Going Too Far To Limit Voter Input

Posted on by David Stokes

There are at least two efforts in the Missouri General Assembly to prevent the ability of local voters to restrict tax incentives within their community. I think these limitations are a very bad idea, to say the least. Both Senate Bill 672 and SB 693 have had the following amendment attached to them:

2. No political subdivision of this state shall by ballot measure impose any restriction on any public financial incentive authorized by statute.

This proposal is almost certainly in response to the attempt to limit tax incentives for Peabody and other energy companies within the City of Saint Louis. A judge’s order turned away that ballot initiative. While I certainly agreed with the attempt to limit tax subsidies, I was never comfortable with the way the initiative targeted one industry. So, you didn’t hear me objecting to the judge’s ruling. Furthermore, I have, in the past, supported legislative preemption of initiative petitions in certain cases, so I am not saying a referendum should always trump local officials.

However, a blanket prohibition against any local votes against the use of tax incentives such as Tax Increment Financing (TIF), etc., goes way too far. This is terrible public policy and improperly restricts local voter rights. If a city or county has an allowance for initiative petitions under their charter, they should be allowed to use it. If local voters want to reduce or eliminate the use of TIF, Transportation Development Districts (TDDs), Community Improvement Districts (CIDs), Enhanced Enterprise Zones (EEZs), abatements, etc., via their local tax dollars, they should be able to do so.

Attempts to use initiative petitions after the fact against approved TIFs have failed for several legal reasons. However, there should be no legal problem with preemptively prohibiting corporate welfare in a community, as long as the prohibition is even and not targeted at select industries. (Feel free to tell me how I am wrong there, lawyers, but the mere existence of these amendments tells me that is correct.)

These amendments are trying to create a legal roadblock against citizen involvement and input into how people’s own tax dollars are spent, and that would be unfortunate for Missouri.

Show-Me Now! Food Trucks Fight Red Tape

Posted on by David Stokes

Update (April 2026): More than a decade later, food trucks in St. Louis are still fighting the same battles, most recently after a bill to expand their operating areas was stalled when the Cardinals objected to losing exclusive vending control around Busch Stadium.

We caught up with some food truck vendors at the 2014 St. Louis Food Truck rally last Saturday. David Stokes asked them about the their fight against red tape in St. Louis city and county. Things are getting better, but there’s still work to be done.

We Have A Tax Cut: Missouri Legislature Overrides Governor’s Veto

Posted on by Patrick Ishmael

It was a long road, but after a 23-8 override vote in the Missouri Senate yesterday and a 109-46 vote in the Missouri House today, Missouri has its first individual income tax cut in nearly a century. Senate Bill 509’s passage is a victory for taxpayers that stands in stark contrast to tax handouts, like Boeing’s, that have bedeviled reformers’ attempts to take the cronyism out of the state’s economic development efforts. This first tax cut is a small but important first step to ensuring every Missourian, not just a select few with special connections in Jefferson City, is empowered to make this state better.

Missouri is not a “low-tax state” yet, but today’s vote is a welcome opening salvo to get us there.

Survey Says . . . Missourians Dramatically Underestimate Education Spending

Posted on by James V. Shuls

Today, Missouri lawmakers voted to override Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon’s veto of a tax cut bill. Immediately, opponents of the tax cut began decrying the legislature’s actions. They claim that this will lead to drastic cuts in education spending. First, it is important to note that these scare tactics are just that – scare tactics. On the Show-Me Daily blog, my colleague Michael Rathbone has shown how these predictions relied on cooking the books in order to come up with a loss of funds to education. With that said, it is important to understand why this type of scare tactic is so common and effective. To do that, you need look no further than the report that the Show-Me Institute and the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice released today.

We conducted a poll of Missouri voters and asked them a number of questions regarding school funding and school choice. When we asked participants how much they think we spend on each student per year, we found that the vast majority of Missourians have no idea. Seventy-two percent of Missouri voters either underestimated or were not even willing to guess how much Missouri spends in total expenditures per pupil. Approximately one-fifth of Missourians estimated that we spend less than $4,000 per pupil in current expenditures. In reality, we spend $9,400.

Q4 Friedman Missouri Poll

How does not knowing the facts allow for scare tactics to work? It’s simple. When people have more information, they are less likely to believe outlandish claims.

During the poll, we tested the impact of having spending information. We found that when individuals were told how much we spend on students, they were much less likely to say that spending is “too low.” There is room for honest debate in politics, even when it comes to education funding; but this debate should be based on the facts.

Q5 Friedman Missouri Poll

You can find the full poll on the Show-Me Institute and Friedman Foundation websites.

Normandy Superintendent Calls For Passage Of Senate Bill 493

Posted on by James V. Shuls

Ty McNichols

“Now SB493 needs to become law this session so our district can retain the talented staff that is so hard to recruit to an urban district.” Those were the words of Normandy Superintendent Tyrone McNicols in a commentary on St. Louis Public Radio this weekend.

As readers of the Show-Me Daily blog know, Senate Bill 493 would fix many of the problems with the transfer law and would create a local private option for students. This local private option would allow students in unaccredited schools to attend a nearby nonsectarian private school.

