MISSOURI WATCH: IT'S THE STUPIDITY, SMARTY

We Americans like our public issues to be simple, and if they become too complex, we have a tendency to let our eyes glaze over and our minds wander to more- interesting subjects, such as the 0. J. Simpson trial. Government can't be that complicated, we reason, and if our politicians would only use a little common horse sense, they could see the solutions as well as the rest of us.

I recently took an informal poll of friends and found that, to the man, they believed that balancing the federal budget wasn't nearly as complicated as Clinton, Dole, Gingrich and Gephardt make it out to be. When asked how they would accomplish this feat, I got answers that ranged from lower tax rates to freezing the current cost of government and relying on increased revenue receipts. "It's simple," one replied, "cut liabilities, freeze assets." Now why didn't Congress think of that?

Indeed, we Americans not only believe Washington and Jefferson City have created the problems that bedevil them, we are able, by some divine gift, to easily solve complex problems the farther away we are from their presence. In political circles, particularly during campaigns, politicians call this wonderful problem-solving talent of ours "the genius of the people." Presumably, when someone is elected to public office, they stop being "people" and become "part of the problem," which is another phrase that's bandied about every two or four years.

A classic example of The-Average-Citizen-Knows-Best syndrome, is Speaker Gingrich's Contract with America demand that Congress live under the rules it makes for the country, a plank that has already been approved by the House of Representatives. It makes sense, anyone knows, that members of Congress, while conducting the public's business, should abide by the same rules that it sets for the rest of us, right? Of course right.

But the accountability act contains far more than broad principle. As a matter of fact, the first thing it does is establish a new, brand new, Office of Compliance that will see that the new rules are followed by all 435 members of the House. This means establishing still another federal bureaucracy that will begin snooping around the halls of Congress. Serves them right, you say? Well, it does serve us taxpayers right, since we will be picking up a conservatively estimated $3 million in added costs just for the new Office of Compliance. But there's more.

Federal employees of the House and its members, numbering some 27,000 men and women, will now have the right to unionize, a tenet that never seems to be mentioned in party platforms of Gingrich's favorite political faith. Not only will they have the right to unionize, certain regulations of the U.S. Department of Labor will apply to petitioning employees, giving them rights over and beyond those extended to private industry.

Because they have not been included in the wage and hour rules of the federal government, the Capitol Police will begin collecting overtime, which will add to the taxpayers' cost to the tune of at least $800,000 a year. In addition, members of Congress can now be sued by their employees for racial and sexual discrimination, raising the specter of enormous punitive damages, which will again be paid by John Q. Public. We had better brace for some hefty awards in these cases, considering the paucity of minorities on congressional payrolls.

As if all this weren't bad enough, the Contract with America resolution failed to address a couple of congressional immunities that have been around for some time. House members voted to exclude themselves from all provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, which means they will still be able to censor their activities, numerous deliberations and all public papers and documents relating to the House. Oh, there's one more exclusion we citizens should know about. House members are still exempt from restrictions against earning outside income and taking gifts from private donors. Bring on all those fat-cat paid speeches, paid vacations and expensive gifts.

It all seemed so simple when the politicians explained how they wanted to make members of Congress live like the rest of us. Except we forgot the members had one little extra power: the right to exclude themselves when it suited them.

~Jack Stapleton is a Kennett columnist who keeps tabs on government issues.