RAISE TAXES OR CUT SERVICES

Legislature Must Choose

There is no shortage of important issues awaiting Kentucky lawmakers when
they convene for the 2004 General Assembly on Tuesday.

Is health care your big concern? Well, there's the high cost of medical
malpractice insurance and its effect on Kentuckians' access to physicians.
Or the question of adequate staffing at nursing homes. And even the
availability of nursing home care in a time of Medicaid cutbacks.

Education? Let's talk about soaring tuition rates and the impact they're
having on state scholarship programs.

Want an issue that mixes health and education? School nutrition fits that
category.

Crime and punishment? Start with an epidemic of prescription drug and
methamphetamine abuse. Add the fact that understaffed state crime labs
can't process drug analysis requests quickly enough to provide swift
justice in our courts, and you start to get the picture of a serious
problem for Kentucky.

If none of these topics gets you in a lather, maybe you're more concerned
about ridding your electronic mailbox of spam. Or banning cell phone use by
drivers. Or even cutting back on wasteful government spending by
establishing some real control over personal service contracts and
memorandums of agreement.

Under normal circumstances, lawmakers going home in April after finding
satisfactory answers to a handful of these problems would be able to
congratulate themselves on having a very successful session.

This year, though, circumstances are far from normal. This year, lawmakers
arriving in Frankfort will find a 900-pound gorilla loose in the halls of
the Capitol.

More accurately, it's a $900 million gorilla, give or take a few million.
That's the gap between the state's projected revenue and the cost of
continuing existing services at their current levels for the remainder of
this year and through the next biennium.

Addressing this revenue crisis must be priority No. 1 for the General
Assembly. Indeed, it's not too much of a stretch to say that finding a
successful solution for the state's money woes is the be-all and end-all of
this session. Failure to find such a solution will produce a ripple effect
that makes it nigh on impossible for lawmakers to respond adequately to the
state's other problems.

You want affordable tuition rates and a little financial help when Justin
and Brittany are old enough to go to college? The answer is simple: more
state funding -- not less -- for public colleges and universities and for
state financial aid programs.

What we're getting now, though, in this era of revenue shortfalls is less
state funding for the schools and a greater strain on the scholarship programs.

You say that your Gran was a tax-paying, contributing member of society all
her life until illness and infirmities forced her into a nursing home and
that it's now her turn to get something back from government?

Sorry about her -- and your -- luck. She's about to join the other elderly
folks who've been kicked out of Kentucky nursing homes due to cutbacks in
Medicaid benefits caused by lack of money.

You see, election-year demagogy aside, the impact of this revenue crisis
isn't limited to cutting back on pork and eliminating waste and
inefficiency in government. There simply isn't anywhere close to that much
waste, inefficiency and pork left in state government.

Gov. Ernie Fletcher wants this year's General Assembly to deliver on his
promise of "tax modernization," and rightly so.

Our tax structure is desperately in need of an overhaul for a variety of
reasons. But as long as Fletcher keeps insisting that "tax modernization"
be revenue neutral at the outset, it won't help address the immediate crisis.

Some have suggestedthat we bequeath this problem to our children and
grandchildren by borrowing our way out of this crisis. But that's the
coward's way.

Dealing with the $900 million gorilla in any way but a cowardly one will
require a lot of people to feel a lot of pain.

It can be the pain of paying higher taxes. It can be the pain of losing
very real, very vital services provided by higher education programs,
scholarship programs, K-12 programs, law enforcement programs, Medicaid
programs, mental health programs, child care programs, environmental
protection -- the list goes on and on.

That's the choice confronting state lawmakers -- and through them, you as
well -- as the 2004 General Assembly convenes this week.