Ditch the Tax Incentives and Pursue General Tax Cuts Next Year

The Missouri Legislature’s 2014 veto session begins this week, and the chambers are set to reconsider dozens of bills rejected by the governor earlier this summer. While a handful appear to have enough support for an override, most sit in legislative limbo, fates to be determined. Among those bills hanging in the balance are a package of tax incentives I’ve talked about many times before.

These incentives are bad policy in general, but to create these handouts well outside of the legislature’s normal budgeting protocol is inexcusable. The budget must balance, and this late-breaking special interest goody bag throws the state’s budget out the window. Missourians deserve better than to be treated like a cash spigot for the well-connected.

There’s also a larger picture that needs to be understood here. Some of the most vocal tax cutters are also big boosters of tax incentives, but by creating, expanding, and sustaining tax handouts like these, our state is making the enactment of future tax cuts much more difficult. We should all be paying for the cost of our government, but increasingly, well-connected special interests are being exempted from that burden. That’s wrongheaded policy. As a general rule, if taxes are going to fall for anyone, they should fall for everyone. It’s time to kick the tax incentive circus out of Jefferson City.

The legislature should come back next year and pass broad and responsible tax cuts for Missourians. The first step is rejecting this year’s incentives.