MISSOURI HAS BECOME ONE OF THE MOST GENEROUS STATES IN THE UNION

Three years ago, a few of us in the Senate doggedly opposed a large expansion of welfare in Missouri. A major initiative of President Bill Clinton and Gov. Mel Carnahan, it was an extension of Medicaid into the middle class. We warned that the state couldn't and shouldn't go down this road. We argued, for instance, that Missouri should do a much better job of compensating our existing Medicaid providers -- heroic folks who are woefully underpaid -- before we expanded the program. We lost. After we stopped it cold one year on the final day of the session, lawmakers passed the expansion the next year.

Today, a family of four earning $51,000 qualifies for our newly expanded Medicaid in Missouri. Next year and the year after that it'll be higher. We're one of the most generous states in the union on this score. This was about the same time Mel Carnahan succeeded, through another major new program in our schools, in putting Missouri into the day-care business for the first time. Behold the expansion of the nanny state that can do literally everything for you. Isn't self-government wonderful?

Sort of reminds you of the old saying: "He who robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the vote and support of Paul."

Oh, by the way: The state doesn't call it Medicaid, but has renamed it "MC-Plus" so recipients and taxpayers won't associate this new middle-class entitlement with whatever stigma the latter program has acquired.

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The seniors, freed at last: My father, who will be 83 in August, enjoys God's blessing of good health. He closed his private practice of medicine in January 1997. Since then he has continued working four days a week in his profession as a pediatrician, providing primary care to poor children at the Cape Girardeau County Health clinic in south Cape.

On Friday, the president signed into law a measure passed by the Republican Congress lifting the earnings limit on Social Security for purposes of taxation. Lawmakers even made this proposal retroactive to some degree.

This proposal has been in every Republican platform since the Goldwater campaign of 1964. Finally, after nearly four decades, we have a Republican Congress that enacts it and the Democrats said, "Well, yes, sure, we can do this." This is a modest but very significant step forward in expanding your freedom.

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Trial lawyers' latest looting spree: Can we all sue our way to prosperity? Consider this feature article on the Microsoft case from Wednesday's Wall Street Journal:

"Next to Attack: Big Guns of the Plaintiffs' Bar"

"Dozens of plaintiff's lawyers are hoping to take the big Microsoft ruling to the bank.

"Claiming to represent thousands of individuals and corporate customers of Microsoft Corp., some of the biggest names in the class-action bar have already filed more than 100 lawsuits that mirror allegations in the case pressed by the Clinton administration and 19 state attorneys general.

"... And the judge's highly publicized ruling Monday could spark even more private suits making the copy-cat argument that Microsoft illegally ... tried to monopolize the market ... .

"Groups of plaintiffs' firms are trying to coordinate their efforts both to mount their attack on Microsoft and to gain an edge in any subsequent award of fees."

~Peter Kinder is assistant to the president of Rust Communications and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.