PEOPLE HAVE NO ENTITLEMENT TO IGNORANCE

It was distressing to read a recent news story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch featuring a 64-year-old retired postal employee who, according to the account, had almost single-handedly defeated a proposed tax increase in a suburban school district. It was distressing not because the retiree had exercised his right to oppose any public issue, for that is both his right and privilege, but bec~ause the reasons he cited for marshaling anti-tax sentiment were based on incorrect facts and inaccurate conjecture.

I hope the former postal worker won't conclude I am capriciously singling him out, because the awful reality is that half-truths and wild conjectures are not the exclusive property of ordinary citizens but rather are the currency of the realm in such places as Jefferson City and Washington, D.C. On any given day in our state and federal capitals, it is possible to hear those whose statements are neither truthful nor sincere and whose facts avoid truth like a plague. Such lapses are too often overlooked or, worse, accepted as fact.

One of the unfulfilled hopes of the founding fathers was the creation of a society of well-intentioned and well-informed citizens who, armed with knowledge, could make proper decisions for the good of all. This was the reason the framers were so anxious to bestow upon the press a freedom unknown anywhere else in the world at the time. Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton believed that if the press would perform its job without malice, then those who were governed would make wise decisions. As is so often the case, reality falls far short of expectation, not only in the early years of the nation but in today's present, not only among the early colonists but among 64-year-old senior citizens in Missouri.

What was so disturbing about the news story was a litany of reasons cited by the former postal employee for opposing an increase of 49 cents per $100 assessed valuation in his school district's tax levy. The current levy is 49 cents below the minimum required in S.B. 380 to qualify for increased foundation payments, a minimum arrived at by legislators seeking to comply with last January's decision by Circuit Judge Byron Kinder, who ruled that the present tax formula was unconstitutional and inequitable to a majority of the state's local school districts. Judge Kinder issued his decision in response to a lawsuit filed by some of the districts that had suffered for many years from an inequitable per-student distribution of funds that, in some cases, reached as high as $7,000 per child. Few had doubted that he would rule otherwise. But as the St. Louisan cited his reasons for opposition, it was difficult to find any degree of accuracy, and yet the reporter had printed his incorrect statements as if they were factual.

The anti-tax retiree attributed to Gov. Carnahan the evil goal of shutting down small school districts, such as his own with an enrollment of 1,200 students, and leaving only those with a student body of at least 5,000 students. No one who has ever listened to the governor believes this is correct, nor did the chief executive ever ask legislators who wrote the bill to include that provision in S.B. 380. The retiree insists that the overwhelming tax defeat (875-2,162) was "meaningless," despite the fact that unless voters become acquainted with the facts between now and next July, the days of their school are probably numbered. Interestingly, the former postal employee's district was the only one in the area to reject the equalization referendum on Aug. 3.

Making his opposition all the more puzzling was the retiree's view of his local school system: "It's a good school district" and his overly optimistic wish: "I don't want to see the district shut down." Since he admitted he had no knowledge of schools, our anti-tax friend really didn't know whether his local district was good or not, and his feigned innocence of any role in closing down his local schools was ludicrous if he had any knowledge of the state's new foundation formula.

It is probably sheer folly to suggest that no voter should be allowed to cast his ballot until he is fully informed about the issue in question. When the votes are tallied, a ballot cast in ignorance equals one based on knowledge, which is probably all that can be hoped for in today's Age of Entitlement.

There are so many entitlements in today's world, from the right to be wrong to the right to receive government payments for immoral acts. There is the right to consume alcohol until one is stupid and dangerous and the right to purchase an assault weapon for the express purpose of killing our neighbor. Rights are fine, but when did we vote to end citizen responsibility?