Issue Area 01

Economy

An economy that works for Missourians allows people to earn a living, invest, and start businesses.

3 Policies

Issue Area 02

Education

Missouri’s education system should empower families with real choices, operate transparently, and hold schools accountable for results.

5 Policies

Issue Area 03

Health Care

Health care should be easier to access, easier to understand, and more affordable for patients.

2 Policies

Issue Area 04

State and Local Government

Governments should be transparent, responsible with taxpayer money, and focused on essential services.

7 Policies

17 Policy Recommendations

The full Blueprint

Each policy is a self-contained working document: the problem, the evidence, the proposal.

Economy

3 Policies

Occupational Licensing

Cut barriers that keep Missourians out of the trades they’re qualified to enter.

Economic Development Subsidies

Stop picking winners; reduce TIF, tax-credit, and grant programs that distort markets.

Nuclear Energy

Permit, build, and operate small modular reactors to meet Missouri’s grid demand.

Education

5 Policies

Statewide School Choice

Empowering families with real options across public, charter, and private pathways.

Education Funding Formula

Reform the formula so dollars follow students and incentives reward outcomes.

School Report Cards

Plain-English accountability metrics every parent can read and act on.

Missouri Parents’ Bill of Rights

Codified rights to records, curriculum, and meaningful participation.

Early Literacy

Evidence-based reading instruction beginning in kindergarten.

Health Care

2 Policies

Free-Market Healthcare Reform

Direct primary care, telemedicine, and association plans as real alternatives.

Healthcare Price Transparency

Prices posted, plainly, before treatment — by procedure, by facility, by physician.

State and Local Government

7 Policies

Income Tax Reform

Flatten brackets, broaden the base, and lower the rate Missourians actually pay.

Property Tax Reform

Caps, exemptions, and assessment fairness for Missouri homeowners.

Budgetary Reform

Bring obligations back into line with revenue, not the other way around.

Taxpayer Bill of Rights

Codified protections so Missourians know what their tax dollars can — and can’t — do.

Office of Government Efficiency

An accountable, mission-specific office to audit how state government actually runs.

Local Government Transparency

Open records, open meetings, and open budgets — by default, not by request.

Welfare Reform

A welfare system that helps Missourians rise, not one that traps them at the bottom rung.

The post Blueprint for Missouri 2026 appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Excessive use of economic development subsidies enriches developers at the expense of taxpayers, schools, and other public services.

The Solution

Eliminate or substantially reduce the use of economic development subsidies by local governments, including tax-increment financing (TIF), community improvement districts (CIDs), transportation development districts (TDDs), and the use of subsidies for professional sports franchises.

Key Facts

• The border war truce legislation between Missouri and Kansas expired in 2025.

• Five counties in Missouri now use county-level TIF commissions instead of municipal TIF commissions.

An Abysmal Track Record

Subsidies like TIF rarely deliver promised economic benefits. Research shows that 84% of firms would choose the same state no matter what subsidies and incentives were offered by other states. Nationwide studies show that these subsidies typically fail to keep their promises of job creation and economic growth.

The Border War

In 2019, Missouri passed legislation that renewed the agreement with Kansas limiting the use of tax subsidies by both states in the Kansas City metropolitan area. The agreement expired in 2025. The use of tax subsidies to lure businesses across state lines had been shrinking the tax base of the region without leading to any economic growth (as happens with almost all subsidies). The truce, which was first passed in 2014 and renewed in 2019, had been a success. Despite Kansas’s recent, awful decision to use subsidies to lure the Chiefs and Royals across the state line (which was a violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of the agreement), Missouri should still renew the border war truce legislation. (If Kansas chooses not to renew its part of the deal, then Missouri’s renewal does not go into effect anyway, and both sides will lose out.)

It would be appropriate for Missouri to clarify that the Chiefs, Royals, and other professional sports teams are included in the border war truce legislation as part of this renewal.

