, the more the state's attention is deflected from the real issue. What Missourians really ought to be yelling about is the skyrocketing annual increases in state spending that have nothing to do with new taxes.

State spending is mushrooming because of old taxes already on the books and existing loopholes that allow spending to increase at the same rate as the state's personal income. It is no surprise that both the legislature and the governor's office have seen fit each year to find ways to spend every nickel they can get their hands on.

As long as the squabbling is about a new taxing limit, elected officials believe they won't have to give any serious consideration to what Missouri really needs: a tax cut.

But Missouri's voters are catching on to this ruse. Watching the state's spending double in the last eight years to more than $13 billion has been a wake-up call for the state's taxpayers who already have reached -- or exceeded -- their tax limit.

But future tax increases are still a concern. As Missourians saw a couple of years ago, a cooperative legislature and governor can impose whopping new taxes, like the $380 million for so-called school reform, without a peep from voters.

The task before the legislature is twofold: Put a solid cap on taxation that gives voters a say on any proposed increase, and look at ways to cut spending before approving the governor's proposed budget.

A simple tax-limit amendment that simply says "No new or expanded tax shall be imposed without a vote of the people" is far better than the wishy-washy proposals currently under consideration, all of which permit large tax increases without votes.

And acknowledging the fact that taxpayers want state government to spend less, not more, would be a good first step on the part of the General Assembly. This doesn't even require a statewide vote. Of course, Missourians might have their own statewide referendum on this very issue when they go to the polls in 1996 to elect a new governor and new legislators.