St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 16

2B ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1994 THE POST-DISPATCH PLATFORM I KNOW THAT MY RETIREMENT WILL MAKE NO DIFFERENCE IN ITS CARDINAL PRINCIPLES, THAT IT WILL ALWAYS FIGHT FOR PROGRESS AND REFORM, NEVER TOLERATE INJUSTICE OR CORRUPTION, ALWAYS FIGHT DEMAGOGUES OF ALL PARTIES, NEVER BELONG TO ANY PARTY, ALWAYS OPPOSE PRIVILEGED CLASSES AND PUBLIC PLUNDERERS, NEVER LACK SYMPATHY WITH THE POOR, ALWAYS REMAIN DEVOTED TO THE PUBLIC WELFARE, NEVER BE SATISFIED WITH MERELY PRINTING NEWS, ALWAYS BE DRASTICALLY INDEPENDENT, NEVER BE AFRAID TO ATTACK WRONG, WHETHER BY PREDATORY PLUTOCRACY OR PREDATORY POVERTY. Founded by JOSEPH PULITZER December 12, 1878 JOSEPH PULITZER, EDITOR AND PUBLISHER 1878-1911 JOSEPH PULITZER, EDITOR AND PUBLISHER 1912-1955 JOSEPH PULITZER EDITOR AND PUBLISHER 1955-1986, CHAIRMAN 1979-1993 MICHAEL E. PULITZER, CHAIRMAN AND PRESIDENT NICHOLAS G. PENNIMAN IV, PUBLISHER WILLIAM F.

WOO, EDITOR FOSTER DAVIS, MANAGING EDITOR EDWARD A. HIGGINS, EDITOR OF THE EDITORIAL PAGE April 10, 1907 JOSEPH PULITZER 900 North Tucker Boulevard 63101 (314) 340-8000 EDITORIALS Prisons, Schools And Much More ev rm v- -VDHfk skt.t uuiS Por-pirf Ate- U.S. Rep. Mel Hancock is upset over the fiscal note summary that was written for his proposed amendment limiting state spending, and no wonder. The Springfield Republican is thinking about suing to have the wording changed because he knows that no responsible Missourian, after reading the summary, would vote for the amendment, known informally as Hancock II but officially designated as Constitutional Amendment No.

7. It states: This proposal would require state and local spending cuts ranging from $1 billion to $5 billion annually. Cuts would affect prisons, schools, colleges, programs for the elderly, job training, highways, public health, and other services. Those words will appear on the ballot at the Nov. 8 election immediately below a brief description of Kansas City, relied on information supplied by the state budget division, the auditor, the secretary of state, the Department of Revenue and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Under its most conservative estimates, the Wiggins committee reported that in fiscal 1996, which begins July 1, 1995, state revenue would exceed the amendment's limit by $1.3 billion. That is because the new Hancock amendment counts revenue that the one adopted in 1980 does not. For example, it would include collections from the Proposition A fuel tax for highways, which are projected at $142.7 million, and the Proposition sales tax for education, expected to be $553.7 million. In all, some $1.4 billion in revenue that is not counted under Hancock I would be counted under Hancock II, pushing the state's revenue in H-Bomb Falling On Missouri LETTERS FROM THE PEOPLE HANCOCK II fiscal '96 to $7.4 billion. Hancock II would limit revenue to $6.1 billion, however.

In response, the Legislature could either order a costly and unwieldy refund to taxpayers or it could cut taxes by $1.3 billion, the more logical choice. That, of course, would require an equivalent cut in state spending. Removing one of every six dollars in the state budget would be devastating in itself, but the damage would be even worse because the cuts Constitutional Amendment No. 7. The description says: Shall Article of the Constitution of Missouri be amended to limit yearly increases of total state revenues generated by new, increased, or broadened taxes, licenses and fees, including user fees, to twenty hundredths of one percent of the total state revenues during the prior fiscal year, unless approved by popu DANGER AHEAD there were many communist countries.

