IDEA FOR TAXPAYER-FINANCED CAMPAIGNS IS A BAD ONE

The liberal reformers are back to pester Missourians with another dreary version of their favorite cure-all for our political campaigns: food stamps for politicians.

Pardon our sarcasm, but this is the best way to think of the proposal advanced by a group modestly calling itself Missourians for Fair Elections. Their reform: To set up a system of financing of election campaigns with your tax money to the tune of $13 million a year. The group has kicked off a petition effort to put the issue before voters on next year's ballot. They will almost certainly qualify for the ballot, which means the issue will have to be fought out again.

A year ago this same group promoted individual taxpayer-financed election campaigns in Missouri. They collected enough signatures for that proposal to make the ballot but eventually scuttled their own drive.

The proposal this time is to force Missouri employers to foot the bill. "What we're looking at is about a one-one-hundredths of 1 percent increase in the corporate franchise tax," said former Lt. Gov. Harriett Woods, a supporter. Woods, a twice-defeated candidate for the U.S. Senate now teaching at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, says many businesses won't be taxed. Rather, "only those with assets of more than $2 million" would be.

Similar measures have passed in Arizona, Maine and Massachusetts by voters and by the Legislature in Vermont. Any way you look at it, though, this is taking your tax money and using it to fund election campaigns for politicians, including those you may disagree with or even passionately oppose. It's a bad idea.

The Missouri Chamber of Commerce, which led opposition to the initiative last year, is doing the same this time. We wish the state chamber luck in defeating this ill-advised ballot measure.