KINDER'S COMMENTARY: WHERE IS CARNAHAN'S TAX CUT?

The 1996 session of the General Assembly ended Friday with the dog that didn't bark. What keystone of Gov. Mel Carnahan's agenda failed to get through? The answer, of course, is a tax-cut bill.

The session was only a few days old back in January when Gov. Carnahan took to the rostrum in the House chamber, as the chief executive does each year, to deliver his State of the State address. The blockbuster announcement: That this governor was pushing for a tax cut. Specifically, the election-year Carnahan proposal was for a quarter-cent cut in the state's general sales tax.

This governor, of course, had done his taxing early in his term. Mel Carnahan took office in January 1993. Before we adjourned the following May, due to his exertions and those of his legislative majority, these folks had dumped nearly a half-billion dollars in higher taxes on working Missourians. This is, of course, what Democrats do best. They are the party of government, and their constituencies must be fed. It was time to belly up to the trough. Today, the higher taxes in Senate Bill 380, enacted in brazen violation of his campaign pledge to take any such measure to a public vote, remain Mel Carnahan's proudest boast.

(At the time, as a decidedly junior member, I had a tiny but comfortable office located just off the Senate chamber on the third floor of the Capitol. As the curtain fell at 6 p.m. that May evening on that final day of my first session, I repaired to my office, alone, where I closed the door, dejected and depressed that I hadn't done more to fight the outrageous taxation these folks had just succeeded in imposing. Next door, just a few feet away in the ornate Senate lounge, Gov. Carnahan, the speaker of the House and the president pro tem of the Senate held a jubilant press conference, congratulating themselves and celebrating their success in raising your taxes.)

Back to this year. In January, most House Republicans lined up behind the proposal of Rep. Rich Chrismer, R-St. Charles, to eliminate the sales tax on food. Missouri is one of only 19 states that still impose this tax.

As tax-cutting bills wound their way through House and Senate committees, many versions were hoisted up the flag poles. At various times, present in bills were proposals to cut the sales tax on food by 3 cents, 2 cents, by 1 3/4 cents and so on. Sen. John Schneider, D-St. Louis, fought for a measure enacting a tax deduction for parents of students with children in private and parochial high schools, grades 9-12. Schneider, the dean of the Senate with 26 years in that chamber, made no bones about it: He would try to kill his own governor's tax cut if it didn't include this provision. Other senators backed a tax break for private pensioners. Still others of us pushed to triple the state's dependent deduction, from the current $400, where it has been stuck for 50 years, to $1,200.

As maneuvering continued, we neared the constitutional adjournment date. It didn't look like a tax cut was in position to pass. Democrats, it seems, aren't nearly as good at delivering tax cuts as they are at raising them. On the final afternoon of the final day, suddenly the word went out that Gov. Carnahan himself was in the back of the Senate chamber, closeted in a conference room, trying to negotiate a tax-cut bill that could still pass both houses. Left unanswered was where he had been for four and a half months, when his personal intervention might have made a difference.

Sen. Schneider was among those Democrats involved in negotiations with the governor. Finally an exasperated Sen. Schneider took to the Senate floor Friday afternoon to make brief but impassioned remarks. "I just want to make it clear," Schneider boomed, "that all Republicans and a few Democrats are prepared to pass a tax-cut bill that would include 50 percent tax credits for maternity homes and for domestic violence shelters. And the person who stands in the way, refusing to sign off on that kind of tax cut bill, is the governor of this state."

Six o'clock arrived. The session ended for the year. Your taxes haven't been cut. The responsibility rests solely with Gov. Mel Carnahan and with the Democratic majority of the House and Senate who have controlled both houses since before I was born.

~Peter Kinder is the associate publisher of the Southeast Missourian and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.