LETTERS: STATE COULD USE EXCESS REVENUE

To the editor:

According to the latest news, Missouri's excess revenue keeps growing. Refunds to taxpayers have not been issued as mandated by the Hancock Amendment due to legal challenges. One of these contends that the excess revenue has come from a variety of tax sources, and refunding the revenue equitably would be indeterminable. State sources suggest that such excess revenue may continue for several more years.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but there are legitimate, identifiable statewide needs that could be addressed: paying off bonded indebtedness, upgrading substandard bridges and perhaps others.

Just recently, Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve Board chairman, asserted that the surge of the stock market is on an "unsustainable track," whatever that portends for the economy. It may not be a bad idea to use the present windfall to sustain a surplus contingency fund as a buffer against future declines, disasters and unexpected events. As we have seen the world over, millions of dollars can melt quickly in the face of desperate need.

Realizing the understandable obstacles to implement the foregoing, it may be worthwhile to make a stab at it.

GILBERT DEGENHARDT

Cape Girardeau