YOUR COST OF STATE SERVICES: $3,393.28

KENNETT, Mo. -- Let's say you are a typical family, with a father, mother and two children, and one Monday morning in January you open a letter postmarked from Jefferson City and find it includes a bill for $13,573.12.

There is a note attached stating that the amount you have been billed for is your family's per capita share of operating the state government of Missouri for the next 12 months. Your share alone is $3,393.28.

My guess is you would scream so loudly the whole neighborhood could hear your anguish, providing they hadn't already opened their letters from the state capital and were in a similar state of shock.

Chances are you'd pack up the family and move to another state, only to discover that residents there were also being billed for the multiple services from their state capital -- and the per capita cost in your new state was even higher than the one being charged in your old location.

The truth is the typical Missourian, or the average citizen of any state, receives far more services than he is billed for, primarily because states receive a huge amount of revenue both from the federal government's participation in numerous programs from welfare assistance to highway construction to education, and because states collect additional revenue form their so-called "customers" who are charged for conducting profit-making businesses and performing services for the public.

One of the ironies of state governments is that they provide far more services to their constituents than most realize, since the delivery of these services is seldom noticed because most are taken for granted.

Few realize that state government exercises far more control over their daily lives -- and has far more impact on their lives -- than any other form of government, and this is particularly true during so-called normal, peacetime periods.

The service-delivery system of states has been a gradual process, one evolved when it was ultimately realized by national leaders that one central government was unable to meet the varied requirements of all of its citizens. This realization came about less than a century ago, but its validity was so real that it soon became, if tacitly so, the established policy of Washington regardless of which political party was in control.

As for the services provided, there isn't enough room on this page to list them all, but let's start with some of the basic services provided by states and try to understand why Jefferson City is much more citizen-friendly than Washington and why states have become so important to the well-being and progress of the nation's population.

Let's start first with the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a copy of which Bob Dole carried around throughout his presidential campaign in 1996. It's brief, and I'm even told some college political science students are required to memorize it:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

Has any body of public servants ever written a more declarative, authoritative sentence? Courts have almost consistently bowed, willingly or unwillingly, to this vast transfer of power from the central government to its component members. In my view, it transcends in importance all of the federal charter's amendments, save the first, fourth and fifth ones.

In most cases state constitutions list, sometimes in great detail, their priorities, and many of these charters, including Missouri's, declare that education shall receive the greatest attention.

Since constitutions are not written in stone, there are occasional modifications, as witness this rapid growth of political concern over America's disadvantaged and welfare programs have proliferated, sometimes at the expense of public schools.

Witness Missouri's latest budget which includes a per-capita allocation of $1,007.99 for the Department of Social Services and a lower per-capita allotment of $791.93 to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Even combining appropriations for local schools and the state's higher educational institutions, amounts for public assistance are higher in the next budget period by $54.9 million. Proof, I guess, that our state officials are violating their constitutional responsibilities or that the strict, often strident constructionists among us are asleep at the switch.

But if there is any sleeping being done at the switch, it is Missourians' lackadaisical approach, amounting to sheer indifference, to state government and its ramifications on our daily lives.

We seem quite willing to assign full responsibility to the small handful of citizens who are willing to serve 5.6 million of us and who are then subjected to all manner of indifference, even disdain, because they have evidenced concern about how Jefferson City deals with society's challenges.

The average voter among us is quite willing to go to the polls and brashly mark yea or nay on complicated public policy questions without one glimmer of knowledge about their desirability or effects.

Most citizens, but thank God not all, even vote for every candidate, good or bad, offered by political parties which accept no responsibility for their sins of commission or omission. The partisan zealots among us accept no responsibility for their biased selections for highly important offices, and to compound the tragedy, the average straight-party voter cannot identify as much as the name of many of the candidates he or she has eagerly supported.

Counting off-budget expenditures, Missouri government will dispense more than $20 billion in the next fiscal year starting July 1. How do you know you're getting full value from your per-capita share of $3,393.28? Isn't it about time for you to assume responsibility for both your country and your state and the direction each is taking all of us?

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