DEMOCRATS SLING MUD ALL OVER HRC 12

The harbingers of this year's political campaigns do not make a pretty picture. The rising partisanship of recent years is expected to reach unheard-of heights, and no where is the pitch likely to be higher than in races for the Missouri Legislature.

An early salvo already has been fired by Missouri's Democrats, who realize the possibility exists, for the first time in decades, that Republicans might take majorities in the House or Senate -- or both. The Democrats have chosen to come out early with some heavy artillery in the form of a calculated smear campaign to take issues that should be nonpartisan and turn them into evil plots by Republicans.

Readers of the Southeast Missourian saw an example of this just last Saturday in a letter to the editor signed by three state representatives from Southeast Missouri: Marilyn Williams of Dudley, Larry Thomason of Kennett and Joe Heckemeyer of Sikeston.

In their letter, the three Democrats suggested that House Concurrent Resolution 12, sponsored by several Republicans, is a scheme to ruin Social Security. The innuendo is strong that the Republican agenda is somehow anti-Social Security. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Readers of this newspaper can judge for themselves. The full text of HCR 12 is printed alongside this editorial. Read it.

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Now that you have read the resolution for yourself, what do you think it says?

It is a call to action by federal legislators to make sure Social Security remains solvent and available to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who will be counting on that income in their retirement years. In addition, the resolution suggests Congress might want to consider some alternatives -- workable solutions that have already been tried and tested elsewhere with positive results.

The plain fact is that the Missouri Legislature cannot change Social Security. Only Congress can do that. But on behalf of Missourians who pay into Social Security every time they get a paycheck and on behalf of all those Missourians who receive monthly Social Security checks, some state legislators would like to tell Congress to get to work and to quit tossing the Social Security issue around like a hot potato.

Is there anyone who thinks nothing needs to be done about Social Security? Not on your life. Most everyone, from U.S. representatives and senators to the White House administration to Social Security officials to recipients of Social Security checks -- and Democrats too -- knows the perils that are in store if something isn't done -- and soon.

The Republican legislators who are urging passage of HCR 12 deserve support and commendation. Their vigilance will be far more useful in the long run than the scare tactics of Democrats -- tactics aimed at self-preservation and not addressing the concerns over Social Security.

Shame of those three representatives from Southeast Missouri -- Williams, Thomason and Heckemeyer -- for allowing themselves to be used by their state party hacks.

Please read HCR 12. And then read state Rep. Mary Kasten's letter. Then decide for yourself what's going on seven months before the November general election.