Change the Decision-Making Process

A major flaw in the TIF process is that in most cases, cities decide on tax subsidies that affect other taxing districts. Cities can approve a TIF project or property tax abatement that may benefit the city but is harmful to other taxing districts, such as schools. School districts should be able to opt out of TIF just as fire and ambulance districts can. One way to address this problem is to move such decisions to county TIF commissions, where the county appoints most of the members. County officials are more likely to weigh the costs and benefits of the proposed subsidy for the entire region. Currently, there are county TIF commissions in five Missouri counties. That number should be much larger.

It is too easy to create a new TDD or CID. Currently, property owners (often just one) can vote by signature to create a district or create one through a simple court filing. The public can be excluded from the entire process by drawing CID or TDD districts that have no residents. With such little oversight and public involvement, malfeasance runs amok with these taxing districts.

Policy Recommendations

• Renew RSMO §135.1670 (the border war truce legislation), which expired in 2025.

• Move TIF decision-making to the county level in many more counties around Missouri and allow school districts to opt out of TIF and other tax-subsidy programs as fire districts are allowed to.

• Require actual public votes by the entire city or county when new TDDs or CIDs are proposed and refrain from using state or local tax dollars for sports stadiums.

The post Economic Development Subsidies appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

It is first worth noting that job creation figures from economic development agencies are often misleading, with creative accounting used to inflate the numbers. And the numbers almost never account for the possibility that these “created” jobs would have happened with or without subsidies. Numerous academic studies have shown that economic development programs rarely work as advocates claim.

But just for the sake of argument, let’s take the numbers at face value. If we divide the jobs created by the incentives provided, the cost amounts to roughly $49,500 in taxpayer money for each job. Is that expense worth it?

Consider this: according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (Table 6), Missouri’s economy added 589,337 jobs in calendar year 2023.* In other words, the ordinary functioning of the state’s economy produced roughly 125 times more jobs than the Department of Economic Development’s incentive programs. The DED’s contribution is a tiny fraction of the state’s overall job creation—and it comes at a substantial cost.

The price tag goes beyond the incentives themselves. The total department budget for salaries is $14.6 million for approximately 202 full time employees, meaning taxpayers not only footed the bill for the incentives but also paid for the administrative costs of distributing them. It’s an expensive way to do something the broader economy already does more effectively.

Perhaps it’s time to rethink the role of the Missouri DED. Those funds could be redirected to areas that deliver tangible benefits to all Missourians, like roads, schools, or public safety. Instead of propping up a costly system that yields meager results, Missouri could invest in the essentials that make the state a better place to live and work.

*NOTE: The BLS statistics I cite offer both gross job gains and gross job losses. I cite only the gross gains. A fair-minded person might suggest a more accurate approach is to calculate net job gains by subtracting gross job losses from gross job gains. I would agree with that in most cases. However, economic development professionals do not make a habit of acknowledging job losses. For example, it is often the practice to count as “new” a job that may have only changed location. Until economic development advocates provide a more rigorous accounting of jobs “created,” using BLS numbers on gross job gains is the best comparison.

The post Missouri Economic Development Incentives Aren’t Worth It appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Click here to download this publication.

The post Missouri’s Free-Market Policy Guide appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In a UBI program, lower-income people are guaranteed an amount of money from the government. (In theory, that “guaranteed income” would apply to everyone, but so far most programs around the country have just been enacted for lower-income people.) UBI programs are different from the myriad other welfare programs in that there are generally no rules on how the money is spent and the requirements for admission into the program are easier. Compare this to food stamps and Section 8 housing vouchers, which obviously can only be spent on food and rent, respectively, and the general complexity of many other welfare programs.

