Tilley Kicks Off Speakership With Call For Big Sales Tax Hike
Speaker-elect Steve Tilley is already departing from Lt. Governor Peter Kinder's post-election pledge that Republicans will not to raise taxes in the coming legislative session. According to the St. Louis Business Journal, Tilley is promising to push the fantasy (proponents call it a "fair tax") that replacing Missouri's income tax structure with increased sales taxes will be a good thing for taxpayers and the state's economy.
Tilley's pledge to push the sales tax hike is an interesting and unfortunate departure from the leadership of the outgoing Most Powerful Man in Missouri, Ron Richard. In September, Richard said the following about the proposal:
Here is my personal concern: If you do raise sales taxes to a certain level, and I never was comfortable with the number that the promoters decided the sales taxes were going to be, you're going to put a lot of communities, you're going to put possibly Springfield, Kansas City, Joplin, Cape Girardeau, Sikeston, St. Louis, possibly out of business on the retail side, if you have a significant raise in sales taxes and drive out, drive people going to other states to buy goods and services.
I never was comfortable with the number what the sales tax would be. And until -- I will tell you in government, when you talk about taxes, you better have the information in front of you and you better have the votes ready and the fine print. Because sometimes that changes around, and I've never been comfortable unless I see a firm commitment. And I never had really understand what the firm commitment on the tax side was.
Richard's concerns are completely justified. None of the proponents have been able to provide a convincing argument for why big sales taxes in population centers close to state borders will be good for those communities. And as we saw in January, supporters have a history of putting forward absurdly rosy projections for what a new sales tax would need to be for a balanced state budget.
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In completely unrelated news, Tilley received a $100,000 check from right-wing financier Rex Sinqfuield in September (on top of a $100k check last year), and co-owns an airplane with Sinquefield lobbyist Travis Brown.
