Page 405 – Show-Me Institute

Missouri Bureaucracy Seeks to Tie Yoga in Regulatory Knots

Posted on April 24, 2015May 5, 2026 by John Wright

The Missouri Department of Higher Education is seeking to regulate yoga teacher training programs (YTTs) as “vocational schools” under its Postsecondary School Certification Program. From the Yoga Alliance:

Regulation under this program means that YTTs must comply with extensive requirements and pay expensive fees. We share the concerns of Missouri yogis that regulation of YTTs in this manner is not only unnecessary, but harmful to the yoga community and small businesses in this state.

Other states, including New York and Minnesota, have attempted to license yoga teachers as well.

Yoga is an old practice, and it has done just fine without state occupational licensing. I don’t think we need the state to start tinkering with it now.

I hope Missouri government bodies have the common sense not to butt in here—like they have with African hair braiding and massage therapy.

Of Stadiums and Economic Spillovers

Posted on April 24, 2015May 5, 2026 by Joseph Miller

Recently, we wrote a letter to the Post-Dispatch that criticized the idea that new tax revenue from a riverfront stadium would “pay” for $405 million in public subsidies. In response, one Saint Louis County resident claimed that: 1. spending on the Rams is not diverted from other areas; and 2. he trusts the governor and his numbers, not the Show-Me Institute’s.

First, we’ll address the substitution effect, or the idea that money spent on the Rams does not necessarily mean new economic activity. Our critic claims that if the Rams leave, he and many others would not be spending their dollars downtown. The problem with that reasoning is that it conceptualizes the Saint Louis region as municipally balkanized, and not as part of a regional or state economy, which in fact they are. Thus, if he and other county residents stay in the county on Sunday and spend money there, the regional and state economy is unaffected, along with the regional and state tax base.

Addressing the second point, if our critic does not believe Show-Me Institute’s numbers, why not the Brookings Institution, which wrote:

A new sports facility has an extremely small (perhaps even negative) effect on overall economic activity and employment. . . . No recent facility has been self-financing in terms of its impact on net tax revenues. Regardless of whether the unit of analysis is a local neighborhood, a city, or an entire metropolitan area, the economic benefits of sports facilities are de minimus . . . most tax collections inside a stadium are substitutes: as other entertainment businesses decline, tax collections from them fall.

Or our critic could also read a review of the economic literature, which finds:

Because sports facilities are not expected to generate additional net output in a metropolitan area and no systematic empirical analysis ever finds evidence that they do, sports facilities cannot be counted on to augment tax collections.

Put simply, the evidence on whether sports stadiums generate economic growth or sufficient tax revenue to justify large subsidies is overwhelmingly in the negative. Our findings accord with these prior results, the governor’s and Post-Dispatch’s do not. I’ll leave it to the reader to decide whose heart is leading whose head.

Show-Me Now! Raising the Minimum Wage Costs Jobs

Posted on April 24, 2015May 5, 2026 by Jessica Stearns

Show-Me Institute intern Jessica Stearns talks about the recent “Show-Me $15” campaign for a higher state-wide minimum wage. She points out that the minimum wage hurts the people it is suppose to help because employers inevitably fire workers to deal with their higher labor costs.

Health Care Bills On the Move from the House to the Senate

Posted on April 23, 2015May 5, 2026 by Patrick Ishmael

We’re approaching the end of the session, and it’s worth highlighting a few health care-related bills that are winding through the Missouri General Assembly.

HB 769 makes “medical retainer agreements” exempt from regulation by the state’s Department of Insurance. MRAs are direct-pay arrangements—where a patient and a doctor contract directly for care. Such contracts are not a matter of insurance, but in other states there have been pushes to regulate them under the “insurance” umbrella. HB 769 would preempt such a move.

HB 985 enhances Missouri’s Medicaid eligibility verification system by leveraging the resources of a third party. Over the past year MO HealthNet has been hit by a series of embarrassing reports of waste and mismanagement. Suffice it to say, money wasted is money that cannot go to the poor beneficiaries who need it most. HB 985 tries to tackle the problem of waste on the enrollment side by trying to make sure those limited dollars flow to beneficiaries who, in fact, qualify for them.

HB 319 expands on an existing state law dealing with MO HealthNet telemonitoring services, also known as telemedicine. Telemedicine allows medical professionals to diagnose medical problems remotely, which for people in medically underserved communities is a great technological innovation and benefit. Section 208.670.1 of current law already allows for reimbursements for telehealth “in the same way as reimbursement for in-person contacts”; HB 319 pushes MO HealthNet to further adopt and advance telemedicine practices.

Tolling Coming to I-70?

Posted on April 23, 2015May 5, 2026 by Joseph Miller

With the prospect of a fuel tax increase looking more and more remote in the Missouri Legislature, policymakers are once again looking to the possibility of tolling I-70 as a method of staving off an impending funding crisis at the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT).

