“We’re going to probably be in worse condition overall next year.”
— MO State Senator Rusty Black (Missouri Independent 4-15-26)
The Missouri Senate Appropriations Committee, bless their hearts, wants to restore many of the cuts and changes put in the budget by Governor Mike Kehoe and the Missouri House of Representatives.
To cite a pair of examples, the Senate wants to keep funding the state’s colleges the ‘traditional’ way instead of strict enrollment payments which would reward Mizzou and Missouri State while slashing money to Harris-Slowe, Truman and the other smaller schools. And the senators don’t want services for the disabled to suffer as much as the north end of the Capitol proposes.
Still, even the Senate acknowledges that state money won’t pay all the bills this year and next year, well, dramatic reductions to most departments are unavoidable.
So, of course, the main work of the entire Senate in coming days will be finishing their version of the Income Tax Murder plan.
As we’ve discussed, the GOP will pass and place on the November 2026 ballot a constitutional amendment to end the collection of the state’s primary source of money for education, health care, courts, parks and such and replace it with new levies – primarily higher and broader state sales and services taxes. The income tax will be phased out in a few short years as the new levies are enacted. To muddy the waters, the Hancock Amendment limiting taxation will be suspended and some existing parts of the state constitution (such as banning taxes on services such as haircuts) will be deleted.
Fighting against that amendment hard. Most voters will see ‘less taxes’ without realizing the implications.
The impact will be especially hard on us senior citizens.
In recent years Republicans in Jefferson City and Washington bent over backwards to lower the tax bills for us old folk. Donald Trump got us an enhanced base deduction. Missouri let us freeze most of our property tax (school district budgets be damned) and eliminate capital gains tax which trims payout from many retirement accounts.
Alas, moving to a reliance on sales tax in Missouri will negate those benefits.
Seniors, as a group, are spending and not investing their money. As we age, we spend a higher portion of available money on currently taxed things such as food and clothing. Plus, we lay out cash for things to be taxed – such as lawn care. It is quite possible that some places will have sales tax rates above 18¢ on the dollar. The total tax collected from seniors may actually increase way more than the end of the income tax saves us.
The same fate holds true for working class young families too. They will also bear a higher burden of the cost of government.
Here’s the other downside: Missouri will never be able to replace all the billions of dollars the income tax had produced. The legislature will have no choice but to slash programs helping seniors and struggling families. Plus, support for education will be cut. (Already some talk of new local sales taxes implemented school district by school district to offset state and property tax losses. That 18¢ could become 20¢.)
For us seniors, Missouri gives and Missouri takes. In the end we lose.
Glenn Koenen
Photo Credits – Lincoln University and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.