Earnings Tax

The just-passed Proposition A sets up April votes in Kansas City and St. Louis asking residents to vote on their respective earnings taxes.  The Post-Dispatch reports that Mayor Francis Slay formed "Citizens for a Stronger St. Louis" today to keep his city's earnings tax in April's citywide vote.

Randy Turner: "Missouri Ethics Commission records show Sinquefield contributed $2,534,000 Thursday to Let Voters Decide, the front group he created to push the repeal of the earnings taxes. With that contribution, Sinquefield has now spent $4,284,000 on the issue."

From today's batch of 48-Hour Reports on the MEC website:

UPDATE: Dave Roland, an analyst at Sinquefield's Show-Me Insitutute, has responded to this post in the comments.

I see that David Stokes at Rex Sinquefield's Show-Me Institute blog is criticizing Oregonians' use of a ballot initiative to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy.  It passed by a wide margin,  but Stokes isn't digging the voters' decision-- the Oregon vote, he says, is an example of "why I prefer a representative republic to direct democracy."

Stokes disdain for ballot initiatives is ironic (to say the least) considering Sinquefield's sponsorship of at least five initiatives to end the 1% earnings tax in St. Louis and Kansas City. Sinquefield has even put $500,000 of his personal fortune into a brand new campaign account called "Let Voters Decide."