NEOSHO, Mo. — So the Missouri General Assembly has been in special session now for several weeks and what do they have to show for it? Well, not much. If you were to look up the words “special” and “extraordinary” in a thesaurus you would find alternatives like “strange,” “unusual,” “bizarre” and “weird” to name a few. I think that those would be pretty fitting to describe what has gone on in Jefferson City over the past month or so.

The General Assembly was called into special session with high hopes that the state of Missouri would show the rest of the country that we were serious about job creation. Instead, we have given the nation a lesson in how not to get things done. And, we have done it with flair.

So what has been accomplished in the “extraordinary” session? One bill has been passed to repeal a bill that sailed through the Legislature and was signed into law only to be widely panned as a mistake. Missouri lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to repeal part of a contentious new law that prohibited teachers from chatting privately with students over Internet sites such as Facebook. You have to give everyone credit that when they realized that the original bill was a mistake, they went about fixing the problem and did it quickly before harm was done. That is the positive side of the “extraordinary” session.

The rest of the session has been a real lesson in what happens when you don’t do your homework. Do you remember the famous line out of the movie “Cool Hand Luke” when Strother Martin told Paul Newman, “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate”? That is exactly what happened in the Missouri General Assembly.

Before anyone starts pointing fingers, you should understand that our local representatives and senators had nothing to do with the calling of the special session and I would imagine that they are just as frustrated as everyone else has been with the situation. What apparently happened is that the speaker of the House and the Senate president had a deal worked out on an economic development bill, and based on that assurance the governor called the Legislature into special session.

Now, here is where the failure to communicate part comes in — the leaders apparently didn’t communicate with their members to make sure that enough of the members agreed with the plan that a bill could be passed through both chambers. And, what we have ended up with is a true lesson in how difficult it is to get 197 Missourians to agree on anything.

The 163 representatives and 34 senators are truly a microcosm of our state as a whole, and they are doing their jobs in questioning the details of a deal brokered without all their input. At the core of the debate is the fate of the state’s tax credit program, which has now grown to well over $500 million per year.

Personally, I think that tax incentives to entice business growth and development can be a great tool to grow the economy. But, that being said, I think that we have let a good idea balloon well beyond its original intention, and there needs to be a well-thought out discussion of all tax credits. The Legislature and the citizens of the state need to have confidence that the programs are actually accomplishing their stated purpose. I am just not sure that all sides were ready for that debate in this particular session.

But, I think that what we are seeing in Missouri is much different than what we are witnessing at the national level with regards to job creation. In Missouri, I believe that everyone involved (the House, the Senate and the governor) is well intentioned and wants to move this state forward and create jobs. The real rub is in how we can best accomplish this, and the real task will be to ensure that everyone has their say before we act.

At the national level, I think that you are seeing a real game of political one-upmanship. Yes, I think everyone involved wants to see more jobs created and, yes, they have very different views on how to accomplish this.

But underlying those good intentions is the ever-present political game that has reached epic levels. I just hope that this time the president and Congress actually read this bill before passing it so that they know what is in it before we have to live with it. Jobs and lives are at stake here, so let’s quit playing games and start acting more like leaders and less like politicians.

Kevin Wilson, a former state representative, lives in Neosho.