Two studies have been released recently that actually tried to properly account for the success or failure of UBI programs in Denver, Texas, and Illinois. The results aren’t pretty. In Denver, the UBI program was focused on finding housing for the homeless. However, there was almost no difference in results between the groups that received significant sums of money and the control group that only received $50 per month. The control group did just as well at finding housing as the other two groups over the course of a year. While supporters of the program are trying to paint it as a success, the fact is that many homeless people eventually find housing, and the UBI payments made no difference in the results.

In Texas and Illinois, a UBI program gave some people $1,000 a month and a control group $50 per month. After the period of the program, the control group—who received less money—had a higher employment rate and were in better financial position:

The study, which began during the COVID-19 pandemic when unemployment was high, found that employment rates fell in the second and third years among recipients compared with the control group. On average, incomes rose significantly for all groups, though slightly higher for the control group. Incomes for recipients of the $1,000 rose from just under $30,000 to $45,710, while incomes for the control group started at a similar level but grew higher, to $50,970.

People responded to receiving free money by working less, which is exactly what you might expect. It’s also exactly the wrong way to help address poverty. The pilot program in St. Louis should be ended. The Missouri Constitution prohibits gifts to private individuals, and that is exactly what a UBI program is. But this would be a bad idea even aside from the legal issues. UBI programs just don’t work.

The post Universal Basic Income Programs Are Guaranteed Failures appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

For those who don’t remember, last year, Missouri’s general assembly made the unfortunate decision to revive the state’s film tax credit program. After the program sat dormant for a decade due to prior poor performance, and despite the wealth of evidence from across the country showing that the program is a bad investment, our elected officials were somehow convinced that the program would work better this time.

While it’s still too early to evaluate the performance of Missouri’s revived film credit, a recently completed audit in the state of Georgia can offer some insight into what Missouri should expect. Unsurprisingly, the results show that the return on investment (ROI) for Georgia taxpayers is less than $0.20. This means that for each tax dollar devoted toward the program, at least 80 cents are lost.

If you have been following this issue for a while, these findings aren’t surprising, as they are in line with much of the past research on the topic. Study after study shows film tax credits are a ridiculously bad investment of state taxpayer dollars. Prior to our state shuttering the program, the Missouri Department of Economic Development found the program’s ROI to be a paltry $0.15. Previous Peach State audits found the ROI to be even lower—around $0.10. Louisiana’s program wasn’t much better, with an ROI of $0.15. And Pennsylvania (Missouri’s entertainment industry tax credit is modeled on the Pennsylvania program) found its film subsidies produced an ROI of only $0.13.

Of course, these aren’t the only metrics where the tax credit program fails to perform. In state after state, the film tax credit falls short of the jobs and economic activity promised. According to a 2019 study that compared film tax credit data from across the country, the author found the incentives have no meaningful effect on employment or wages and suggested the “incentives are generally ineffective at creating industry clusters or inspiring economic development.” Nevertheless, the majority of states keep giving out these subsidies.

At this point, I’m not sure how many more audits or studies need to be published before policymakers will be convinced that a film tax credit program isn’t worth having. But if there’s one thing Missouri lawmakers ought to learn from Georgia (besides that our state’s program should be ended again), it’s that frequent audits of these costly tax incentives are a good thing. Further efforts to improve transparency on Missouri’s numerous tax credit programs should be encouraged.

The post Another Opportunity to Learn appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The Show-Me Institute’s mission is to advance liberty with individual responsibility by promoting market solutions for Missouri public policy. Our vision is for Missouri to be a place where entrepreneurs can pursue their dreams, parents are free to direct the education and upbringing of their children, and a growing economy provides opportunities for all. Critical to achieving this vision is a state government that understands the value of freedom in the lives and future of our people.

The 2024 Blueprint: Moving Missouri Forward explores 16 policy areas in which common-sense reform could immediately and positively impact everyday life for Missourians. Issues covered range from education and health care to unemployment insurance and budget reform. Each article identifies a problem that affects the citizens of our state, provides background information and analysis, proposes one or more solutions, and then boils the solutions down into actionable recommendations. We believe that the proposals our policy team has assembled can put Missouri on the path to a healthier economy, a better public education system, and a more vibrant and flourishing civil society.

