Early planning can prevent budget brouhaha

With last year's state budget fiasco behind them, Missouri lawmakers are starting early to stamp out the possibility of another long-drawn-out struggle next year. With the ink of Gov. Bob Holden's signature barely dry on this year's budget, he and top lawmakers met Wednesday to discuss finances for the coming year. Such bipartisan action is prudent, because next year's budget threatens to be no less complicated.

This year's budget brouhaha was a result primarily of stagnant or uncertain state revenue, compounded by the ideological rift between the Republican-controlled General Assembly and the Democrat governor. Missouri's status as a political swing state, where state control is fiercely contested, further complicated deliberations.

To make financial ends meet in this year's budget, Holden advocated taxing smokers, gamblers and business corporations more heavily. Instead, the Legislature opted to forego higher taxes and to cut money from certain programs in the governor's budget, notably Medicaid, the 2004 presidential primary and family planning services. The problem was, even taking into consideration increased revenues or decreased spending, both sides couldn't agree about the size of the gap.

In the 1990s, the amount of tax money that the state would raise was more or less predictable. In those flush years, Missouri's government programs -- and the size of government -- grew. But last year's sluggish economy complicated the guesswork that economists did.

As a result, Holden vetoed four of the 13 bills in the General Assembly's budget, leading to a political stand-off that threatened to close schools until politicians agreed in Jefferson City. Holden finally signed the bill that he had vetoed twice before, and only weeks before schools opened.

Last week, in hopes of preventing a similar crisis, all the major players in Missouri's budget process held a private meeting a leisurely three months before the legislators will reconvene. Press and lobbyists were absent from the meeting, and, judging by the lawmakers' optimistic comments, so too were posturing and political grandstanding.

While the meeting was only a first step, those involved deserve plaudits for starting early in what will be a difficult journey.