HOLDEN'S AGENDA IS RAISING TAXES AND GROWING GOVERNMENT

Missourians were told that we absolutely had to act on transportation this past year or the sky would fall in, or something. This followed eight years in which Democrats controlled everything -- both houses of the legislature plus the executive branch under Gov. Mel Carnahan. These were years in which state government was awash in cash, taking in so much revenue that year after year -- you remember -- we exceeded the Hancock Amendment limits and, pursuant to it, had to refund excess taxes. State government was growing at two or three times the rate of inflation, compounded, every year.

These were years in which there was no real determination to do anything at all on transportation -- as opposed to chattering on about it. Under Carnahan, it was far more important to grow the department of social services, even as welfare rolls were dropping dramatically, than it was to use state revenues to do anything for transportation in our state.

Then comes the election of a new governor and the first Republican Senate majority since Harry Truman was president. Then and only then, our transportation system is all of a sudden in a "crisis," necessitating the largest tax increase in state history which, oh, by the way, Governor Holden waited until March, nearly half way through the session, to submit to us.

Well, the Senate majority didn't buy it. And for that, in some quarters, we're being pilloried.

The truth is that Holden's determination to ram through the largest-ever tax increase, allegedly for transportation, reveals the real agenda at work here: growing state government even faster.

There's a pattern here: Democrat chief executives are fiercely determined to raise taxes during their first year in office. Look at the the last eight years: On the national level, you had President Clinton securing passage of the largest tax increase in world history in 1993. On the state level, you had Carnahan the same year using a state judge's ruling on school funding as the pretext for an enormous tax increase for education. Now we have Holden's attempt.

Here is the game: Raise taxes. Do it big. And above all, do it in your first year. Do it then, so, if things go well, voters have three full years to forget that you did it to them, before you have to run for re-election. Then, as the election nears in Missouri and you've taken in so much revenue you've busted through the Hancock revenue lid, do a series of piddling tax cuts, so that you can claim the mantle of a tax-cutter.

If you're a Democrat, and you exist to grow government, this is a pretty good game. It must be admitted that they have gotten away with a lot of this in recent years.

Until this year. Until one of the last things standing between Missourians and the largest-ever state tax increase was a state Senate in Republican hands for the first time since 1948.

Are we Republican senators in possession of 100 percent of the answer? No such claim was ever advanced. Do we have some important points to bring to the debate? Absolutely. Will we be working hard to provide the answer to Missouri's transportation woes over the next six months? Absolutely. This process has already begun, even before the end of the 2001 session.

Next: A Republican program for Missouri's transportation woes.

~Peter Kinder is assistant to the chairman of Rust Communications and president pro tem of the Missouri Senate.