Wrong way to balance state budget

KENNETT, Mo. -- Missouri has been heading toward a fiscal apocalypse for several months. From time to time, a stern-faced official issues his dire warning that repeatedly bears the same message. Depending on the skill of the speaker's director of communications, the emphasis of the announced impending crisis is the result of one or two factors or a skillful blending of several circumstances.

Their seemingly valid reasons for anticipated budget shortfalls can usually be attributed to these reasons:

1. Unanticipated declines in state tax collections.

2. Excessive spending that can always be traced to the speaker's political opponents.

3. Unexpected demands on the state treasury ordered by the federal government or the courts.

4. The need for expanded funding for the official's favorite programs.

5. Some unrecognized but mythical force beyond human control that dictates the need for more state spending.

During the past two decades, Missouri has experienced at least four of these fiscal crises. The reasons for each of them are outlined above. The point is, whatever excuse is provided and whatever reasons offered, there emerges only one possible solution, and this has been the case for fiscal crises extending far earlier than the past 20 years.

The solution offered to an unsuspecting, puzzled and often suspicious public is unfailingly the same: Public services to Missourians must be reduced, and taxpayers who have been sending more and more money to Jefferson City had better not voice opposition or the reductions will be even greater.

Seldom does the bearer of these bad tidings volunteer to pursue cost-saving efforts that will maintain existing constituent programs and meet the inexorable increases demanded by inflation and population growth.

The dialogue offered to shocked Missourians is frequently the same each time: "I'm sorry, but there's nothing we can do."

At this moment, the speaker usually throws up his hands and assumes a pained expression, with each gesture implying total-but-frustrated innocence. The performances are usually up to the standards of a poorly rehearsed high school play.

Having vented my anger at the histrionic excesses of politicians, it is only fair for me to outline the solution that should be offered to constituents who were promised efficiency and conscientious service by the doleful message-bearers at the last election. The answer, fellow taxpayer is really quite simple:

STOP THE WASTE THAT EXISTS IN EVERY AGENCY IN STATE GOVERNMENT AND CORRECT THE NEEDLESS OVERSPENDING OCCURRING AS A RESULT OF THIS WASTE.

I know that sounds overly simplistic, since after all "waste in government" is one of the most used bromides in a politician's vocabulary.

But go along with me for a moment and recall, if you can, a candidate for public office who not only excoriated waste but provided solutions on how a specific boondoggle could be eliminated. Every politician hates waste in government, but precious few hate it enough to offer remedies on how it can be eliminated.

Here are some questions that seem appropriate at this moment:

1. Has the politician who hates waste taken the time or made the effort to read a state budget?

2. Does the politician who hates waste understand what he has read and have sufficient knowledge to propose eliminating unneeded services, employees and programs?

3. Will the politician who hates waste devote as much time to understanding how Missouri should spend its next $19 billion on worthwhile rather than unproductive programs as he spent on campaigning to get elected?

4. Will the politician who hates waste promise to read every one of the program audits carried out by two separate and independent agencies, the state auditor and the Oversight Division of the Committee on Legislative Research?

5. Does the politician who hates waste promise to pursue the problems noted in audits by these two offices and take the steps needed to correct them, even at the risk of offending fellow politicians who are either too lazy or too indifferent to the cause of the sensible and economic distribution of taxpayers' funds?

Unless the public official you voted for in the last election is honestly willing to answer all of these questions affirmatively, Missourians have no reason to believe the traditional tight-budget seasons will end.

Taxpayers would be well-advised to remember some salient points about our representative democracy:

First, public spending plans will never balance with revenue payments, with the former always exceeding the latter.

Second, one balanced budget is not a safe, predictable outcome 12 months later.

Third, the fact that waste occurs in a budget is almost always cleverly disguised to avoid immediate recognition. The people who have input into the production of a statewide budget are experts in their field and they have sufficient knowledge to prepare spending plans that are more inflated than a helium space balloon. An example of this is when officials in the state's Department of Mental Health increased its office personnel by more than 300 employees without anyone in the Capitol knowing it.

Fourth, only a few elected officials in Jefferson City have the time or incentive to read the numerous audits conducted by the state auditor and legislative research, and those who do lack the political muscle, energy or suicidal tendencies both to read and pursue the recommendation required to save public funds.

Stay tuned for a multitude of ways your trusted elected officials throw away your hard-earned money.

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