Politics                                           

The 94 campaign: Time for substance, not fluff By CHARLES N. WHEELER III

When Gov. Jim Edgar makes the long-expected announcement that he will seek a second term, the field will be set for the 1994 gubernatorial race. Edgar, of course, has a lock on the Republican nomination, while his Democratic challenger will emerge from a three-way primary battle among Atty. Gen. Roland W. Burris, Comptroller Dawn Clark Netsch and Cook County Board President Richard J. Phelan.

None of the candidates is a newcomer to public life; all four have records that in the coming months will be fair game for their rivals and that, one would hope, will be scrutinized by the media to help voters assess their performances. More important than what the candidates have done in the past, however, is where they would take the state in the future — the vision each has of Illinois and the approaches each would take to the critical problems facing the state.

Granted, in an era when media consultants, marketing strategists and opinion pollsters work to package and sell candidates like cornflakes or laundry detergent, a suggestion that Campaign 94 focus on real issues might seem overly idealistic or hopelessly naive. Nevertheless, the underlying premise — that candidates owe voters a frank discussion of key policy choices — is valid. To help those who would govern Illinois meet that responsibility, the following topics are offered as ones that deserve to be on the campaign agenda.

• Revenue reform. Illinois is heading into the 21st century with a revenue structure firmly rooted in the 19th. Local governments, especially schools, rely too heavily on the real estate tax, while the state limits its sales tax to tangible personal property even as the provision of services grows in economic significance. Moreover, the sales tax base has been eroded over the last two decades by a plethora of exemptions, most notably for food and medicine. In recent years, various proposals have surfaced to revamp the state's revenue structure, for example, by shifting the burden of funding schools and other local units to the income tax from the property tax, or by imposing the sales tax on services like haircuts, engine tuneups and marriage counseling. Airing such matters during the campaign would increase public awareness, perhaps even helping to build some consensus about what if anything should be done. If the candidates dismiss the subject, however, the winner is likely to find it much more difficult to make any change.

• Education funding. Lucky students in a handful of school districts enjoy a Cadillac education, thanks to local tax bases swollen by industrial and commercial real estate. At the same time, four out of every five public school children in Illinois lack the financial backing needed to provide an adequate education, a school finance task force reported last year. The same panel proposed significant changes in school financing intended to meet the twin problems of adequacy and equity, but its recommendations were shelved in the spring legislative session because of their price tag, estimated to run $2 billion or more. Talking about adequacy and equity in school financing might not provide the catchiest campaign sound bites, but the willingness of federal judges to become involved in the Chicago school crisis should serve as a clear warning that ignoring the issue after the election invites further judicial intervention.

• Workforce preparation. An embarrassingly high 24 percent of adult Illinoisans border on being functionally illiterate, a recent study estimated, yet from this labor pool will come most of the workforce needed for the new jobs expected to be created in Illinois, according to demographic studies. Moreover, the new jobs are expected to demand higher skill levels than in the past, researchers say. The state now offers a wide variety of job training programs, ranging from ones geared to moving people from the welfare rolls into full-time

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employment to others designed to upgrade specific skills for a particular company's workers. Still, the mismatch between a workforce that is not well prepared and job openings that demand the very skills in short supply is a cause of considerable concern for the employer community. While economic development is sure to be a campaign buzzword, a candidate who's not ready to tackle workforce preparation is merely droning on about job creation.

• Health care. Quality health care is all but unavailable in some parts of rural Illinois and the inner city, while affordability is a concern throughout the state. Moreover, the cost of providing health care for the poor continues to drive the state budget, with no real assurance that the Clinton health plan will ease the burden. Indeed, as the largest employer in Illinois, and as the financial guarantor of health care for another million people, state government could find itself with new duties under a national program. Voters are entitled to know how the candidates would deal with such health care issues, particularly what ideas they might have for cost containment.

• Human services. The state's child protection and mental health programs have been called to task in federal court, while tens of thousands of former General Assistance recipients have been shorn from the welfare rolls and enrollments limited for home-care programs serving the aged and the disabled. While funding shortfalls must bear a major portion of the blame for the state's human services shortcomings, voters should not have to settle for just a promise to throw more dollars at the problem. Instead, the campaign offers a chance to consider new approaches to providing services that might prove more effective and less costly than current practices.

No doubt, other topics could be added to the foregoing list; by no means is it meant to be all-inclusive. The point, though, is that candidates ought to be discussing meat-and-potato issues, not some campaign handler's whipped-Jello talking points. *

Charles N. Wheeler III is director of the Public Affairs Reporting program at Sangamon State University in Springfield and a former correspondent in the Springfield Bureau of the Chicago Sun-Times.

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