It is this local private option that has the alphabet soup of education groups (MASA, MSBA, MNEA, etc.) railing against SB 493. As I have said before, the education establishment has taken an all-or-nothing approach on this issue. They are not interested in compromise. They are solely interested in stopping school choice.

Missouri Sen. John Lamping (R-Dist. 24) put it this way during a recent Show-Me Institute panel discussion about the topic [emphasis mine]:

The establishment is quite comfortable with nothing happening. They can’t say it publicly, but they’re very comfortable with nothing happening. Normandy will be bankrupt by July, they will lapse the district, they’ll merge with the surrounding districts. Riverview Gardens will go bankrupt next year; they’ll do the same thing. And, two or three years from now, a neighboring district will probably go through the same process of unaccreditation and becoming bankrupt. The establishment is fine with that. They will not give any reform in exchange for fixing the system.

If this bill does not pass, it is the establishment that will have killed it and in effect, sealed the fate of the Normandy School District.

Superintendent Ty McNichols doesn’t want to see that happen. He recognizes that “no bill is ever perfect, and there are issues in the bill that are controversial,” but he also recognizes when it is time for compromise. This is just such a time.

Video: Our School Choice Event Is Now Online

Posted on by James V. Shuls

On April 25, the Show-Me Institute was delighted to have Missouri Sen. John Lamping (R-Dist. 24), Missouri Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal (D-Dist. 14), and Missouri Speaker of the House Tim Jones (R-Dist. 110) join us for a panel discussion about tax credit scholarships and school choice. Our event received some great coverage from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and St. Louis Public Radio.

The lawmakers were candid and provided a great discussion about school choice and a potential fix to the problems with the inter-district transfer law. The Post-Dispatch’s editorial board pulled one comment during the lawmaker’s panel discussion and its press coverage gave a scathing criticism. Unfortunately, members of the editorial board were not there in person and did not get to hear all of the comments.

Well, they can watch them now. The panel discussion as well as the other presentations are now available.

Maybe they can pull some other quotes. Here are some of my favorites:

Sen. Lamping:

Missouri has a very strong filibuster. We have 34 senators and two or three or four senators can stop just about anything. But, I’m not here to tell you that two or three senators are opposed to choice. I’m here to tell you that institutional education in Missouri is the single strongest lobby that is in the capitol, bar none.

Speaker Jones:

This [school choice] will not be the end of public education as we know it. How do we know that? Because many, many, many states have incorporated many of these things we’ve talked about and they have vibrant public education school systems and private education systems, charters. Some even have vouchers and they still have public schools. So, I think it is time to try something new and give people a choice.

Sen. Chappelle-Nadal:

There is not going to be a bill without the private option. I know that. Ray Charles would know that.

Diverting City Tax Dollars To Subsidize The Loop Trolley

Posted on by Joseph Miller

Earlier this week, a U.S. District Court dismissed a lawsuit against the Loop Trolley Transportation Development District (TDD), clearing the way for trolley construction in Saint Louis. Like all streetcars, the Loop Trolley will have high capital costs: $43 million for a 2.2-mile route.

While the federal government is expected to pay for more than half the project through an Urban Circulator grant and New Markets Tax Credits, local residents still will have to shoulder a hefty portion. One way Saint Louis residents will pay to build the trolley is through Tax Increment Financing (TIF).

According to Loop Trolley planning documents, $3.5 million of the Loop Trolley’s capital costs will come from TIF raised from the Delmar East Loop Redevelopment area. For those unfamiliar with TIF, the government allows a developer to use the additional taxes a development might generate as a revenue stream to finance bonds to get the development started. In order to receive TIF, the government usually has to declare a property “blighted,” meaning it damages the welfare of the area due to its condition.

But how can TIF, designed to subsidize new developments, be used to fund a transportation device?

First, the city previously passed an ordinance that allows TIF money to be spent on anything that can be seen as an improvement to an area, not just subsidizing new development. Second, the city entered into a redevelopment agreement with a non-profit corporation (Loop TIF Inc.), which would receive and distribute any TIF revenue instead of granting it to an actual property development.

Of course this still leaves a major problem: who in the area is going to generate the TIF revenue in the first place? If the city designated truly depressed areas as blighted, and the future TIF revenue goes to Loop TIF Inc., there would be no upfront TIF subsidies to lure development into the blighted area.

In other words, if a TIF is genuinely needed to subsidize development that will pay for the TIF bonds by increased tax revenues, how can it possibly work if the “development” is a non-profit streetcar that won’t generate any revenue that the TIF can use?

The solution? Include areas in the TIF that were going to be developed anyway. The largest part of the TIF area includes Washington University in St. Louis’ north campus, built on land the university acquired for that purpose two years before it was included in the TIF district. That project will generate plenty of employee earnings taxes that the TIF can capture. The TIF also includes parcels that contain the Pageant theatre and commercial property that houses restaurants such as Pie Pizza. Plenty of sales taxes already are available there. Blight must truly be within the eye of the beholder.

EDL TIF

TIF supporters claim TIF is necessary to spur economic development in areas where it would not occur otherwise. This TIF clearly does not do that, as the city purposely chose to use TIF for areas already being developed. Instead, it is, in fact, a bookkeeping tactic through which taxes that would have gone to the city are diverted to an unelected corporation to spend as it desires. And what it desires is a streetcar.

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