MISSOURIANS HAVE LOTS OF QUESTIONS; ANSWERS IN SHORT SUPPLY

Let met state right up front: There are presently many more questions hovering over the Missouri Capitol than there are answers, an even larger number than usual. Some questions are new. Some have been around like absent-minded albatrosses for years. And some were inherited from long-ago generations. Questions are funny that way, staying around for long periods just waiting for someone to provide the right answer before they will agree to drop out of sight.

We should realize that many of the officials who hang around the Capitol will tell you that everything possible is being done to resolve whatever nagging, worrisome problem you asked about. These easy reassurances are natural for incumbents who were most anxious to discuss state dilemmas before they took office. After they take office, the political excuse that if-it-isn't-broke-don't-try-to-fix-it takes over.

For starters, let's identify some of the unresolved challenges facing Missourians in this spring of 2000.

Challenge No. 1: Since this is the year we will elect the governor of Missouri, all 163 members of the House of Representatives, one-half of the members of the Missouri Senate, all of the state's nine members of the U.S. House of Representatives and one of our two U.S. senators, the transition created by this year's election will be monumental. Not only will the changes lay siege to the way our state government has been doing business, they will alter its direction -- unknown at this moment -- until the year 2004. And don't forget that November's election will trigger the redistricting of both chambers of the General Assembly.

Challenge No. 2: Since our forefathers decreed long ago the principal responsibility of Missouri was to provide for the education of its children, we need to take a long, hard look at our present attempts and see where should and can make improvements. I believe most of us feel much more must be done to improve the K-12 programs. We must decide, once and for all, how far the state can go in improving scholastic achievements by altering the policies of the past and present. We should embark on programs that promise, even while being unable to deliver, academic excellence, even if this means experimenting with unproved panaceas such as vouchers, expanded support for private schools, consolidation of districts, ending restrictions against non-certified teachers, special schools for the exceptional, career classrooms, specialized technology courses and even minimalist training for students unable to benefit form traditional instruction.

Challenge No. 3: A degree in civil engineering is not required to recognize that Missouri's highway system needs both immediate and long-term remedies. It's a fact of life that the plans we thought were firmly in place just eight years ago are as outdated as the first $60 million bond issue voters approved in 1920 to get their roads out of the mud. Eight years later our forefathers voted another bond issue, this one for $75 million, to augment the first effort. We ought to view this possible solution from the standpoint that these bonds were not retired until 1957. Perhaps a now-inflated multibillion-dollar bond issue will get us out of the mud hole we're in, but we will pay a high price in interest on such an amount, none of which will be spent on better highways. It seems logical to explore other means, or better still, a combination of proffered remedies.

Challenge No. 4: Jefferson City is not prepared for what many believe will almost certainly be characterized as a business downturn in other words, a recession. This has far-reaching consequences for governments that must decide how to lower spending for vital public services. Despite record-high, undreamed of revenue in recent years, Missouri is hardly in a position to maintain these services from its present poorly funded reserve accounts.

Challenge No. 5: Missouri has yet to devise programs to meet the needs of predicted demographic changes in the future. We will have higher population percentages who are elderly. We will have increased numbers who have no health insurance. We will have more suburban residents and fewer core-city and rural residents. We will have fewer industrial jobs and more technological ones. We will have an increasing percentage of minority and foreign-born residents. We will experience greater environmental risks. Where are the plans for all these changes?

Your challenge as a voter is to learn how candidates will meet Missouri's problems of the future.

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