MISSOURI WATCH: POLITICAL ANSWERS AND GORDIAN KNOTS

Recent events in Missouri tend to confirm a postulation long held by this column that society's worst problems are most often found in efforts to resolve the problems created by government.

To be sure, there are wise and controlled advocates among us who have an exemplary record of advancing seemingly logical solutions by means of governmental management for critical conditions or problems within society, and I hasten to confirm the correctness of these arguments. To be sure, governments at whatever level can and do resolve public issues, providing a means unable to be supplied by individuals or small groups. I think everyone recognizes that the business of caring, feeding and treating economically deprived citizens cannot be done with any assurance by asking the fortunate to adopt a striving family or assume all of its medical needs.

This admission, however, does not extend to all of society's problems, and certainly it does not include many of the serious challenges that face citizens in our state today. Indeed, many of these difficult dilemmas are made exponentially more difficult by attempts of government to offer programs that are neither simple nor inexpensive, as a means of satisfying public demands for resolution and as a means of enhancing political parties and leaders.

Indeed, if we were to attempt a broad overview of the current list of Missouri's problems, we would find that many are the result of a government's best intentions, however faulty these remedies might have been, even in the initial moments of inception. Citizens who give more than a 30-second study to these problems will recognize the validity of what I choose to call The Fallacy Theory of Political Resolution,

For starters, let's examine a problem that has hung over the Missouri Capitol for more than four decades. Whether you assign it the name of desegregating schools or seeking racial justice in the Show-Me State is of no consequence, since both terms fit the occasion. Through governmental "remedy," Missouri preserved some degree of racial harmony, but only among whites, by maintaining separate but allegedly equal schools for both races and did so far past the time such remedies were ruled illegal. The state provided a solution to a problem that was, by all counts, both illegal and inequitable.

To resolve this problem, Missouri was forced to turn to another division of government, in this case the federal court system, for answers. This branch of our democracy first said the state should begin busing segregated students to districts beyond community boundaries and improve the smaller number of buildings left standing. This was implemented in St. Louis, at great cost to taxpayers all over the state who were penalized even if they were innocent of any bias whatsoever, but this remedy would eventually destroy the thread that precariously held the sword of Damocles, creating an additional expenditure of taxpayer money approaching $1.8 billion. In Kansas City, the governmental solution was somewhat different, but nearly as expensive: build new, extra-modern pedantic palaces in order to attract students of both races.

By now we know these solutions, all provided by public entities, were fallacious, so much so that not only did they fail to achieve their missions, they created still more problems that once again challenge society and governments.

But this is just the tip of the Fallacy Theory.

Let's examine something untouched by racism or political troth: highways. At the turn of this decade, public officials recognized something citizens had noticed several years before---Missouri's highways were crumbling and the state lacked sufficient revenue to rebuild them. To soften the blow of this fact, government outlined a remedy that was not unduly expensive and, to enrich the pot, promised progress far beyond what could be achieved. The public, quite naturally, accepted the solutions offered by those who promote and build our roads, and signed on to the 15-Year Road Plan. It promised far more than it could deliver, and now citizens are faced with still higher levies to fund a "solution" that was never realistic. The cost, dear taxpayer, will be far greater because the government sought to ameliorate its own responsibility.

Let's continue to a generally unrecognized problem in the field of mental health. A few years ago state officials sought to ease tax burdens by utilizing numerous federal assistance payments, which while helpful at one level also demanded excessive and expensive compliance measures. It is doubtful Missouri saved one penny in tapping into these programs, but without question the action reduced the services needed by hundreds, even thousands of mentally ill and mentally retarded. The old system is in tatters and the new system, via governmental solution, is inadequate. No wisdom; just fallacy.

Take campaign reform. This problem is unquestionably responsible for a diminished public trust in all governments. The solutions, both in Washington and Jefferson City, have been both political and partisan, designed to provide relief for participants. Unfortunately, there are still more examples:

-- Governmental solutions seem to increase the problems of drug addiction and abuse.

-- More prisons to house our fastest growing population segment provide an excuse not to fund rehabilitation programs.

-- Governments abdicate responsibility to aid compulsive gamblers to those who thrive on this illness: gaming syndicates.

-- Efforts to provide new jobs, and more tax revenue, often result in harm to the environment and may, as in the case of hog and poultry megafarms, cost more than they produce.

When government offers to tie our shoes, we would be wise to recall The Fallacy Theory of Political Resolution and make sure we're not just getting another Gordian knot.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of Missouri News and Editorial Service.