Money - The root of all political evil

The business of closing a gap between anticipated revenue and planned spending for the current fiscal year has all but dominated the time and attention of Missouri's legislators and governor since the first of the year.

A stopgap plan approved last week by the Missouri Legislature quietly received the signature of Gov. Bob Holden Wednesday. This is not the plan he proposed a couple of months ago, but he had little choice except to go along. And in order to make the budget work for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, Holden has announced he will cut another $82 million from state funding for public schools and higher education.

The good news is that the approved plan will save taxpayers more than $200 million in interest over the proposal the governor favored. Holden wanted to sell bonds that would have been repaid with Missouri's share of the anticipated revenue from the national tobacco settlement. That plan would have taken longer to pay back. And, because the tobacco revenue isn't a sure thing, the interest would have been higher.

The plan the governor signed Wednesday calls for issuing revenue bonds to be paid from general revenue. In effect, the state will sell bonds to raise enough money to pay for state buildings currently under construction. General revenue that was going to be used for those projects will be freed up to be used for operational expenses.

(The state plan is, in many ways, quite similar to the proposals Cape Girardeau voters will vote on in April. Those options include raising money for capital needs, thus freeing up general revenue to be spent on operations.)

The bad news is that both political parties have, in anticipation of next year's all-important elections for control of the legislature and the governor's office, jumped into the negative-advertising business with both feet. The Republicans started it by blasting the governor for what the party claimed was fiscal irresponsibility. Democrats countered that the Republicans are to blame for the governor's additional cuts in education spending.

The plain truth is that both political parties are now in the business of finding ways to spend less. A lot less, if current estimates of a $1 billion gap between revenue and spending needs for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1, hold true.

Look for a lot more sniping along partisan lines in the weeks and months to come before the November 2004 general election. Voters can expect to hear a dominant theme: It's their fault, not ours.

Too bad.

Looking for good solutions would produce much better results for Missouri's taxpayers. Look at the revenue-bond plan just signed by Holden. It was almost unanimously approved by legislators in both parties because, quite frankly, no one could come up with anything better.

Don't be fooled by political rhetoric designed to make you think one party or the other is to blame for unpalatable solutions the legislature produces. Republicans and Democrats both are up to their necks on the issue of the state's fiscal responsibility.