On Wednesday, December 6, 2023, the Show-Me Institute hosted a Virtual Town Hall outlining the 2024 Blueprint for Missouri. Watch a recording the event here:

Listen to the event as a podcast:

Listen on Apple Podcasts 

Listen on SoundCloud

The post 2024 Blueprint: Moving Missouri Forward appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Opportunity cost. The concept is so simple that a first-grader could understand it. I know, because I used to teach it to first-graders. Had you walked past my classroom at just the right time, you might have heard 20-something first graders chanting, “Opportunity cost is the opportunity lost.” The students understood that our decisions have consequences. It was a lesson they learned every time they went out to recess. If they chose to play kickball, they couldn’t play basketball. This basic life lesson bears some repeating for the adults who set policy in our state.

Though the term opportunity cost was not coined until 1914, French economist and writer Frédéric Bastiat provided one of the most salient examples of the concept in his 1850 work, “What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen.” Using the parable of the broken window, Bastiat explained how money being spent on one activity is money that cannot be put to more productive use elsewhere. Imagine that a pane of glass is broken at a baker’s shop. Obviously, the money that the baker must pay to have it repaired becomes revenue for the window repair man. Anyone walking by can see the repair man doing work and recognize that he’ll be paid for his labor. But it makes no sense to look at the repair man’s good fortune in isolation. Doing so would lead to the harebrained conclusion that breaking windows leads to economic growth! Instead we need to remember that, had the window stayed intact, the baker could have done something else productive with the money. The problem is that we can’t see what the baker could have done with the money—only what he actually did with it.

Unfortunately, our board of aldermen and other policymakers regularly make decisions based on what they see without accounting for what they can’t see. Take for example the earnings tax in Saint Louis. Policymakers can see the revenue generated by the tax, but they can’t see the economic activity that has been lost. They can’t see the jobs that might have been created had those dollars been reinvested by the businesses. Nor can they see the economic activity that might have been generated if those dollars had remained in workers’ pockets.

Think about opportunity cost the next time you see a ribbon-cutting at some new development that has received tax breaks or some other form of support from the government. Whether it is a property that has been blighted and given property tax abatements for development in the Central West End or a big box store that receives tax-increment financing, we can see the product of those government actions. We cannot see the harm they do to other businesses through unfair economic competition.

I was reminded of these ideas when I read Lindenwood economist Howard Wall’s most recent paper for the Show-Me Institute, “Is Growth in Outstate Missouri Tied to Growth in the Saint Louis and Kansas City Metro Areas?” Wall uses an econometric model known as Granger-causality to estimate the impact of employment growth in Saint Louis and Kansas City on the rest of the state. He finds a statistically significant downstream relationship between Saint Louis and the rest of Missouri. That is, employment growth in Saint Louis leads to employment growth in the state. He estimates that a 1 percentage point increase in growth in Saint Louis would lead to an increase of 0.35 percentage points in outstate Missouri within two or three years. Why this connection exists (he doesn’t find a similar relationship in Kansas City) is a matter for some hypothesizing or future research. Nevertheless, the point is clear—Saint Louis is an economic driver for the state.

While Wall’s paper does not deal directly with the idea of opportunity cost, his findings make it all the more important for policymakers to understand the importance of their actions. When they support an earnings tax or other policies that harm the city’s economic growth, they are hurting the economic growth of the entire state.

Missourians, not just those who live in the city, benefit from a thriving Saint Louis economy. That’s why we need policymakers to put in place pro-growth policies that create the economic conditions for the market to thrive.

The post Opportunities Squandered in St. Louis Affect All of Missouri appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Listen on Apple Podcasts 

Listen on Stitcher 

Listen on SoundCloud

Produced by Show-Me Opportunity

The post A New Normal in the Housing Market with Mark A. Calabria appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In 2013, Missouri ended its film tax credit program. Now there’s legislation moving in Jefferson City to revive the failed program.

