RUST COMMENTARY: FEDERAL HIGHWAY BILL PASSES, AND MISSOURI AWARDS CONTRACTS

All nine of the U.S. representatives from Missouri voted YES on the recent highway bill (five Democrats and four Republicans including Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson).

In a recent letter from JOE MICKES, chief engineer of the Missouri Department of Transportation, he stated:

"I want to provide you with an update on our ability to award contracts for new highway projects. In February it was clear that we could not responsibly continue awarding contracts for new projects until Congress passed an ISTEA reauthorization bill that would resume the flow of federal funds to the states.

"With aggressive preparation of highway plans and use of advanced construction and other techniques to stretch our dollars, we were able to get more projects than originally projected ready to award this winter and early spring. Consequently, in February we concluded we would be pushing our cash to the limit, and we could afford no contract awards after the end of March.

"The excellent work of our congressional delegation has resulted in tremendous progress regarding ISTEA reauthorization during the past few weeks. With this action, which we greatly appreciate, I believe we have reason to re-evaluate our ability to award contracts for highway projects without interruption. Our congressional members and their colleagues from other states have done an excellent job setting the stage for timely passage of a reauthorized transportation bill with significantly increased funding for Missouri.

"Based on this encouraging outlook for swift passage, we may be able to hold a normal April contract letting."

It passed, and they let contracts last week for projects such as the Emerson Bridge at Cape Girardeau.

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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it." -- Thomas Paine, 1777

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Clinton in Africa: President Bill Clinton has made headlines with his Africa trip, the first by a U.S. chief executive in a generation. He answered questions from reporters about White House claims of executive privilege in the Monica Lewinsky affair with cold, curt responses. But he warmed to what he saw as past U.S. wrongdoing in Africa. He decried American support for repressive regimes. We were "concerned with competition with the Soviet Union." Note, he refers to the U.S.-Soviet struggle as a competition, not unlike an athletic or political race. He seems to think the U.S. was wrong to have strategic concerns about the spread of communism in Africa. His remarks echo Jimmy Carter's famed speech about our supposed "inordinate fear of communism." How easy it all seems now, barely 10 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. But for millions of Americans, the Cold War was no mere competition. The spread of communism meant the spread of a modern day enslavement. The triumph of the Soviet Union in the global struggle would have meant a long night of tyranny for all mankind -- including millions of Africans yearning to breathe free. -- Washington Update

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The "do-nothing" or "do-it-all" Congress: Every year since Republicans took over in 1995, you can tell spring has arrived by the rising chorus of editorialists echoing baseless Democrat complaints about a "do-nothing" Congress. And every year those complaints are proven wrong by a lengthy record of congressional accomplishments.

Flash back to the spring of 1996 and an outraged U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt: "Needless to say, in terms of bills passed into law, this has been the biggest do-nothing Congress since the Second World War." Yet before the elections that fall, that "do-nothing" Congress had passed the line-item veto, telecommunications reform, an agriculture bill ending farm entitlements, and the most sweeping changes ever in the welfare system.

In spring 1997, Mr. Gephardt again: "This is rapidly becoming, if it isn't already, the worst do-nothing Congress in the history of the Congress." Just a few months later, those same voices fell silent again as we balanced the budget, cut taxes, and saved Medicare from bankruptcy.

Now, Mr. Gephardt has again decided that "this is turning out to be a do-nothing Congress." As before, he has found a receptive audience for this thin gruel among columnists and pundits. But like every year, his words will ring hollow by the fall. Republicans in Congress have outlined a year-long agenda that will move us closer to our vision of four Goals for a Generation: to save our children from the danger of illegal drugs; to create the best system of learning and education in the world; to ensure that all Americans are financially secure in their retirement; and to lower the combined federal, state and local tax burden to under 25 percent of total income:

-- Congress will reauthorize the drug czar's office and -- for the first time -- force him to set concrete, significant targets for the reduction of teen drug use. Republicans plan a legislative victory campaign against drugs through coalition building, education, intervention, interdiction, rehabilitation, advertising and law enforcement.

-- On education, this Congress will work to enact: Coverdell education savings accounts to let parents save money tax-free for their children's education; Help Scholarships to give low-income families the ability to choose the best school for their children; "Dollars to the Classroom" legislation to guarantee that 95 percent of all federal education dollars goes to local classrooms and not federal bureaucrats, and state-based merit pay and teacher testing initiatives.

-- We will preserve Social Security and Medicare from bankruptcy -- an issue I first addressed in unveiling Goals for a Generation in early January. Working with chairman Bill Archer, we will establish a national commission of baby boomer and older and younger Americans to begin a national dialogue about how to ensure retirement security for future generations.

-- Finally, in building on last year's tax cuts, we will complete the Portman-Kerry IRS reforms and pass additional tax relief. We will work toward sunsetting the current tax code and continue to lead hearings, forums and debates on how best to replace our current tax system-through a flat tax, a modified flat tax, or a national sales tax.

Among other legislative priorities, Republicans will work to pass the first financial services legislation since the Great Depression, reauthorize the nation's transportation funding programs, protect our children's health and reduce teen smoking without a net tax increase, over-ride the president's indefensible veto on partial birth abortions, reform our campaign finance laws to ensure honest and fair elections, fight religious persecution abroad and ensure religious freedom at home, and combat frivolous lawsuits through securities litigation reform. We're doing a lot that's conservative and nothing liberal. -- U.S. Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., speaker of the House, in a Wall Street Journal letter to the editor

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Piling on Reggie White: Green Bay Packers football hero Reggie White is also an ordained minister. He stirred up a hornet's nest recently when he was invited to address the Wisconsin Legislature. He made a number of comments about ethnic groups which, while they are arguable, are nonetheless clearly not the racist tirade they are being made out to be. What really moves the Reggie bashers is his uncompromising stance against homosexuality. He spoke no hatred. He urged no action. But he would not be moved. He was personally offended by homosexual activists' attempt to hijack the civil rights movement. He resisted, as has Gen. Colin Powell, the simplistic connection of black civil rights to the gay agenda. God's Word, which inspires Rev. Reggie White, tells him that racial discrimination and homosexual activity are both wrong.

The uproar has been predictable. Already CBS Sports has announced that Reggie White will not be hired as a sports announcer. Other networks are being pummeled with demands for a preemptive strike on any sports figure or other celebrity who dares to speak out on homosexuality. One wonders where the civil libertarians are. Where are the free speechers who leap to defend the chocolate-syrup-and-bean-sprout exhibitionists who prance about on stage with taxpayer subsidy? Where are the groups who yell "censorship" every time seventh grade moms protest Lolita assigned in class? What we see is the politically correct form of squelching freedom. We must, we will resist it. -- Washington Update

~Gary Rust is president of Rust Communications, which owns the Southeast Missourian and other newspapers.