249/365 Prop E

Proposition E passed yesterday.

Last fall, a robber baron who lives in our town (ok, he's not a robber baron but that's how I feel about these ultra-conservative rich folk who are trying to further ruin my state, my city, my nation) funded an amendment to the state constitution that was tagged "Let the voters decide." It was utter anti-tax bullshit. It was aimed at destroying the earnings tax in Kansas City and St. Louis--a 1% tax on the incomes of those who live in the city limits or who commute to work in the city limits but live elsewhere. It is 30% of our city's funding.

Yeah, there are probably better ways to handle 30% of the city budget. It would be nice if the city and county merged, for instance, and it would also be nice if we all held hands on the hill and shared a coke and sung a song.

The "let the voters decide" amendment was aimed at "out-state" voters. It banned cities from starting new earnings taxes--I'm not sure frankly if any cities were planning on starting them--and had this benign "oh, the people who live in KC and STL should be able to decide for themselves if they want the earnings tax, so they should be forced to hold a vote on it every 5 years to retain it."

Thing is, we already had the right, in our city's charter, to challenge the earnings tax. But we hadn't. Lots of sheep out in mid-Missouri didn't like the fear of earnings taxes and thought all us benighted city folk oughtta take charge of our own lives. It passed overwhelmingly throughout the state, although it failed in STL and KC. Which said something, I think. I think it said that all us benighted city folk don't need a bunch of anti-government folks in Rolla and Joplin to tell us what to do neither.

It's not that I like taxes, and I don't think many people do. But I like having a police force and a fire department and street cleaning and trash pick up and I think that people who spend their days here in town like knowing that if their office building catches on fire, the fire department will come and put out the fire and not charge them for the privilege.

And maybe one day we can phase out the tax, but we need to have a plan in place to replace those funds.

One plan was a higher sales tax, which of course is regressive and I'm opposed to that on those grounds alone. Another plan was higher property taxes, which isn't regressive like sales tax but would still smack most middle-class St. Louisans pretty hard. My property tax, compared to the earnings tax we pay for Mike, well, let me say that if one went away and the other quadrupled, which was the estimation by the mayor's office, well, we'd come out the losers in that plan. Really.

It seemed like a crystal clear decision to me. And, actually, to 90% of the voters in the city yesterday.

Well then.

We'll see what comes in the next 5 years. And then vote again.