Bill Stouffer Doesn't Want to Cut Taxes for Farmers

Sen. Bill Stouffer has been making a lot of hay in the past few days with his criticism of the state tax commission's proposed changes in the way farmland is taxed.  Here's how the AP described the proposed changes:

The Missouri State Tax Commission last month approved new values for farm land that are used for calculating property taxes. Missouri's farms are divided into eight groups based on land quality. The commission increased the value for the four best categories, lowered values for three lesser categories and kept the worst the same.

Opponents of the proposal like Stouffer have predictably glossed over the fact that a good number of farmers will see their taxes decline, and have described it all as a "tax increase."  But by that same simplistic logic, the headline "Stouffer counters against tax hike" could easily be written "Stouffer counters against tax cut."