SPENDING AND TAXES

Whenever Missourians wonder why their taxes are so high -- or why the governor isn't leading a charge to cut taxes -- they might consider the state's spending on capital improvements. In the current fiscal year that started July 1, Missouri will write checks for some $1.3 billion in construction, repairs and expansions.

The biggest chunk will go to the Department of Corrections to provide more space for inmates sent to prison by get-tough criminal laws that have been adopted in recent years. Generally, Missourians favor hard-line sentences for criminals, but the offsetting expense of housing more prisoners is daunting.

Plans for this fiscal year show the state will spend more on corrections than on all the college and university facilities combined. Overall, about a third of a billion dollars will go for prison-related construction and upgrade costs.

In addition to paying for prisons, Missourians also must fund the operating costs for those facilities.

There is little dissent over the need to keep Missouri's schools, prisons, highways and other facilities in good condition and capable of meeting the service needs of the state's residents. But these bricks-and-mortar spending items reach deeply into taxpayers' pockets.

While more than half the other states are finding ways to cut taxes, Missouri continues to be one of the states leading the list in tax expansion.

Surely taxpayers who vote will be feeling this pinch when they go to the polls this year. It will be interesting to see if their ballots reflect their concern for the tax-and-spend mentality that reaches from the governor's office to the Democrat-controlled General Assembly.