Blame is the name of the game

KENNETT, Mo. -- If you were the governor of Missouri, some constituents might understand if you were looking around for another job these days to replace the one that hasn't provided much satisfaction during your nearly two-year span of employment. You even might have heard the rumors going around town that your future was shaky at best, with some betting you wouldn't last out the next 700-plus days remaining in your contract.

That's the rather bleak outlook at this moment facing Missouri's 53rd chief executive, Bob Holden, whose job since January 2001 appears to have taken on the dreary environment of a department-store complaint window, except that job exercises some control by soothing offers of refund vouchers or money-back credit slips.

Today's impatient and disgruntled customers of the governor's office, some faced with disappointing decisions from the Capitol's second floor, have even suggested that Holden should get out of the kitchen if the heat becomes too unbearable. Despite the Fahrenheit escalation, the veteran officeholder has been holding up remarkably well, despite an almost daily routine of bad news about revenue shortfalls, increased program-cost estimates and sarcastic editorials suggesting everything from inattention to incompetence.

About the only solace available to the target of all this scorn has been the memory of similar unkind remarks hurled at previous governors, most of them the victims of the same unfortunate circumstances facing the incumbent: National recessions, lowered tax collections, increased unemployment and outmoded, underfunded state programs.

One of the worst victims of this environment was the late John M. Dalton, who became a target for none of the above reasons but because he led the fight to install state income tax withholdings to prevent the wholesale avoidance of millions of citizens who never took the trouble to send their payments to Jefferson City. Judging from the uproar, one would have thought the governor had enacted a new tax without approval from anyone. He was merely carrying out his oath of office.

Like his most immediate Republican predecessor, John Ashcroft, Holden has found that nothing raises taxpayer hackles faster or more furiously than the suggestion that spending belts might have to be tightened or new sources of revenue might be required to maintain existing service levels.

How disgusting of governors to suggest that a growing population, a declining national economy and increased costs of state support programs should interfere with taxpayer convictions that state government has plenty of money hidden so well that no one can find these missing dollars. One editorial suggested that Missouri's economic woes could be solved with increased concentration by the governor, revealing the lack of this quality on the part of poorly informed, plain dumb editorial writers.

Missouri goes through this routine of beating unfortunate governors to death with inadequate revenue and expenditures levied beyond anyone's control on a fairly regular basis, which helps explain the favorable pubic reaction each time a new rainy-day fund is proposed.

The state currently has three such funds, enacted over a span of some two decades, but each contains enough escape clauses that it's unlikely any will ever be used except in the event of Armageddon.

The first such fund has never ever been used despite a series of state disasters and tragedies that affected the lives of at least a quarter of the state's population. The last such fund has never been approached, much less used, and probably won't be for the next half-century. The theory seems to be that matters aren't as serious as envisioned, so let's just knuckle down and ride out the emergency.

This might even be the codicil of the funding crisis being experienced today, except the state has so faithfully ignored some of its citizens' worst needs in the past that the expiration day is running out.

We have a looming welfare-reform crisis that is virtually being ignored in both Jefferson City and Washington, where, by the way, the federal "solution" of Missouri's dilemma is always resolved by Congress approving a higher and higher ceiling on the federal debt. The image of Alfred E. Neuman hovers over the current $640 billion federal deficit estimate, with best-guess estimates exceeding this amount by a significant degree.

Incidentally, Missouri's share of the most conservative debt estimate is $12.8 billion, although we haven't heard any of Holden's critics mention the poor fiscal record of the nation's chief executive officer.

The knee-jerk reaction in assessing any significant problems is to blame the first person visible, and in this case that is the governor, who was among the first to note that anything was wrong. Rather than express surprise, the executive office proposed several solutions, none of them pleasing and certainly none was without some degree of sacrifice.

As everyone knows, the last subject on any political agenda is what can be called "unpleasant news," which is seldom if ever announced in an election year. Even when noted, it is often inexplicably tied to the political opposition, and the blame is spun so many times that listeners soon grow dizzy.

Missourians have a long history of redeeming tolerance, if seldom evidenced immediately, but they are inherently fair-minded, even forgiving if there is no moral turpitude. Whatever abuse has been unfairly assigned to our incumbent governor will be mitigated soon enough as long as he continues to seek solutions and lead the state for the remainder of his term as he promised he would two years ago.

Holden may not have all the immediate solutions to what ails us, but he deserves both our patience and our prayers as Missouri faces its next challenges.

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