Oh yes, there is still some political oppression, but it should not be used as an excuse to invade -our country without our permission. No one should have a right to come ashore or cross our borders -without our permission. It is long past time to get tough. Tell the- Cubans, the Haitians or any others that if they put to sea, they will not be rescued or allowed to come ashore. Open the gates at Guantanamo Bay and send all of the refugees home.

Of course, the human rights activists will protest, but we need -to do what is right for the United States. Why should U.S. taxpayers pay out millions of dollars in wel-' fare for illegal immigrants? We didn't cause their problems. We can't be all things to all people. It is time to use force if need be to protect our rights.

Tell your members of Congress to speak out against illegal immigrants. It would certainly help reduce the deficit. G.H. Norton' Ferguson lar vote; make all increases in taxes, licenses, and fees, excluding user fees, by any political subdivision subject to voter approval; and prohibit the state from mandating tax increases on political subdivisions as a requirement for maintaining their corporate status or existing level of state funding? Those who find that paragraph turgid and difficult to understand should read the whole proposed amendment, which contains more than 2,700 words, including language retained from Hancock which it would repeal. The meaning of some parts of the proposal is difficult to grasp, and it contains contradictory language.

For example, it says in one place that federal money is excluded in calculating the revenue limit, in another that it must be included. Because the amendment is subject to differing interpretations, estimates of its effect on state and local government spending vary considerably. Accordingly, the state Legislature's Joint Committee on Legislative Research, which is required to write fiscal notes for ballot measures, included both the lowest and the highest estimates $1 billion and $5 billion. could not be made across-the-board. Spending that is mandated by the federal courts or the federal government, for example, would be beyond the Legislature's reach.

Thus, some programs would suffer far more than others, which is why Mr. Wiggins' committee singled out prisons, schools, colleges, programs for the elderly, job training, highways and public health. To all of this Mr. Hancock has two limp replies. The Legislative Research Committee has exaggerated the numbers to frighten the voters, he claims, and the revenue limit can be raised by the voters if they wish.

Even the amendment's backers concede, however, that cuts of almost $1 billion would be necessary in the next fiscal year. As for voters raising the limit in response to crippling spending cuts, that would be the equivalent of trying to put Humpty-Dumpty back together. Missourians are not overtaxed, and their state government is not a profligate spender. Hancock II is a harshly punitive response to a much-needed tax increase for education that was adopted last year by the Legislature. If Hancock II were approved, Miss- Dog Daze Kids Need Dads, Not Money The message I've picked up from grown children who were brought up without their fathers is: You can keep your midnight basketball and fancy medical care if you give me my father.

Money wiil not take his place. Some of them sense their deprivation so keenly that they even latch onto an Army sergeant for counsel, example, security and other things fathers provide. The Aug. 25 editorial, "Murphy Brown Revisited," therefore struck me as misguided in part. President Bill Clinton, Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala and former Vice President Dan Quayle are correct about the importance of fathers and that bearing a child alone is not a fine alternative lifestyle.

Two years ago, Quayle unfortunately came across as attacking a popular TV show, whose defenders could point out that Murphy Brown agonized over her plight and in the end chose the high moral ground. But more and more research, as well as the kind of anecdotal evidence I mentioned, leads me to reaffirm traditional morality and disagree with the editorial that a lifestyle of having children out of wedlock is a "fictional scapegoat." Studies have clearly shown that single-parent children tend to have more problems in both childhood and adulthood than having less money, in and of itself, can possibly account for. This is not to say that enforced child support payments and other economic measures deserve less attention. Nor is it to say that single-parent families don't need all the support, volunteered time, that we can provide. But it is to say that in plenty or in want, mothers and fathers are of such central importance that we dare not demean the traditional family.

James C. Pakala Manchester Fertile Ground The pope's insistence that U.N. population policy respect the dignity of the human person is an important and much-needed perspective. Though it is a very unpopular observation among American Catholics, it is simply a fact that widespread abortion and artificial contraception lead nations and people to devalue children and reject fertility. Thus they do not enhance the status of women or contribute to global environmentalism but rather dehumanize us all and rupture our relationship with future generations.

