HERE'S THE REASON TAXES GO UP BUT THEY NEVER SEEM TO GO DOWN

In this age of the constant quest for more revenue by governments at all levels, the average taxpayer, which includes the vast majority of us, must occasionally feel as if he is the victim of never-ending holdups by a wide assortment of masked gunmen.

Since it is almost impossible to identify any level of government that is not experiencing some kind of financial difficulty, it appears to be the lot of those of us who are targets that our principal function in life is to shell out money for this or that project which our elected leaders swear we cannot live without.

Candidates for offices in city halls, courthouses, and state and national capitals are most often elected to office because they have adopted platforms that call for immediate reforms and improvements. Seldom do we hear a political candidate say the only thing he wants to accomplish is a continuation of the status quo.

Oh, it's true, candidates can often say, "Read my lips, no new taxes," but in fairness to the politicians, we voters know they don't mean it. Even those who seek office as anti-tax candidates, such conservatives as Ronald Reagan, find it impossible to forestall higher levies once they are confronted with emergencies when in office.

George Bush still holds the record for enacting the nation's largest tax hike, although he may lose his place in the history books after Clinton's deficit-reduction package goes through.

During his eight years in office, voters got the impression that John Ashcroft was an avowed anti-tax politician, yet several new taxes and levies were enacted during his administration with his approval and occasionally on his initiative.

Why must governments constantly seek higher and higher levies from their constituents? From the late 1940s until the late 1980s, the federal government used the excuse, which most at the time considered valid, that taxpayer sacrifice was necessary to prevent the spread of Communism and to protect the "free world" from tyranny. Less dramatic were the appeals made from Jefferson City during that time, but each one was tailored to some real or imagined need of the state and the desire of our political leaders to make citizens feel more comfortable.

Curmudgeons would say that the best way to make taxpayers feel better is to refrain from asking for higher and higher taxes. And they have a point.

Those with long memories can recall that one of the planks in Jack Danforth's first campaign for the U.S. Senate was his expressed desire to reduce the level of federal taxes for the average citizen. Danforth expressed horror when he cited the statistic that 21 percent of our earned income went for federal taxes, vowing to do something about it. Today, the figure has increased to 24.3 percent, despite everything Danforth and like-minded officials can do.

The principal motivation for increasing taxes at intervals not much longer than periods between full moons is "good politics," a term which is often confused with good government. "It's good politics to lead, rather than follow," is an adage that has been repeated in various forms for decades in America, and in Missouri as well. It's not an untruth; aggressive public officials are seen in much better light, at least for the moment, than passive ones.

The difficulty is that seeking higher revenues is viewed as action, whereas creating different opportunities, such as saving tax dollars through increased efficiency, is seldom seen as positive leadership. Somehow we voters have attributed action to efforts to take more of our income, and our elected officials have quickly bought into the idea.

Just the other day our Missouri governor vetoed a bill that would have introduced zero-based budgeting to the state Capitol for the very first time in our history. His veto message said that requiring state officials to verify the need for every dollar spent was unnecessary because other safeguards were in place and working. There wasn't a peep from any taxpayer we know about when the veto message was delivered.

That's because most citizens accepted the official explanation as being valid, when in reality no one in his right mind believes that Jefferson City is doing its best to shepherd every tax dollar. Requiring every state agency to justify its expenditures is viewed as a fate worse than death, because there isn't an agency in the state capital capable of doing it. Dollars are wasted, and if we're lucky, they are wasted in small amounts, but we're not that lucky. That's why taxes always go up and never down.

Missouri is wasting millions of dollars every year, appropriating funds for buildings we don't need, computers that aren't used, employees who don't work. No wonder we never have money to improve the state's priority programs.