A bipartisan event in a rural part of southwest Missouri brought people together to rally against two constitutional amendments on Tuesday’s primary election ballot.
At Boone’s BBQ Barn in Bolivar on Tuesday evening, folks gathered to listen to live music – and to hear about Amendments 4 and 5, which are on the ballot next week.
Amendment 4 would require a majority vote in every Missouri Congressional district for a citizen-led initiative petition to pass. Amendment 5 paves the way for the elimination of the state income tax.
The Ozarks Board of Realtors hosted the event, which featured a bipartisan group of speakers – all who opposed the amendments.
Chase Crawford works at his family’s Urbana-based business, Crawford Auction Service, which was started in 1944. He didn’t mince words when it was his turn to speak.
“My opinions, my thoughts are no more valuable than anybody in this room, but my vote is just as important as all the rest of your votes in this room right here. And when we, if we let Amendment 4 pass, we are handing over our leverage, our voice, our vote in this democracy," said Crawford. "Missouri was built not by investors in the stock market. It was not built by people sitting and watching their investments grow. Missouri was built by farmers. They were built by carpenters. They were built by truck drivers. They were built by teachers, nurses. That's who built Missouri.”
He referred to Amendments 4 and 5 as “a pig in a poke” and quoted Ben Franklin who said, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
Micha Titterington is executive director of Community Outreach Ministries in Bolivar who has spent the last 15 years working to alleviate poverty and help victims of domestic violence. He told the crowd gathered at Boone’s that if the state phases out the income tax and replaces it with another revenue source, that source is likely to be a higher sales tax.
“The folks that we interact with that are lower income or on fixed incomes, when they come to us with challenges, the thing that they're complaining about is not, oh man, my income taxes are so high. The thing that they complain about is groceries are too expensive, fuel is too expensive, childcare is too expensive. Rent and utilities are too expensive. Oh, when things break down, I'm struggling to figure out how am I going to pay those bills," he said. "It's the cost of goods and services that they are struggling over, and that if we have an increase in sales tax, that's what's going to hit them.”
And he worries that, if Amendment 4 passes, one person can sway a district to vote one way and veto everyone else.
Governor Mike Kehoe, speaking this week in Springfield, urged people to vote yes on Amendment 5. He called the plan revenue neutral and said it isn’t about runaway sales taxes, though said the sales tax would have to be widened. He said Missouri’s tax code needs to be modernized to position Missouri to compete in the future.
“It's about 100 years old. And most people who have done business with anybody in the last month or six months, probably that business wasn't around in 1931. So, first of all, looking at the fairness level of that, I say it's a brick-and-mortar issue," he said. "If I'm a local jeweler here in town and I'm collecting sales tax, but somebody can buy that same bracelet online and not pay sales tax, that's probably not fairness to our small businesses. That's a small piece of it, but that's a piece of it.”
He said states that have eliminated the income tax have enjoyed what he called large economic success and large population gains. And he believes people of all income levels would see a net gain.
Voters will decide Amendments 4 and 5 as well as two other statewide ballot measures on Tuesday.
