JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- As the Senate prepared to grapple with difficult choices in the fiscal year 2003 budget on Thursday, the current fiscal year budget reared its head like a cranky -- and hungry -- dragon, threatening to devour more state spending programs.

The dragon's roar has convinced some who had downplayed, though not dismissed, the state's budget woes as a problem of spending rather than revenue to rethink that position.

With about two-thirds of state income tax returns that were due April 15 processed, Gov. Bob Holden and his budget officials announced that the state revenues for FY 2002 look to be $250 million less than expected. The state collects roughly 30 percent of its revenue in the closing months of the fiscal year, which ends June 30.

Instead of lower-than-expected revenue growth, the state is facing a 4.4 percent decline.

Senate President Pro Tem Peter Kinder, R-Cape Girar-deau, had been among those who at times in recent months had questioned the Democratic governor's statements of gloom and doom. However, he said calculations of actual tax receipts are hard to argue with.

"Harry Truman said facts are stubborn things," Kinder said. "Projections are projections -- we've all made them, and we've all been proven wrong from time to time. They made a pessimistic projection owing to the stock market decline about capital gains revenue. It was just not pessimistic enough."

Holden said stock market tumbles in the past year have reduced the state's take from capital gains taxes by about 60 percent.

However, House Minority Floor Leader Catherine Hanaway, R-Warson Woods, remained skeptical.

"I still have a lot of questions about those numbers," Hanaway said.

To be sure, the excessive spending argument isn't without merit. During the flush 1990s, the state added programs at a record pace, while also cutting taxes. Now it lacks the revenue to cover its obligations.

To address the problem, Holden proposed withholdings from departmental budgets on top of the approximately $600 million in spending already frozen, using money from Missouri's financial settlement with the tobacco industry and tapping the state's Rainy Day Fund.

Holden had championed using the fund to preserve existing spending in FY 2003. House Republicans, seeing the move as an excuse to deficit spend, blocked that effort.

Kinder wasn't a fan of using state savings for the coming fiscal year but is willing to consider doing so to help fix the more pressing problem.

"I want to caution that it depends how much," he said.

Assistant House Minority Floor Leader Pat Naeger, R-Perryville, said Republicans in the lower chamber could follow suit -- if they can be convinced the situation is as bad as the governor says.

"I don't think the votes are there this minute, this hour," Naeger said. "But over the weekend that could change."

Lawmakers have until May 10 to finish the FY 2003 budget.

House passes pro-gun bill

Joining rural lawmakers from throughout the state, Southeast Missouri's entire House delegation supported a bill that would give law-abiding citizens the right to carry concealed weapons. The bill moved to the Senate 99-50, with most of the opposing votes cast by urban lawmakers.

To obtain a permit to carry a concealed weapon, the applicant would have to be at least 21 years old, not have been convicted of any violent or otherwise serious offense, have no history of mental illness and meet training requirements.

A provision of the measure would allow restrictions on the possession of weapons in courthouses, airports, bars, schools, churches, stadiums and numerous other places.

If approved by the Senate, the governor has vowed to veto it.

Rural voters overwhelming supported a concealed weapons measure in 1998, but massive urban opposition led to the proposal's statewide failure. The latest measure would not go to a public vote.

Sportsmen's rights

The Bill of Rights of the Missouri Constitution contains most of the guarantees one would expect -- freedom of speech, due process, free exercise of religion and so forth. The right of citizens to spend their summers casting for trout and autumns stalking deer could soon take its place among those cherished protections.

The House has passed a proposed constitutional amendment stating "that the right of every citizen to hunt, fish and harvest game shall be preserved."

The measure, which would go on the statewide ballot in November, was forwarded to the Senate on a vote of 130-2.

Age change falls short

The House defeated another proposed constitutional change that would have let voters decide if the minimum age for serving in the General Assembly should be lowered to 21. At present, senators must be at least 30 and representatives 25.

Most lawmakers supported the proposal, but it fell three votes shy of the 82 needed to send it to the Senate.

Hearnes picked for panel

The governor has named Betty Cooper Hearnes of Charleston to the new Second Capitol Commission. The legislature created the commission last year to promote the central building of state government and raise private donations to help pay for renovations.

The panel is called the second commission in a historical nod to the first such commission, which was established in 1911 to oversee construction of the current Capitol after fire destroyed the previous one.

Hearnes, a former state representative, is married to former Gov. Warren Hearnes.

Candidate withdraws

Curtis Burch of New Madrid has withdrawn from the Democratic primary for the 161st District House seat. Former Scott County Commissioner Wayne Petit will automatically represent the party on the November ballot. Petit is seeking to unseat state Rep. Lanie Black, R-Charleston. Black is seeking a third two-year term.

mpowers@semissourian.com

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