WHY NO TAX CUT?

Gov. Mel Carnahan began this year trumpeting one major promise to Missourians: An election-year cut of one-quarter cent in the sales tax. The failure of his party's long-dominant legislative majority to deliver -- not just the governor's proposal, but any kind of reduction -- stands out as one of the starkest facts of this or any other year.

Ask yourself: With the governor's support and the governor's party in control of both houses of the General Assembly, how hard should it be to deliver a tax cut in an election year? It doesn't take a graduate degree in political science to calculate that it ought to be rather an easy task. For their part, minority House and Senate Republicans were firmly pledged to cut taxes, to which they take as ducks to water in any case.

From the start of the session in January, though, it was abundantly clear that not much of consequence was going to pass in 1996. This was the design, a command decision, if you will, from the governor through the Democratic leaders of both House and Senate. It is the latter two who control the pace of legislative business, calling most of the shots as to the flow of bills, the order in which they're considered and how much time will be allotted to each. A decision had apparently been made to rest on the laurels legislative leaders felt they had earned in three previous years of Carnahan's term. Lawmakers noticed that committees didn't meet with their customary frequency, and that when they did, not as many bills were heard, and not as many passed out for floor debate and votes. A sense of urgency -- such as the one that prevailed three years ago, when this crowd was working overtime to raise your taxes -- was altogether lacking.

When majority Democrats did manage to bestir themselves to debate tax-cutting, their plan was to hand over to the governor the General Assembly's exclusive power over taxation. That's right: The Democratic proposal, defeated on a roll-call vote, was a hare-brained scheme to empower the governor to raise and lower sales taxes on his own whim, by executive order. The little matter of the Constitution's placing this power solely in the hands of the people's elected representatives in the legislature didn't bother them.

Then, with about two weeks to go in this year's session, someone looked up and realized time was growing short. Still, this governor didn't engage himself in earnest on the business of delivering a tax cut. As the days dwindled down to a precious few, finally the governor got busy. On the last day of the session at about 3 p.m., he was even seen in the back of legislative chambers, demanding that his version be passed. Fortunately, this isn't the way business is done, as the General Assembly bears little resemblance to the Cuban parliament, where Fidel hands his minions a bill and says, "Pass it."

Lawmakers adjourned three hours later. And Missourians can hold Gov. Carnahan and his party solely responsible for failing to deliver the tax cut they promised with such fanfare back in January.