It is embarrassing to me as a Catholic American to have our nation joining with other Western countries in attempting to impose this anti-child, anti-fertility culture even on nations where children are still valued, sexuality is still revered and fertility is still treated as a gift from above and not as a disease. Laurie Navar Gill Ellisville rectional Center for robbery. This institution has more than 2,400 inmates, and more than 640 of them are pedophiles and adult sexual offenders. This is only one of the 15 institutions in Missouri that has pedophiles confined for a short period. You would be shocked if you could find out how many pedophiles are on probation, confined, parole or in 120-day shock programs and the small sentences they received.

The rape of a child is worse than murder, so why isn't there a mandatory minimum sentence for first-time child rapists? Duane Glass Farmington Truck Pollution Several recent articles have lamented the ozone levels in St. Louis this summer, and the federal government is now looking into stricter sanctions in the metro area. Of course, the first thing they target is the car driver because he has no union, no organization, no voice. Why are the thousands of trucks on our streets being allowed to pour volumes of black smoke from their exhausts into the air daily? It is impossible to drive anywhere without being choked by these discharges from trucks. They are not just the semi-trailers but the thousands of smaller trucks on the streets all across the metro area.

This pollution from the trucking industry has to be stopped and now. Lois Caldarola Maryland Heights Clay's Mistake A number of years ago I overheard a well known Missouri politician discussing Rep. William L. Clay. He stated that, like him or not, you would have to agree that he was one smart cookie.

I never had any reason to doubt that statement until I read the Aug. 28 News Analysis article, "3 Ways of Looking at The Crime Bill." Clay said that a new national health-care law should cover abortion if it covered prostate surgery for men. Equating the life-saving procee-dure of removing a cancerous prostate with an operation used in many instances to end an inconvenient pregnancy would be laughable if it weren't so sad. To think that a man as powerful as Clay could hold a view so totally stupid is frightening. Thomas Dunlavy Creve Coeur Border Patrol Our immigration policy is a mess because the United States does not have a firm policy against illegal immigration.

Why should we allow foreigners to invade our shores or borders to seek political asylum? Aren't we the boss here? President Bill Clinton is on the right track but should be more forceful. The asylum law passed by Congress in 1953 should be repealed. The need for a political asylum law is not as great as it when The committee, chaired by Sen. Harry Wiggins of ouri would be cutting off its nose to spite its face. Wlien Something Is Worse Than Nothing President Bill Clinton seems reluctant to give up on Congress' approval of health-care legislation this year.

His attitude is understandable inasmuch as he made universal health insurance a key campaign goal. But it's new time for the president to give the issue a rest and try again next year, as Rep. Jim McDermott of Washington has suggested. A proponent of a single-payer system, Mr. McDermott points out that none of the incremental approaches in the health-care bills being considered by Congress would meet Mr.

Clinton's goal of universal coverage and cost controls. Mr. Clinton should admit as much. By doing so, he would send a signal that his presidency is guided by convictions rather than anything-goes concessions on the health-insurance issue, one of the most important domestic problems confronting this nation. The piecemeal reforms before Congress aren't so much a solution as a subterfuge.

They give lawmakers the image of having addressed the health-insurance problems when, in fact, they have passed the buck into the next century. Take the bill by the Senate's so-called mainstream coalition, whose membership includes Sen. John C. Danforth. Its contribution to the debate has been the extremely weak idea of expanding health insurance to only 92 percent of the population by 2004 at the earliest.

This approach would do more harm than good. It includes no employer mandate, and the insured would continue to be taxed indirectly through padded medical bills to subsidize the care for the uninsured. Medical inflation would remained unchecked. This is the solution from lawmakers who supposedly want to hold the line on rising costs and indirect taxes on consumers. Mr.

Clinton had better distance himself from this quick fix. If the mainstream proposal or something similar gets through Congress, lawmakers will simply declare the health-insurance problem solved and forget about doing anything more. Then, two years from now in a major election year when medical inflation is still rising and a few million more have joined the uninsured voters will remind the president of the mainstream compromise of '94, the one that was supposed to fix everything. Mr. Clinton couldn't say he was not a party to this deception.