Legislators should leave film tax credits where they lie, on the cutting room floor.

Studies Cited:

Tax Foundation: https://bit.ly/3Zln1zy

Mackinac Center: https://bit.ly/3ZsgPWi

The post The Case Against Rebooting Film Tax Credits in Missouri appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

James Pethokoukis, a columnist and an economic policy analyst, is the Dewitt Wallace Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he writes and edits the AEIdeas blog and hosts a weekly podcast, “Political Economy with James Pethokoukis.” He is also a columnist for The Week and an official contributor to CNBC.

Listen on Apple Podcasts 

Listen on Stitcher 

Listen on SoundCloud

Produced by Show-Me Opportunity

The post The Promise of ChatGPT with James Pethokoukis appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Click here to read the full report.

The post The Case for Modernizing Unemployment Insurance appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The 2023 Blueprint: Moving Missouri Forward presents 16 policy ideas aimed at moving Missouri forward to a brighter future. The Blueprint covers a broad range of issues—from education to health care, from occupational licensing to corporate welfare, and from tax policy to government transparency. Our expert policy team has thoroughly researched and analyzed the problems facing our state today, and their work informs the policy solutions that follow. We believe that with the right policies Missouri could lead the nation in wealth, quality education, and a vibrant and flourishing civil society.

Click here to download a .pdf file of the document, or click here to read it online.

The post 2023 Missouri Blueprint: Moving Missouri Forward appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Perhaps people are upset that the hit Netflix show Ozark and the Oscar-nominated film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri were filmed elsewhere in the United States. Whatever the reason, some Missourians are now deliriously calling for the reinstatement of film tax credits to draw filmmakers to the Show-Me State.

Film tax credits can be summarized as state governments paying a portion (usually about 25-40%) of a filmmaker’s costs in order to attract them to do business in the state. In theory, the economic activity generated by the film production will be enough to offset the cost of taxpayer dollars, providing a positive boost to the economy.

Missouri film credit advocates have repeatedly claimed that Gone Girl made $7.9 million off a $2.36 investment. But this is simply not the case. The $7.9 million was not profit or revenue for the state, but “economic activity” (salaries, hotel rooms, dining, etc.). But even that figure is exaggerated, as most of the newly created jobs funded out-of-state employees and all in-state workers were part-time (most work as extras). Out-of-state production companies like to retain their own workers; the number of Missouri editors, producers, actors, and directors actually declined over the Missouri film-credit era.

Additionally, opportunity cost cannot be ignored. Opportunity cost can be defined as the loss of benefits (time, enjoyment, profit) that could have been received from an alternative strategy. Therefore, when you read articles promoting economic tax credits, you shouldn’t compare supposed “boosts” in economic activity to $0, but to what the same millions of dollars could have produced instead, such as infrastructure, public safety, or tax rebates for Missouri citizens.

Film tax credits will not provide Missouri or its citizens with gains in the long run. Independent studies find that states typically recapture only 8 to 28 cents per dollar spent on film credits. Missouri terminated the film credit program partly due to its economic failures, as the Missouri Department of Economic Development found that the program allowed the government to recapture only 15 cents per dollar spent.

Be careful about the spread of Hollywood fever. Instead of paying for films to come to our state, why don’t we improve our state with those funds so filmmakers will have more reasons to come? That would make our state more attractive for all businesses and citizens, not just Hollywood accountants.

The post Hollywood Fever Hits Missouri appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The post Senate Bill 721 and the “Show Missouri Film and Digital Media Act” appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The state pays unemployment benefits from this fund, and the COVID-19-induced recession meant that the state was dipping into this fund more than normal. When the balance of the UI Trust Fund is too low, an increase in tax contribution rates on business owners is triggered.

