30 years of Missouri tax cuts boosted the richest. Regular families are left behind | Opinion

All Missourians want to live in vibrant, healthy communities, where we have the opportunity to thrive from childhood to retirement. But our state’s upside-down and outdated tax system is holding us back from making this vision a reality.

Our state’s taxes fund the shared services that we all count on, such as quality education, transportation, infrastructure and a safety net that catches us if we hit hard times. These services provide the foundation for families to build prosperity and achieve a better future.

But tax changes made over the last three decades have resulted in a system where low-income and middle-class Missourians pay a higher share of their income in taxes than the very wealthiest, and out-of-state corporations pay less than their fair share for the public services they rely on to do business in our state. This structure shifts the cost to families just trying to make ends meet and deprives our state of the revenue needed to support thriving communities, help families succeed and promote Missourians’ way of life.

Since 1993, Missouri has enacted dozens of tax cuts. While some of the changes benefit families, many were targeted at corporations or disproportionately benefit the very wealthiest rather than working Missourians. In fact, tax changes made since 2014 cost our state more than $2 billion every year. To put this in context, that’s more than Missouri spends each year in state general revenue on basic support for public schools.

However, Missouri’s piecemeal approach to tax policy means most of us don’t see the stark consequences of reduced revenue. Instead, it’s more like death by a thousand cuts. Missouri has slowly fallen dramatically behind where we used to be as a state, and now consistently ranks in the bottom nationally in its funding for a wide variety of public services.

For example, Missouri has one of the lowest starting salaries for teachers in the country. At the college level, Missouri provides less funding per student than it did in 2010 when adjusted for inflation. Meanwhile, tuition has increased by more than 50% for four-year institutions, increasing the cost for families striving for a better future. While the number of Missouri seniors is increasing, our state’s investments in the programs that serve them haven’t kept up with population changes, leaving older adults without the support they need to delay costly institutional care.

Missouri has fewer resources to invest in its residents because it lags far behind others in the amount of revenue it collects per person, ranking 45th nationally. This isn’t simply because Missouri has a lower-than-average cost of living. Compared to just our neighboring states, Missouri collects the least state revenue per capita.

Collections are low for several reasons. Missouri’s top income tax rate is already well below the national average, and it’s scheduled to drop further. Only one state in the country has a top corporate income tax lower than Missouri, and some of our corporate tax loopholes are among the most generous in the country.

Moreover, as state tax reductions have taken effect, funding for services has become more limited, and localities have increased local sales tax rates to pick up the slack. Together, these dynamics result in Missouri’s upside-down tax structure, which asks the most of those Missourians who have the least, and vice versa.

There are things the legislature can do this year to address this imbalance. For example, updating the Missouri property tax credit for low-income older adults and Missourians with disabilities, strengthening the state’s working family tax credit (a state version of the federal earned income tax credit), and closing corporate tax loopholes would go a long way toward making our state’s tax structure fairer for average Missourians.

Instead of continuing the race to the bottom, our state can win by investing in our communities, making Missouri an even better place to live and raise a family.