Tolling would be an effective way of raising funds to rebuild the aging I-70, with only those using the new highway paying for its reconstruction and maintenance. Tolls can be set higher for vehicles that do more damage to the roads, like interstate trucks, which on many parts of I-70 make up more than a quarter of total traffic, as the chart below demonstrates:

Furthermore, if the state would lease I-70 to a private entity, it potentially would generate billions for MoDOT. To get an idea of just how much a toll road can be worth, a 66-year lease of the Indiana Toll Road (with similar traffic levels to I-70) is in the process of being sold for $5.7 billion. If Missouri can raise even a small fraction of that amount, MoDOT could retire Amendment 3 debt and ensure sufficient matching funds for federal dollars. A bill in the Missouri Senate, SB 534, sets up the framework to make this kind of lease possible.

Using a public private partnership to rebuild I-70 is not without pitfalls. If the state does not ensure competitive bidding or make sufficiently stringent lease requirements, the project could come out poorly for highway users. Furthermore, using large upfront lease payments on I-70 to bail out the rest of the state highway system will require higher tolls so that the private company can recoup its costs. In essence, I-70 drivers would pay for both I-70 and other state roads. That being said, given many examples of successful privatization in Missouri, as well as numerous privately operated highways worldwide, Missouri can and should navigate these obstacles.

Using a public private partnership to toll I-70 would be a big step forward for Missouri, and lease payments could be used to plug short-term gaps in MoDOT funding. However, without more extensive use of tolling (not currently allowed under federal law), it would be best for the state to combine a small gas tax increase now with plans to increase use of tolling in the future.

A Choice for Timothy

Posted on April 23, 2015May 5, 2026 by Brittany Wagner

Timothy Farr wasn’t born deaf. As a baby, he contracted meningitis, and soon after he lost the ability to hear. His disability shouldn’t have stopped him from receiving a quality education. Yet, now in the fifth grade, Timothy has fallen devastatingly behind, and his mother is worried about his future.

Timothy attends a public elementary school in Jefferson City, Missouri.

“When he first went to school, they didn’t understand his (cochlear) implant,” Timothy’s mother Colleen Farr said. “They lost all of his equipment.”

“In first grade, the teacher told me he was misbehaving. She said, ‘You need to tell him that school isn’t for playing, it’s for learning.’ [My son] kept telling her, ‘I can’t hear! I can’t hear!’ He came home . . . the cochlear implant wasn’t in.”

Teachers and administrators in public schools may try their best to serve students with unique needs, but they often lack the ability to do so, which is one reason why Missouri needs to adopt programs that create educational options for students with disabilities.

Yesterday, the legislature held a hearing on Senate Bill 531, which would create an Education Savings Account (ESA) program for students like Timothy and countless others.

While Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 requires public school districts to provide students with disabilities a “free appropriate public education” (FAPE), this federal protection does not often provide the customization students with disabilities need to reach their full potential.

ESAs allow parents to customize their child’s education by choosing educational services that fit their child’s unique abilities. So far, Arizona, Florida, and Mississippi have adopted ESAs, and yesterday, Tennessee’s ESA bill passed out of the state house.

Through Arizona’s ESA program, mother Kathy Viser receives $27,000 a year to educate her 10-year-old son who has cerebral palsy. Viser directs the funds toward private reading tutoring, science classes at a local museum, and therapeutic horseback riding, among the core subjects.

SB 531 would allow children like Timothy to reach their full potential, breaking with the status quo of school success determined by zip code and bringing real social justice to people with disabilities.

You can view the testimony James Shuls submitted here.

An Idea for Better Transit in Missouri: Raise Fares

Posted on April 22, 2015May 5, 2026 by Joseph Miller

Public transportation in Missouri’s major cities is heavily subsidized; taxpayers cover more than 80 percent of total costs in Saint Louis and Kansas City. The main culprits of these subsidies are high costs and low utilization. For example, most bus routes in Saint Louis roll around the city nearly empty. But a contributing factor to this problem is fares, which remain inexpensive in both cities.

For instance, in Saint Louis, fares are $2 for the bus and $2.50 for the MetroLink. In Kansas City the bus costs only $1.50, aside from a few more expensive routes. Monthly passes offer a steep discount in both cities, and reduced fares are available for the young, the elderly, the disabled, and students.

Low transit fares are generally sold with two arguments. First, and most common, is that public transportation provides transportation to those with little or no income. Higher fares would therefore be a tax on the poor. But not everyone who uses transit is poor. In Kansas City about 78 percent of transit users are above the poverty line (79 percent in Saint Louis). Moreover, wealthy transit users are more likely to use high-capital-cost rapid transit, so they end up receiving a larger subsidy than poorer riders. In Saint Louis, MetroLink ridership is greatly buoyed by well-off passengers using the rail to get to Busch Stadium or summer festivals (the Cardinals effect is noticeable). They too hardly meet the criteria of a group in need of cheap tickets.

To justify subsidizing the well off, many public transportation advocates use the second argument for low fares: high transit ridership is in the public’s interest. They claim that getting people out of their cars and on to transit is good for the environment and good for congestion, thus worth subsidizing heavily. More than a few have advocated getting rid of fares altogether.

However, low transit fares have not gotten people to ditch their cars; less than 5 percent of Saint Louis and Kansas City residents use transit to commute, and those numbers aren’t increasing much. And the low fare revenue makes it difficult for public transportation to make the investments that might make transit more attractive to more residents. That is why even some transit advocates are calling for higher fares.

