MISSOURI GETS BIG CHUNK OF ROAD FUNDS

One would never know ST. LOUIS "is not getting its fair share of highway money" if you've recently sat in the traffic lines on I-55, I-70, U.S. 40 and I-44 created by all of the new construction.

Also U.S. Sen. CHRISTOPHER BOND announced the Senate is considering appropriating $80 million in additional federal highway funding to Missouri.

This would include $30 million to Kansas City, $25 million to St. Louis (including $5.4 million for Lambert Field Airport), $2.8 million for Older Adults Transportation Services in 87 counties, $2 million for studies on job access and reverse commuting in Southeast Missouri and $1.3 million for a Highway 74 approach to the EMERSON MEMORIAL BRIDGE.

Nothing is easier than spending the public money. It does not appear to belong to anybody. The temptation is overwhelming to bestow it on somebody. -- Calvin Coolidge

Missouri highway system one of the largest in the nation: Part of the reason Missouri's highway system is one of the nation's largest is because Missouri has taken over the responsibility of maintaining many county and secondary roads which other states haven't.

Missouri boasts one of the largest state highway systems in the nation -- a public asset valued at $60 billion.

Missouri's network of roads and bridges is larger than that of its eight neighboring states and the seventh largest in the nation.

With more than 32,000 miles, Missouri's state road system is more than three times larger than systems in Nebraska, Kansas and Iowa, and contains at least 10,000 miles more than those in Illinois, Tennessee and Oklahoma.

A nationwide comparison shows that only six states have larger highway systems: North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.

Disgraceful delay: Congress and the administration should reform our increasingly glacial, unnecessarily intrusive nomination-confirmation process for would-be government officials. More than 1,000 positions are subject to Senate confirmation, including 494 top officials, as well as appointments to part-time advisory boards.

The process is becoming a Kafkaesque "Saturday Night Live" caricature. For starters, nominees must fill out intrusive, nightmarish forms with 200-plus questions. Congressional committees often demand additional information. Among the simpler requests is to list all trips to foreign countries in the last seven years. The FBI must conduct a background search on virtually all nominees, almost as if they were candidates to head the CIA.

No wonder only 24 percent of the administration's top officials have been confirmed. Only 12 officials in the Defense Department have cleared all the hurdles. It took less than three months to staff the Kennedy administration. George W. Bush will be lucky to have his full team on board by Christmas.

Sensible changes in this process are long overdue. FBI checks were appropriate during the Cold War, and there remains a need for such checks for truly key officials, particularly at State, Defense and Intelligence. But for an assistant deputy housing secretary? The number of positions currently requiring confirmation could certainly be pared down without harming the republic. The questionnaires and information requests can be easily streamlined. Incredibly, in these processes agencies do not share information, causing further delays. For non-Cabinet-level secretaries, the Senate should have to hold confirmation hearings within, say, 60 days of receiving a nomination. -- Steve Forbes, Forbes Magazine

Up for grabs: Unions battle to represent 70,000 workers in two states: Two competing union groups are pulling out all stops to woo 38,000 state workers in Kentucky, after it opened the door to limited union representation of such workers. The American Federation of Teachers, allied with the machinists and steelworkers, have deployed 50 organizers and taken out full-page newspaper ads. The second group, made up of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the Teamsters and auto workers, sparked an outcry after mysteriously obtaining a list of all the workers' home addresses.

Missouri unions are gearing up for a similar fight after the governor moved to give more teeth to any unions that win the right to represent 30,000 state workers. AFSCME already represents half of these workers, but it is sending in its best organizers to fend off any challenges from other unions, and to win over non-unionized workers.

"This is a very rare opportunity," says Robert Carico, head of AFSCME's Missouri operation. -- The Wall Street Journal

Bad guys: Teachers rank last in a Council for Excellence in Government study on how well prime-time TV shows portray a dozen public-sector occupants. They fare worse than elected officials, businessmen and even journalists. The study points to "Boston Public," a Fox series that portrays teachers warts and all.

The recent census documents that the overall population is continuing to shift south and west. But surprising contrary trends show Nebraska, Iowa, and MISSOURI gaining population at the fastest pace since the turn of the LAST century. Georgia is overtaking Florida as the speediest grower in the South, and New York City and Chicago are reversing population drains of the past.

The avocation of assessing the failures of better men can be turned into a comfortable livelihood, provided you back it up with a Ph.D. -- Nelson Algren

This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force. -- Dorothy Parker

A critic is a man who prefers the indolence of opinion to the trials of action. -- John Mason Brown

Wrongdoing: From the Soviet gulag to the Nazi concentration camps and the killing fields in Cambodia, history teaches us that granting the state legal authority to kill innocent individuals has dreadful consequences. Calling it "termination of life on request" does not change its moral repugnance. The Dutch have changed the equation [by legalizing euthanasia]. Life is now, in German cancer specialist Dr. Stephan Sahm's terminology, "only one of two legal options. If we choose to live, we will be held accountable." It is a repulsive redefinition of the gift of life. -- Pete DuPont, policy chairman, National Center for Policy Analysis

Gary Rust is the chairman of Rust Communications.