'Tis the season for unkept promises

KENNETT -- This is the season of the year when the political leaders of America and its various states, including our own, announce their plans, hopes and aspirations for governing the rest of us, grandly proclaiming their visions of achievement and unequaled greatness for constituents.

Ah, 'tis a grand season, one that we citizens enjoy for the visions are never slight, never marginal and, unfortunately, seldom even close to the reality. If any of these manifestoes are a book, they'd be classified under "Fiction."

Each January, his excellency, the governor of Missouri, addresses a joint session of the General Assembly while members lean back in their leather-upholstered easy chairs and take in the promises of leadership that flow like honey in the land of plenty.

Judgment of these pledges is generally based not on merit, and seldom on need, but on the political affiliation of the listeners, who either totally embrace the speaker's visions or view them as so much foolish rubbish that can easily be sidetracked by parliamentary skills that would do credit to the unbearable egomaniacs who insist on hanging around D.C.

Each governor promises he will bring about remarkable, even magical, changes in such essential areas as education, welfare, public health, economic development, law enforcement, infrastructure improvement and many other fields, while at the same time personally supervising careful disbursement of public funds with the aid of highly efficient workers who have no other reason for living than to serve the public with unerring skill.

As I said, 'tis a great season of the year.

Unfortunately, it's not a very realistic one either, but, nevertheless, at least all of these promised agendas more or less correspond with what the average Missourian or American would really like from their governments.

For the most part, the listening public can't do much about any of the promises of implementation because the public never really gets to participate in the planning of these pie-in-the-sky programs. The public never seems to be needed until it's time to finance these visions, and then John and Jane Doe are indispensable.

The average citizen knows full well that there is little one man or one political party, or the combined power of all political parties, can do to live up to the promises being made in January, which will either be revised, reduced or discarded altogether by spring by March -- April at the latest.

If this were not true, then the scores of promises to improve the educational institutions of Missouri would have been accomplished in the second term of Phil Donnelly or the only term of Jim Blair. The promises of welfare reform would have become reality in the only term of Joe Teasdale or the first term of Kit Bond. If this were not true, the pledges to move Missouri roads out of the mud would have been accomplished in the only term of Guy Park or Forrest Smith.

Sorry, folks, these promises were barely worth the paper they were printed on.

The fact is Missouri's schools improved when the state began paying teachers higher salaries than the janitors, but the pay increases were not so great that classrooms were suddenly filled with Einsteins.

The fact is Missouri's welfare programs showed some improvement not because state politicians devised needed reforms but because a Republican congressman named Newt Gingrich originated a program that did more than keep welfare families from starving to death.

As for better health programs, forget the political dogma that generally accompanied their announcement, for we have more citizens afflicted with more serious diseases today than we had before members of the medical fraternity called the system under which they became wealthy "socialistic." Is there anybody in the room who can remember when doctors visited the sick rather than the other way around? I only see one elderly gentleman in the back of the room holding up his hand.

Some 30 years ago, Missouri was hailed for its superb highway system. The state became the first in the nation to complete an ambitious interstate program linking our state's two largest cities. All of this was accomplished without $100,000 a year public relations people or today's Mickey Mouse arguments over which population deserves the next concrete.

As for economic development, if promises were rooted in the real world, Missourians would not be investing in athletic coliseums designed to improve the bank accounts of a handful of millionaires and the state would not be short-changing essential services to pay the interest costs of concrete monuments for jock-strap millionaires.

Thousands of Missourians are now addicted to illegal drugs, as well as the latest chemical concoctions of pharmaceutical giants, but our programs to assist these citizens are flat out inadequate and scarcely funded. An investigation of mentally retarded children reveals that hundreds of them are at risk because the nursing personnel. One of these days, we'll get around to correcting this inconceivable indifference, but not before enduring several scandals that highlight our neglect of these special fellow citizens.

In the meantime, there will be no resolution of these needs as the grandiose plans for a "new and better Missouri" are outlined year after year by the men and women we elect to public offices. In case you have any doubt as to the efficacy of this, please outline the promises made by politicians who ruled our state 50, 25 or 10 years ago. Were these political pioneers promising anything that will not be promised this month by the incumbent governor? I've always suspected one governor of using the speeches of his predecessor.

'Tis the season for promises that won't be kept.

Jack Stapleton is the editor of Missouri News and Editorial Service.