An old Chinese saying tells us, “If you are planning for one year, grow rice; for 20 years, grow trees; for 100 years, grow men.” For too long now, Missouri has been growing nothing but rice.
We are near the bottom of the states in funding for higher education. We are near the bottom of the states in funding for a number of services that advance the capabilities and resilience of the population.
We have legislated that no surplus be held in reserve, so that every deficit is a crisis. A greedy electorate, devoid of the conscience of strong leadership, has legislated itself out of any future for its children.
In the name of minimal state taxes, we are rearing our children with minimal education; our poor receive minimal nutrition and shelter; our sick and lame receive minimal health care; and our elderly minimal care of any kind. This so that the most well-to-do families can retain more of their discretionary spending money for SUVs, 70-inch televisions, vacations in Vegas, breast implants, cheek implants and hair implants!
We can turn this state around! We can educate our young; we can treat our sick and injured; we can feed our hungry, and provide dignified care for our elders; and we can still live a good life in Missouri. Moreover, we will have some assurance that our children and grandchildren will be able to do the same!
Missourians must re-establish our goals: to become the best-educated work force in the country; to provide the best health care, the best child care, the best elder care in the country. Missouri could be the state where businesses want to grow because it’s the place where the most capable work force wants to work, to live and to raise their children.
To continue down the road of minimal taxes and minimal education will only further our slide down the path to truly becoming the Show-Me State:
“You’ll have to show me, because I won’t be able to do anything for myself!”
Stephen Schiavo
Joplin