Mr. Clinton can head off this potential scenario by simply vetoing any bill that doesn't meet his promise to make health insurance universal, portable and affordable for all Americans. Having done that, he can try again for genuine health-insurance reforms next year, as Mr. McDermott has suggested. In reference to the front-page; story on Sept.

1 about Elizabeth Estes' lost dog and the follow-up stories on Sept. 5 and 6, it must be nice to get a front-page story with' color photos of a dog that jumped from your open car window. On July 31,1 was the victim of a dog snatching. The thief climbed into our back yard and stole our 2-month-old Rottweiler. I canvassed the neighborhood, posting signs in businesses where it was allowed.

But the fliers posted on the street corners, where they would be seen by a larger portion of the public, were promptly removed by county workers. I assume the county police are-doing all they can, even though when called they did not seem concerned that five other Rottweiler puppies had been stolen that same night. I am indeed sorry that Estes lost her dog; it is a terrible thing to lose a pet you love, especially in this manner, because you worry about its health and safety. But I do not think her story deserves to be covered on the front page or in two follow-up issues of the Dispatch. Donna Struse Florissant." Violent Lesson In a Sept.

1 letter, D.M. Bright wrote: "If everyone spares the rod crime will be more rampant than ever." I believe the opposite is true: If everyone spares the rod, crime will be less rampant. What does a child learn when he is spanked? He learns the big person can control the little person through physical violence. He learns physical violence is an ac- ceptable way to resolve conflicts He learns fear, not self What children need is discipline; discipline means "to teach." It seems absurd to me for an adult to attempt to teach a child self-control by the adult losing his self-" control and hitting a helpless child. M.J.

Martin Marthasville, Mo. We want to know what our read-, ers think. Mail your opinions to Letters From The People, St Louis Post-Dispatch, 900 North Tuck-' er St Louis. Mo. 63101, or fax them to (314) 340-3139.

Please keep letters short and to the point; they may be edited for length or clarity. Letters must be signed and include an address and daytime phone number for verification. Because we receive so much ma we cannot acknowledge or return letters. Belleville Says No To Fairer Hiring Rather than accept a Justice Department consent decree and agree to give blacks and women a fairer shake in filling municipal jobs, the Belleville City Council appears ready to fight. The 10-6 vote to reject the federal government's offer may appeal to residents who were stirred up by protests against so-called quotas, but it does nothing to remedy Belleville's reputation for past injustices in hiring.

The rejection of the settlement offer is the latest move in a long dispute over Belleville's patterns of hiring city workers. The consent decree called for the city to give priority to hiring blacks and women, including nine blacks and three women in the Police Department, four blacks and two women in the Fire Department and 12 other blacks or women in other departments. It also required the city to put up $300,000 to pay any minorities who could prove they had been discriminated against since 1972; an earlier proposal from the federal government had called for a fund of $784,000. Mayor Roger Cook had supported acceptance of the offer. But be was unable to get the support of the City Council, including some members who generally are his allies.

Those who voted against the consent decree said they did not want to accept quotas for city hiring. The federal government offer expires on Tuesday; a special council meeting has been called for Monday night to reconsider. Since Mr. Cook took office 16 months ago, Belleville has made progress in making up for past discrimination. The consent decree would ensure that the city went the rest of the way.

The cry of quotas is a false issue. Instead of pledging to hire blacks and women regardless of their qualifications, simply to meet some numerical mandate, Belleville would have agreed only to give them priority in cases where other qualifications are equal. Given past practices, such consideration would simply tilt the scales to an even balance. Now, the city appears headed for a federal trial where no one will win. To succeed, Belleville, like any other city, needs the talents of as wide a pool as possible.

Refusing to turn its back on a discriminatory past is not the way to reach a better future. Unfair Sentences For years, children have been sexually assaulted by pedophiles, which include priests. Cub Scout leaders, preschool employees, etc. in Missouri, and the majority of them receive a sentence of seven years or less after they have been convicted for their first sexual assault on a child. Since there is a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years for a person convicted of selling drugs or possessing a weapon within a 1,000 feet of a school, surely there should be a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years or 30 years for a first-time child rapist.

I'm confined at Farmington Cor.