As stated in the spending guide:

States can replenish their UI Trust Funds up to the difference between the balance on January 27, 2020 ($1.054 billion) and May 17, 2021 ($637 million). Thus, Missouri lawmakers should make a one-time contribution to the state UI Trust Fund of $417 million to prevent small businesses from facing hikes in their UI taxes and to keep the fund balance healthy in case of heavy future use.

A tax increase for businesses is the last thing anyone needs right now. Businesses pass on higher taxes to customers, which in turn means higher prices and costs for everyone.

With the finalization of the rules governing State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, there is now a tighter timeline for spending stimulus funds on replenishing the UI Trust Fund. If states use funds to replenish their UI trust funds after April 1, 2022, they will be subject to a maintenance of effort requirement for UI benefits through 2024. This means that if states use stimulus funds to supplement UI funds after April 1, they would not be allowed to take any action to reduce weekly unemployment benefits or the number of weeks of benefits available until after 2024.

As Jared Walczak of the Tax Foundation wrote in a great summation piece:

Many states may have no desire to do this. Others may anticipate the need for an adjustment. Regardless, state lawmakers may be wary of having their hands tied by the federal government. But there is a grace period, which could be a motivation for states to act fast.

The bottom line is that if Missouri lawmakers want to replenish the UI Trust Fund without strings attached, they need to act quickly.

The post Lawmakers Should Replenish Unemployment Insurance by April 1st appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

My colleagues and I submitted testimony for the public hearing for these bills, and our testimony echoes what Show-Me Institute researchers have said for years: Tax credits are often a bad deal for Missouri taxpayers.

Tax credit programs rarely generate enough economic activity to justify their use. Over the past few decades, Missouri has foregone billions in state tax revenue due to a host of narrow incentive programs that have consistently yielded poor results. Targeted economic development programs are just another way for lawmakers to pick winners and losers, a job that is better left to consumers in the market. When tax breaks are given to some, other taxpayers must make up for the lost revenue.

The tax credit programs that would be created through these bills would be bad deals for Missouri taxpayers. Hopefully lawmakers will do right by businesses and taxpayers and stop providing tax benefits to their favored few.

The post Tax Credit Bills Are Lurking in the Legislative Session appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The 2022 Blueprint: Moving Missouri Forward presents 15 policy ideas aimed at moving Missouri forward to a brighter future. The Blueprint covers a broad range of issues—from education to health care, from public pensions to corporate welfare, and from tax policy to government transparency. Our expert policy team has thoroughly researched and analyzed the problems facing our state today, and their work informs the policy solutions that follow. We believe that with the right policies Missouri could lead the nation in wealth, quality education, and a vibrant and flourishing civil society.

Download the 2022 Missouri Blueprint

The post 2022 Missouri Blueprint appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The state’s film tax credit program was intended to stimulate the film industry by reducing a studio’s tax liability. Thankfully,  the film tax credit program sunset in 2013. The program was a failure. The Tax Credit Review Commission recommended that the tax credit be eliminated because it served too narrow of an industry and didn’t provide a positive return on investment. There was very little evidence that the program delivered on any of its promises. Do we really think the music production tax credit will produce a different result under very similar circumstances?

Show-Me Institute writers have been arguing against the film tax credit program for years (this tax credit program continues to haunt the legislature). What was said about that program also rings true for a potential music production tax program: If this industry cannot succeed in Missouri without government assistance, then maybe it shouldn’t be here.

Missouri certainly wasn’t the next Hollywood, but perhaps there’s potential for us to be the country’s next music capital. But that isn’t for the government to decide. If a private company wants to make it happen, great! Lawmakers, on the other hand, should not be giving out incentives (on the backs of other taxpayers) to artificially boost music production companies. It didn’t work with film tax credits—why should we expect a music production tax credit to be any different?

The post Call for Music Production Tax Credits Sounds Familiar appeared first on Show-Me Institute.