Dixie genius to the rescue

by Jack Stapleton, Jr.

The state’s current fund crunch has seen a wide panorama of wholesale appropriation reductions in public education, higher education, health care, correction systems, highway construction and scores of other invaluable services normally provided by our state governments which today are about as beneficial as a whole hotel-full of Texas legislators hiding out in Oklahoma. Here in our own state, the deleterious battle between our Democratic governor and a Republican legislature has occupied more time, publicity and name-calling than occurred during the War of 1812. It has amounted to a wholesome conversion of ordinary citizens into outsiders with little interest in keeping score.

Fortunately, the Southern genius for converting dreams into reality was sparked by a lone Arkansas legislator named Jim Lendall. He introduced a bill calling for the expenditure of only $3,000 of taxpayer money for a kind of Statewide Development Fund. The proposal is quite simple: With $3,000 to invest, Arkansas state officials would be empowered to buy lottery and Powerball tickets in states such as ours, that once had strict gambling regulations that have long since disappeared.

Rep. Lendall, who has a long beard and hair falling below his shoulders, assured his fellow lawmakers that $3,000 of public funds would bring home a thousand-fold return on their investment, given his long record of winning in such notorious venues as New Orleans, Las Vegas and the closest Indian reservation. He obviously knows what he’s talking about. He probably deserves more respect and attention than we have been giving Bill Bennett lately.

Indeed, at the last meeting of the National Conference of State Legislators in Boston, the Arkansas lawmaker was besieged by scores of fellow delegates seeking details of his plan in order that they might introduce similar legislation in their home states. Said Lendall: “They told me they thought it was one of the most novel ways to raise money. At a time when services are being cut and people are losing jobs, a similar argument can be made in every state.”

Imagine the excitement in Jefferson City as Gov. Holden gathers a group of state lawmakers at the local Amtrak station for a trip to the casino at the Scalpem Indian Reservation in Butte, Montana, for a weekend of bipartisan gambling, all the good name of starving families in Ladue and Clayton who have been stripped of their food stamps because of bankruptcy in Jefferson City.

It’s enough to restore full faith and confidence in our democratic system of government.

To conserve their winnings, Missouri’s Statewide Development Commission may choose to remain within the confines of Show-Me borders and invest in our state lottery and its associated games of chance, and perhaps it can also launch the race track plans that were proposed as long ago as the last time Missouri had to worry about raising enough money to open its public schools each fall.

Then, maybe those of us not running for office in 2004 can get a little rest.

[Missouri News & Editorial Services, Inc. Copyright (C) 2003 MNES Corp.]