Saint Louis and Kansas City could set up a system with much higher standard transit fares with lower prices for those below the poverty line. In addition, tickets to stations near sporting events could be more expensive on game days. By looking for ways to make riders pay for more of what their service actually costs, transit agencies might be able to provide better services without going to the general taxpayers for aid. That could be better for everyone, whether they use transit or not.

Getting the True Value of Farmland

Posted on April 21, 2015May 5, 2026 by Michael Rathbone

It’s interesting when there are two wildly different takes on the same thing. For example, take me vs. the general public on Dances With Smurfs or Michael Burry vs. the rest of Wall Street on the value (or lack thereof) of sub-prime mortgage bonds. Another instance—one that is costing all of us—is the State Tax Commission vs. everyone else on the value of farmland. This difference can affect many our tax rates.

In a recent paper (H/T David Nicklaus), David Larson of the Bureau of Economic Analysis performed a valuation on all land in each of the lower 48 states for 2009. Based on his calculations, Missouri farmland is worth $64.236 billion. Based on my calculations, using data contained in the State Tax Commission’s 2009 Annual Report, the total value of Missouri agricultural property in 2009 would come out to $13.3 billion. That’s a gap of more than $50 billion!

A reason for this big difference is that, instead of assessing all agricultural land at a flat 12 percent rate, actively farmed land receives a different assessment rate depending on its productive capacity. This practice results in an effective assessment rate of around 2-3 percent.

Such low assessments erode the property tax base. Even if the true value of farmland in Missouri was half of Larson’s estimate, if it were assessed at a flat 12 percent rate, the state would have an agricultural property tax base nearly two-and-a-half times the size of its current base. This larger tax base either could allow property tax rates in some areas to be cut or some localities could see an influx of new revenue.

I don’t want farmers’ property tax bills to skyrocket. However, the truth is their property is under assessed to such an extent that governments are forced to rely on other more destructive forms of taxation (i.e., income taxes), which the rest of us have to pay, in order to fund essential services. We should value farmers for the work they do, but we should also properly value the land they work on lest we pay more than we should.

Taxing Smokers Does Not Show Support of Education

Posted on April 21, 2015May 5, 2026 by James V. Shuls

As first appearing in the Columbia Daily Tribune:

These days there are a lot of calls to make people pay their “fair share,” and no, we are not referring to the 1 percent. We are talking about smokers. The argument for raising the tax on cigarettes is straightforward—smoking is harmful to individuals, and though smoking is an individual decision, it impacts each of us. We all bear the brunt of additional health care costs incurred by smokers. These are what economists call negative externalities. They are, in theory, why smokers should be taxed more for their behavior—to offset their costs to society. Most proposals to raise the cigarette tax, however, seek to tax smokers to pay for unrelated programs, such as education.

For example, Erin Brower of Raise Your Hand for Kids is seeking to put a 50 cent increase on the ballot to fund early childhood programs. Missouri Treasurer Clint Zweifel has proposed an increase to fund college scholarships, an idea Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster supports. In a recent special to the Joplin Globe, Koster called for a 73 cent per pack increase. These are certainly not the first calls for increasing the tax. In the past 15 years, tobacco tax increases have appeared two times on the ballot. Each time Missouri voters have had the opportunity to tax smokers more, they have failed to do so. Why?

First, Missourians are leery of using “sin” taxes to fund other programs, especially education. This was the same tactic used to legalize gambling in Missouri. Lawmakers said the revenue from gambling would go to education. They did not tell voters, however, that the money would supplant not supplement existing funds to education. There are fears that the same would happen with proposals to raise tobacco taxes.

Second, using tobacco taxes to fund other programs simply does not make economic sense. Missouri’s lowest-in-the-nation tobacco taxes help draw in an untold number of shoppers across state lines, especially in Kansas City and along the Illinois border. These shoppers make it a point to buy their cigarettes in Missouri, thus creating sales for our local businesses and generating tax revenue for the state. Raising the tobacco tax would deter these shoppers.

Tobacco taxes also have the negative distinction of being one of the most regressive taxes. Smokers tend to be from lower-income households. At the same time, middle-income families would benefit from many of the programs created from increased tobacco taxes, such as college scholarships. Thus, if Zweifel and Koster’s proposal was implemented, low-income families would be subsidizing the college education of middle-income families. What is the “fair share” for smokers to pay for a middle-class student’s college education?

The truth of the matter is that smokers are an easy group to target. Few, except for other smokers, are sympathetic to their plight. At the same time, we all support better educational opportunities for Missouri students. Therefore, taxing smokers is a relatively easy way to raise taxes to fund educational programs.

If lawmakers are seriously concerned about the negative externalities causes by smokers, they should direct tobacco tax revenue directly back to smoking prevention programs and the Medicaid costs for smokers. That is the only logically and economically consistent use of the tax revenue.

James V. Shuls, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Missouri–St. Louis and a fellow at the Show-Me Institute, where Michael Rathbone is a policy researcher.

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