REGION HAS STRONG YEAR IN LEGISLATURE

The just-completed session of the General Assembly is being hailed for having passed more major bills than any session in recent years. The only recent session to compare with it would be the 1993 session, which gave us Mel Carnahan's higher taxes without the vote of the people he had promised short months before. As with that year, this year gave us some measures to praise and others to deplore.

First, the positives. A five-year effort to pass a concealed-weapon bill has borne fruit, albeit in a form unique to Missouri. Next April at the school and municipal elections, Missouri voters will have an opportunity to join the 43 other states that allow citizens to apply to the sheriff for a permit to carry concealed. The first-in-the-nation referendum clause was the only way the bill could pass in the current climate in Jefferson City, with the governor and key senators adamantly opposed. Missourians should approve the measure.

Additionally, a measure passed that attempts to deal with desegregation cases in St. Louis and Kansas City -- the two most expensive such cases in America. It isn't perfect -- what legislation is? -- but it is a stab at cutting this Gordian knot that has so long divided Missourians. A key unanswered question: Will St. Louis voters pass the local tax increase needed to access additional state funding for their schools?

On the downside, the Legislature approved a huge expansion of Medicaid benefits for the middle class. Stiff opposition from Senate Republicans in the form of an extended filibuster forced changes in the bill that made it less objectionable. Still, this sow's ear will never be a silk purse. We are told welfare is being scaled back. But here comes Mel Carnahan and the Democratic majority hugely expanding it, even up to families of four making $49,200 a year.

Moreover, few Missourians are probably aware that another bill passed that will put our public schools in the pre-kindergarten day care business -- all in the name of "early childhood education." Our schools are asked to do too much now, and this will dump still more on them. The only good thing about this is that participation is at the option of local school districts.

For our region, it was a very strong year in the Legislature. Full funding for the new polytechnic institute at Southeast Missouri State University is in the capital improvements bill at $5.6 million. There is an additional $100,000 for the soon-to-be-relocated Southeast Missouri Crime Lab. There is $1 million toward the cost of the new Cape Girardeau Area Vocational-Technical School. Also, there will be $125,000 redirected out of aviation fuel taxes for operation of the control tower at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport. Moreover, passage of a juvenile crime bill means funding will be freed up to build a regional, multicounty juvenile detention center somewhere in Cape County.

Kudos to our legislators for working for all these projects so successfully. Special credit on the juvenile crime measure goes as well to Cape Girardeau County Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones, who worked hard for passage of this bill these last two years.

We have said it before and now again: Thank goodness for Mel Hancock. Thanks to his leadership we have Missouri's tax-limitation amendment. It forces state government to limit the orgy of taxing and spending. With state revenue over the lid again this year, lawmakers passed a small, $86 million tax cut. Included in it is a tripling of the dependent deduction from $400 to $1,200. This figure hasn't been raised since it was established in 1945, and it would be $3,800 today if all inflation were taken into account. Missouri will be a much more family-friendly place if lawmakers were to double it again next year to $2,400. Also included is a $1,000 deduction for elderly dependents over 65 if the elderly person lives with the taxpayer.

All in all, many sessions have done worse. For that, we are thankful.