PRESSURE FOR MORE TAXES, SPENDING TRULY OVERWHELMING

State employee unions want $200/month increase"

"UAW sets organizing drive for Missouri state employees"

We are witnessing the opening scenes of a major battle that will determine what sort of state Missouri becomes as we head into the 21st century.

Headlines such as these from Missouri newspapers during the last week testify to the overwhelming pressure now building for more spending in Jefferson City. All Missourians should be on guard, for what is being attempted is nothing less than a sharp turn away from fiscal sanity a dramatic and permanent change in the way our state conducts business.

With a new governor committed to a $200 million tax increase for education, the pro-spending forces are ready, in poker parlance, to see Governor Mel Carnahan and raise him BIG. These pro-spending forces believe they glimpse the brightest opportunity in years to set off an avalanche of higher taxes and greater spending.

The only things standing between these folks and your wallet are a few lonely public servants and the Hancock Amendment, which requires a vote of the people before significantly raising taxes. And the spenders dream of demolishing that barricade, as well.

The six- or seven-figure United Auto Workers' radio and TV ad campaign, now airing across Missouri, is the clearest sign yet that Big Labor is shoving its huge stacks of chips to the center of the table. As of now, this huge ad campaign goes unanswered. One wonders: who will respond to the soothing claims of these professionally produced ads?

Across the nation, such increases in union membership as they have achieved have come from the push to unionize federal, state and local government workers. This includes unionizing our public schools. Are these steps in the right direction? A friend cracked to me this week, "The thinking apparently is that the United Auto Workers can do for state government what they have done for General Motors."

None of this is to say that state employees are not worthy of any pay increase; many have gone three years without one. But the same is true of countless workers in the private sector where, unlike state workers, the pitiless discipline of market competition determines what wages can be increased and what benefits conferred, when, and how much.

Additional fuel for more spending comes from a familiar quarter: the courts. I refer to the recent decision by Cole County Circuit Judge Byron Kinder, declaring that Missouri's school foundation formula for distributing money to school districts "does not pass constitutional muster."

Judge Kinder's decision is open to different interpretations as to precisely what it requires of the legislature. But this is clearly one to watch. Don't be surprised if the thorny school funding issue cannot be resolved in the regular session of the legislature, which ends May 14. In that event, we almost certainly will be called back into a special session (at more expense) to deal with the foundation formula.

Achieving an equitable school foundation formula for distributing state aid has been so complex and so difficult in recent years that it might be compared to the fruitless exercise of Sysiphus, of Greek mythology. Recall that Sysiphus was the guy condemned through all eternity to rolling a stone up a steep hill, topped by a narrow peak. When he reached the top, the stone would tumble back down the hillside, and poor Sysiphus would have to begin the whole exercise over again, and again, and yet again.

I begin my first legislative session as your state senator with high hopes and much determination to work with all people of honesty and good will. But the people who have designs on your wallet are determined, and they think they see their chance. Meanwhile, a recent study by political scientist James Payne concludes that pro-spending witnesses in legislative hearings out-number anti-spending witnesses by an astonishing 145-1. Ever wonder why government's growth is so relentless?

It should be an interesting session.