Rep. Klindt’s column

by State Rep. David Klindt

It’s officially the holiday season, which means, among many other things, that the next legislative session is drawing near. In fact, pre-filing of bills for the post-Y2K session is already underway. I am excited to serve during this historic time for our state and am confident that we can build on this past year’s accomplishments and continue to be a leader among states in the new millennium. This, however, cannot be done without healthy citizen involvement, and I encourage all Missourians to be involved in the business of their government.

There are many issues demanding attention from the people of our state and their elected representatives. Most importantly, we must better help our schools teach our children. Schools must be better enabled to teach effectively. The Year 2000 Classroom program, or “Y2C,” introduced last year is a great start. It would mandate that at least a certain level of funds from gambling revenue be sent directly to school districts to be spent on what they need most. We must particularly help our two largest school districts, Kansas City and St. Louis, be able to educate their students. All students deserve the opportunity to learn. It is a tragedy that we are graduating students who have been hindered from learning because of the school district’s inability to properly teach them.

Next, we must tackle the insufficiency of our transportation system.Without question, traffic has outgrown the capacity of our roads. But not only do we need new roads, we need to better care for the ones we already have. We should expect greater response and accountability from our transportation officials. We have not been given what we were promised and what we paid for. If the state transportation department, as currently structured, cannot effectively address these needs, we should change it so that it will.

Taxation is another issue we must deal with before we can truly succeed.We are over-taxed. The size of our state government is growing by leaps and bounds, and yet we still collect more in taxes than we can constitutionally spend. Hancock refunds are costly and would be unnecessary if we would reduce taxes sufficiently. It just makes sense to decrease the individual taxpayer’s tax burden. Lower taxes not only help us pay our bills, they spur economic growth and help hold government at its proper size.

These issues represent only the tip of the legislative iceberg. There are many crucial issues facing our state as we move into the new millennium. With citizen input and participation throughout the legislative process, we in the General Assembly can make the right decisions to meet our challenges and set a standard of achievement for other states to follow.