Un-Fair Tax

Conservatives, spurred on by a national campaign, will rally Saturday in Columbia for what supporters call the “Fair Tax”.

Introduced as House Joint Resolution 36 in Missouri last session, it would replace the current state income tax with a tax on all sales and services. Let me repeat that ALL sales and services.

At a time when Congress is talking about getting more people health care, our Missouri General Assembly is talking about taxing it. But that’s not all, every service you pay for from TV repair to your electric bill would be taxed.

Obviously, such a regressive tax would heavily effect the poorest Missourians, but a full 95% of Missourians would pay more in taxes under this plan according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. They also estimate that in order to make the tax revenue neutral – which they claim to want in the legislation – the tax would have to be 12.5%. Now imagine paying an additional 12.5% on every dollar you spend on any goods or services.

These types of proposals make it clear that conservatives have no qualms about raising taxes – they just want to raise them on middle and low income Americans and cut taxes for the wealthiest 5%.

Of Morons and Medicaid

Toward the end of the Missouri Legislative Session, the House Republicans, who had already voted down a State Budget to expand Medicaid, took the further step of voting for their version of the Senate's Medicaid expansion proposal that wouldn't have expanded coverage to anyone. Oh, sure, they spoke about covering the “uninsurables” but the group they were talking about covering were already covered in the Senate plan and, under the House plan, were not funded for coverage under the Budget that the House Republicans had passed.

So, the House Republicans turned down nearly $100 million per year in Federal funds and over $50 million per year in new funds from Missouri's hospitals. Yet somehow, they have the audacity to say that their decisions were “fiscally responsible”.

At least one House Republican, Representative Bryan Pratt, knew better than to try to defend their actions, instead, he made baseless accusations of impropriety against the Governor and the groups that were advocating for the expansion. These accusations have yet to be backed up by any actual evidence, but Republican Representatives did put up signs in their offices reading “Governor Nixon, My Vote Is Not For Sale.” Of course, considering the source of the accusations, perhaps these Representatives should have put up “For Sale” signs with the tell tale “Sold” sticker across them since all of their votes were purchased long ago by Rex Sinqufield.

I cannot, however, group all House Republicans together. Evidently, there remains four Republican Representatives who are actually fiscally responsible: Jay Wasson, Ryan Silvey, Scott Largent, and Denny Hoskins. These are the only four Republican Representatives who voted against their caucus in support of a free healthcare expansion.

Is TABOR Lite Dead?

House Joint Resolution 23, often called TABOR Lite by members of the Democratic Caucus, had a hearing in the Senate Ways and Means Committee last week. A surprise move since it is rumored that the chairman of the Committee is opposed to the legislation.

The House approved the measure by only one vote, and several moderate members have said that they were able to support the Budget Chairman’s legislation only because they knew that is was dead in the Senate.

Well, the Senate Committee meeting was certainly a downer. Chairman Vogel was the only member of the committee present during the proceedings – sitting alone for nearly an hour waiting for the sponsor of the bill, Representative Allen Icet, to appear.

When it became overly clear that the sponsor would be a no-show, the Chairman dropped the gavel and called the meeting adjourned. Rumor is that the main supporter of the bill, former Representative Carl Bearden, received an ear full from the Chairman and his Chief of Staff following the meeting.

Evidently, Icet and Bearden had misrepresented (read lied) some deals made with leadership in the Senate around the legislation. Lobbyists in the Capitol say that at best HJR 23 is on life support and at worst, this was the last nail in its coffin.

FBI Back in the Capitol

The Missouri House Republicans have been working for years under pay-to-play rules.

Lobbyists used to joke that the House Rules Committee has been more like an auction than a hearing when controversial legislation was waiting for a hearing on the floor.

Well, it appears that the FBI is back in the Capitol to investigate some of these rumors.

Republicans Fight Healthcare with Racism

Yesterday during the House Budget Debate in the Missouri House of Representatives, Representative Robert Schaaf compared providing healthcare to lower income children with slavery. He defined slavery as when you “make someone else pay for something you receive.”

Now, I’m no historian, but I thought that slavery was about owning, mistreating and forcing other human beings to live their lives in servitude with no compensation.

Fortunately, after this misguided rant, Representative Shalonn Curls stood to be recognized to cheers from the Democratic side of the chamber. She pointed out to the racist from Buchanan that his argument was offensive to several members of the House. Representative Schaaf just shrugged and said, “So?”.

But that wasn’t enough for the Republican Caucus, evidently. The next Republican to stand up was Representative Bryan Stevenson, who earlier this session compared the “Freedom of Choice Act” to the “War of Northern Aggression”.

Evidently, now that the Republicans have elected a black man as their national chairman, they’re free to let their racism shine.

Missouri Senate Fights over Abortion for Huckabee’s Entertainment

So the Missouri Senate debated late into the night yesterday on a bill that would make coercing a woman to have an abortion a crime. It’s funny that they would work this hard to pass a bill that has no chance of being signed into law by the current Governor. Never mind the idiocy of making it a crime to coerce a person to do a legal act.

So, why would the Missouri Senate fiddle away at abortion while the Missouri economy burns? Why, former presidential candidate and current False News talk show host Mike Huckabee was in town!

Who would want to be the elected official in the front row at a Huckabee event without being able to say, “Mike… Mike… I hate abortions too!”

So, Senators Jeff Smith and Jolie Justus discussed how many people follow their twitters (tweets?) and Minority Leader Callahan pointed out how foolish it was to be debating this meaningless bill while Missourians are losing jobs and struggling to keep their health care.

Oh No, They’re Going Back to Work

In these tough economic times, you would think that everyone would be happy to see Missourians going back to work. The single exception to this would have to be the Missouri General Assembly, who after a week-long spring break will be returning today to the Capitol.

The same group that has ignorantly brought infrastructure projects to a screeching halt and worked to cut programs for seniors, children and the mentally ill will come back to a House Budget with over $1 billion in cuts ready to be amended on the House Floor.

House Minority Leader Paul LeVota has eloquently pointed out several times to the rest of the House that the Budget process under their rules is flawed. You see, the Budget Chairman, Representative Allen Icet, is given supreme authority in the House as to what the maximum spending will be. If you want to add funding to a program, you must decrease funding to another program – all without the federal funding that is supposed to carry Missouri through these tough economic times.

These arbitrary rules mixed with the Majority’s refusal to use stimulus funds has already forces Democrats and moderate Republicans to take funds from programs necessary to implement the line items they have restored funding to.

This is no simple oversight by the Budget Chairman. As sponsor of House Joint Resolution 23, often referred to as TABOR, he is trying to force the House to comply with his misguided Constitutional Amendment before the voters even have the chance to vote on it.

This kind of shortsighted budgeting will guarantee a quick downturn in essential state services, loss of even more jobs, and federal funds meant for Missouri traveling to California, Illinois, and Massachusetts.