CAUTION BUST GUIDE ON PUBLIC DEBT

This week's decision by National Football League owners to bypass St. Louis in favor of Jacksonville produced plenty of nervous state legislators around Missouri. About three years ago, responding to appeals from St. Louis interests, the General Assembly passed a measure obligating the state to pay half the cost of retiring the bonds on the $260 million domed stadium and convention center. St. Louis County and city split the other half.

The commitments for the state, on the one hand, and the city/county, on the other, are for something like $360 million each over the 30-year life of the bonds. That's right: The $260 million (present construction cost) stadium involves a payout of well over $700 million by the time the bonds are retired. The state's obligation in the coming year is approximately $12 million, to be handled through a vote by both houses in the annual appropriations process.

This vote occurred a couple of years before I took temporary occupancy, last January, of the people's seat representing the 27th senatorial district. I don't know the margin in the House, but in the Senate, I'm told the vote approving the stadium bonds was 18-16. That's the barest minimum constitutional majority needed to pass a measure into law in the 34-member chamber. This means, of course, that every affirmative vote can be said to be the deciding margin.

The whole episode is a cautionary tale about the thin ice and dangerous business of bonding, of committing the state to stiff financial obligations for decades to come. Does this mean an elected legislator should oppose issuing bonds in every case? Certainly not.

The state's constitution declares the payment of Missouri's debt obligations to be the first business of state government, coming even before #2, the establishment and maintenance of "a system of free public education."

That the framers of the state constitution placed such priority on the repaying the state's debt presupposes that they foresaw some instances where incurring such debt obligations would be proper.

It seems, however, that the proper approach in considering whether to incur state debt as in facing the same decision in one's personal affairs should be one of prudence, caution and considered judgment.

Let me give you an example from my own brief experience in the statehouse. Gov. Carnahan called the legislature back into special session for two weeks in September, for the purpose of dealing with the damage done to state property by this year's historic flooding.

We no sooner arrived in Jefferson City than we were asked to approve a measure authorizing the Missouri Highway and Transportation Department (MHTD), acting through its governing commission, to issue bonds to build and repair highways. But wait.

We had been called back into session to meet such immediate needs as arose from that summer's flood damage. Did the MHTD need the bonding capacity to restore our roads and bridges to their pre-flood condition? Answer (conceded by all): No. The Commission took no position on the matter. I consulted with commission vice-chairman John Oliver, and with others more expert than I, and could get no clear recommendation.

It's always useful to ask the question the Latin scholars teach us: Cui bono? Who benefits? The issue briefings and all the pro-bonds material was coming from essentially three sources: road contractors, bond attorneys, and St. Louis and Kansas City bonding houses.

Does the fact that principal backing for issuing highway bonds came from the three entities that would derive immediate benefits make such a measure wrong, or bad public policy? Emphatically not. But it gives you pause, especially when the MHTD, our state's professional highway experts, are not asking for this grant of authority.

Missouri had issued highway bonds for roadbuilding many years ago. But for 60 years or so, since the commission and the department were refashioned into a more or less independent professional agency, we have been a pay-as-you-go state on highways. Where was the great clamor for departing from that long-established practice, especially in the rush of a two-week special session not called to address that subject?

I argued against it, voted no, and lost. The measure passed both chambers. After minimal study, debate and consideration, MHTD can now issue highway bonds, subject to approval by the General Assembly, obligating future generations and future revenue streams.

By no means am I implacably opposed to incurring any public debt. I simply believe it should be entered into with far more prudence, and more careful deliberation.