On Tuesday, February 27, hundreds of college students descended upon the State Capitol in Jefferson City for Missouri Community College Day. The event is held annually to put a focus on the human element involved in the process of legislating. Students were offered the opportunity to meet their state-level government representatives, attend an open session of either the State House or Senate, and mingle inside the halls of the State Capitol.

One of the legislators - who represents a large portion of the MCC-Penn Valley student body - is State Representative Beth Low. Low was elected in 2004 and re-elected last year to represent the 39th District of Missouri. When she is not in Jefferson City, she is a social worker at a women's domestic violence shelter.

The district stretches roughly from 31st Street to 63rd Street and from State Line Road to Troost Avenue. This is one of the smallest districts in Missouri, meaning it is one of the most densely populated, as each district is made up of around 35,000 people. The 39th District boasts two entertainment districts (the Plaza and Westport) and four colleges (Penn Valley, UMKC, Rockhurst, and the Kansas City Art Institute.)

Low was able to take a minute out of her busy schedule to sit down in her office with Spectrum.

Spectrum: Missouri legislators are talking about a state budget surplus; are things starting to loosen up financially?

Low: Well, it would seem that way, except for seven years of retracting revenue, which has meant chronic underfunding of public education, among other things. So this surplus [the Republicans] keep talking about is somewhere between 300 and 500 million dollars, best case scenario, and wouldn't even begin to cover the accrued debt of failing to fully fund the infrastructure for the last seven years. But then on top of that, [the Republicans] are proposing to do away with the surplus altogether. Well, of course this surplus is not guaranteed in future years, but what is guaranteed is future shortfalls with every new tax cut. [The Legislature] can't pass any tax increase without a vote of the people, and since that's gone into effect, we've raised taxes only once in fifteen years! It puts the legislature in an impossible situation. Everyone wants a tax cut, but they also want their roads to be drivable. We here in Missouri do not print the money, and we can't just make it exist.

Spectrum: What of the 138 million extra dollars Matt Blunt claims to have invested in the higher education system of Missouri?

Low: There is a difference between what is annually appropriated and what the cost price index is for higher education. The cost of providing high-quality higher education has been increasing at a rate of almost three times the rate of inflation for about fifteen years. What that means is nearly keeping up with the rate of inflation in terms of appropriation, which is technically an increase, is still nonetheless a decrease when you talk about real spending power. So Governor Blunt can talk all day about how he put money into higher education, but in real terms he has failed to fund them at the same level.

Spectrum: So Blunt's claim is political propaganda, then?

Low: There are two ways of looking at it. The cynical view is to say it is propaganda. Or you could say maybe he doesn't understand the concept of the higher education cost price index. I give him more credit than that. I might not agree with his policy, but I don't think he's stupid by any means. I think that he wants to help higher education, but there are several things working against him. One of those things is the fiscal situation that we have in Missouri. If this was Kansas, he would be in a very different position. He could be fiscally conservative all he wants to, because revenue would be extremely high on a per capita basis. Kansas is a much wealthier state than Missouri, so they can spend more on social programs, higher education, and infrastructure. All of these things we would love to fund in Missouri, except we have the 47th-lowest income tax in the nation. We are a very low tax state, but unfortunately that means by necessity we are also a low service state.

Spectrum: What are the chances of the newly proposed tax cut passing?

Low: What I'm assured by everyone the Republicans talk to is that it will pass in the House, but won't be heard in the Senate. They won't even give it a hearing. Due to the nature of the Senate, with the larger districts, the voters tend to elect people who are more reasonable and tend to be less ideological.

Copyright 2007 Metropolitan Community College