Citizens need agenda for real change

KENNETT, Mo. -- If all the programs, projects and agendas for Missouri should accidentally come to fruition, I'm sure we would experience a condition resembling nirvana, or at least its second cousin.

For the past several weeks now, Missourians have been exposed to almost as many agendas as there are members of the General Assembly and the executive branch in Jefferson City.

Some of these plans are grandiose, some are simply political flotsam and jetsam and some are downright outrageous. But virtually all of them are tinged with the political configuration of their proponents, which is another way of saying most of them are designed to influence citizens, a.k.a. voters, and to garner support for the political faith of their proponents.

No one can logically deny that plans to improve our public schools, sustain existing assistance programs and protect the health of 5.6 million persons are not important issues. They are, and they deserve the input of the best minds we can find, either in or out of the political arena. The fallacy of the agendas that have been proposed thus far is that they relate more to the political agenda than the need to provide citizens with the best-laid programs possible.

And I firmly believe that we will not achieve this goal by listening to the political pap of staunch Democrats or Republicans, who thus far have given us thousands of undereducated children, a welfare system that may well come crashing down around our heads in the coming 12 months and a highway system that has the dubious distinction of being one of the worst in the country.

It should also be added we are now incarcerating citizens at an unbelievable rate, one that is 22 percent greater than only a decade ago. We should also add that despite the expenditure of billions of dollars, the state is minimally serving drug-infected citizens, falling short of coping with gambling addiction and relying on the pursuit of drug dealers to cope with the victims of their awful scourge.

When was the last time you heard a leader of either party discuss the need to improve and expand the way we support our public education system?

When did you ever hear any politician in Jefferson City express reservations about the efficacy of our present addiction programs and how they are failing to touch more than a minuscule proportion of Missouri's addicts?

Have you recently heard any representative of either party suggest that the state address the health insurance needs of more than 400,000 Missourians who have no coverage and are not likely to have any at this time next year?

Anyone within your hearing range ever mention reforming the lousy way in which political campaigns are financed and the abuses that such a system promotes within the ranks of both parties and among virtually all of its political leaders?

Has anyone proposed the state do anything at all about the 47 percent of urban-school students who do not reach basic grade levels in reading? The numbers are even higher for Missouri's black and poor students.

Have you ever heard a Democrat or Republican discuss what our state might do to prevent the electrical power fiasco that occurred in California?

When was the last time you heard anyone connected with state politics discuss plans to preserve our declining metro areas -- except through statewide funding of new or remodeled athletic stadiums?

One of the fastest growing threats in our state is gambling addiction, which has already taken possession of a great many checking and savings accounts -- and which the industry promised it would address -- so can you guess who is financing most of the programs today?

Which subject is of greater concern to the politicians we send to Jefferson City these days: The welfare of the public or how to remain at the public trough beyond their term limitations?

Who do our political leaders listen to more: The average citizen or the lobbyist who raises money for his campaigns and who feeds him when he's hungry and thirsty?

Have you heard anyone discuss how the state will address the consequences facing Missouri with this year's expiration of the welfare-reform provisions that will leave thousands of families without any safety net?

The state Constitution calls for Missourians this year to decide if they want to rewrite or revise the 1945 charter that is the second longest in the country and which is so totally out of date in some areas that these provisions are simply being ignored rather than revised or amended -- and has any public official at any level addressed this extraordinarily important question?

Some like to boast that Missouri's alleged nonpartisan court plan is a model for the rest of the nation, but have you heard anyone complain that it does not exist in many of the judicial districts in the state and that its present provisions allow the governor to juggle appellate candidates and then appoint his personal choice?

It would seem to any unbiased onlooker that despite the assurances of our politicians, our state has numerous problems that, unfortunately, are not even being recognized, much less addressed. Difficult problems, particularly those requiring political leadership that may decline or even disappear when hard decisions are being made, are an anathema to ambitious persons who like to be called "public servants." The term is duplicitous for they are political, not public, and they are not servants but opportunists. Unfortunately, their narcissistic attitudes and actions reinforce the jaded views held by an indifferent, silently hostile, public.

Jack Stapleton is the editor of Missouri News and Editorial Service.