Missouri's flea-infested government

KENNETT, Mo. -- Mark Twain once said that every dog needs a few fleas because they keep him from worrying so much about being a dog.

Perhaps that is why so many officials welcome all the distractions created in Jefferson City: They divert them from worrying about the problems they have neglected for so long.

At the moment, our elected officeholders in the executive and legislative branches are worried about how to balance the next fiscal year's budget, discovering almost by accident that we lack a few million dollars here and there to comply with the constitutional mandate to balance spending with the amount of money we expect to receive.

Technically, we have always complied with this rule, but cash-starved budgets have on occasion been balanced only through accounting sleight-of-hand that would do credit to the auditors at Enron.

Although there is no way to determine how the proposed budget for fiscal year 2003, which starts July 1, will achieve this balancing act, we can be reasonably certain that it will be done legally, if not actually. Any indication of worry over this relatively benign constitutional responsibility is done for public consumption, not honest concern.

Like a dog's fleas, these official concerns about balancing the budget are designed to circumvent the public's worry over the real fiscal problems that threaten state government when even a slight revenue downturn occurs, thereby creating a crisis that crowds out other dialogue that is more difficult to resolve and which can only be attempted with far more political courage than is traditionally displayed in state capitals around the nation.

For the remainder of this piece, let's discuss some of the real-life problems that receive such scant attention from career politicians who usually turn in a superb job of diverting public attention from pressing challenges that year after year go unmet, even unacknowledged.

Flea Problem No. 1: Only a relatively small handful of elected officials in Missouri have ever addressed one of the most pressing economic problems facing the state: Missouri's below-national-average per-capita income. Thank goodness for Mississippi, Arkansas and Alabama, which divert attention from Missouri's totals, or we would be permanently embarrassed by being at the bottom of virtually every economic survey conducted.

Oh, it's true the state ranks in ninth place nationally for on-farm grain storage and is mid-ranked in urban commuting time, but the numbers that really count include per-capita income and percentages for academic achievement and college graduates.

We don't talk much about income statistics, for they remind us our state budgets aren't designed to change the fact residents in 14 counties earn less than half the state per capita median income, and those in 26 other countries earn less than 60 percent of the per capita income. Citizens in 40 counties continue to live far below the minimum income.

When it comes to Missouri's share of federal spending, we join a few Southern states and some scattered elsewhere that receive far more each year from Washington than our citizens send in taxes. This is how low-income states are determined, so if we're really comfortable with receiving more than we're paying, then life is beautiful and isn't it great to be poor!

Flea Problem No. 2: Missouri's 57-year-old constitution (with portions of it dating back 182 years) places public education as the first responsibility of the state. Because of our per-capita income shortfall, the largest share of annual state spending is for welfare assistance.

The causality of this dichotomy is obvious: If Missouri was meeting its constitutional obligations to its citizens, we would be spending less on welfare payments. The greatest increases in operational and recurring spending over the past quarter of a century have been in social services, while the greatest percentage hikes have been for prisons and bonded debt.

One in five Missourians is now receiving a Social Security check either as a retired worker, a disabled worker or from one of its survivor programs. This statistic has its roots not in today's economy but in the poverty of the 1930s depression era. The point is, our state has not progressed as rapidly as have a majority of states, attributable in part to our failure to allocate sufficient resources to education at all levels.

Flea Problem No. 3: Much of the work carried out in Jefferson City is designed to meet the public's need for security and respond to the whims of special interests. There are too many instances in which state government seeks to serve the public good by subverting it.

Instead of funding public education at the state level, rather than relying on the two-century-old concept of local property taxation, Jefferson City has diverted valuable resources to build athletic stadiums and other non-essential projects while at the same time it foisted such enterprises as organized gambling to enhance its own revenue.

No elected official is serving constituents by increasing gambling operations that create utter devastation in thousands of homes in the state. The excuse that the state needs revenue from such sources is prima facie evidence that elected officials are ignoring the constitutional priority of meeting the common welfare.

Who knows when someone in Jefferson City will suggest the state resolve its next fiscal crisis by selling dope through licensed street corner vendors?

Flea Problem No. 4: Too many state programs and too much public funding is done on the basis of political power and patronage. Every time an elected official supports grants or sponsors special-interest legislation or dispenses patronage on the basis of party politics, the will of the majority is subverted.

Missouri has more than its share of fleas in our state Capitol to keep us scratching well into the next century.

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