Cutting Missouri’s income tax isn’t relief. It just hurts the working class | Opinion

As a resident of Lee’s Summit and a former Kansas teacher of 20 years who witnessed the Sam Brownback income tax experiment, I feel a deep sense of déjà vu watching Missouri House Speaker Jon Patterson and Gov. Mike Kehoe push House Joint Resolution 174 — or what many of us in Missouri are calling the Everything Tax.

I have seen this movie before. And I know how it ends. Spoiler alert: not well for working-class people.

When Kansas slashed income taxes under then-Gov. Sam Brownback, families were promised growth and prosperity. Instead, schools were gutted, services were cut and families left scrambling to make ends meet. As a teacher at the time, I watched firsthand as the state’s finances unraveled. It took years to repair the damage.

Now here in Missouri, Speaker Patterson’s plan would eliminate the income tax and replace it with dramatically expanded sales taxes, taxing nearly everything we buy and many services we rely on: Doctor visits. Medications. Car repairs. The services small businesses provide every single day.

As a small business owner, I am already navigating constant price fluctuations for the products we use. Our goal this past year was simple: Don’t raise prices. Stay profitable enough to survive, and put food on our table. This has already proven difficult, and I got a part-time job just to make sure we can get by.

The idea of higher taxes on goods, then layering taxes onto services such as auto repair, rent or utilities terrifies me, frankly.

Will our customers still be able to afford our service when they’re paying more at the grocery store, more at the pediatrician’s office, more for everyday essentials? Will we have to absorb the tax and shrink our already thin margins? Or will we be forced to raise prices and risk losing the very customers who keep us afloat?

This isn’t some abstract policy to me. It’s personal.

Supporters claim eliminating the income tax would help Missourians. But sales taxes are inherently regressive. They hit working families, older adults and people on fixed incomes the hardest, because we spend a greater share of our earnings on everyday necessities than people who make more money.

Under this proposal, most Missouri families could pay around $500 more per year in expanded sales taxes. Retired teachers, public pension recipients, active-duty military families and others who are already exempt from income tax would shoulder higher costs on basic goods and services. Meanwhile, the wealthiest Missourians — who would benefit disproportionately from eliminating income taxes — would see the large tax cuts.

That’s not tax relief. That’s a tax shift.

And the consequences don’t stop there. Estimates from the nonprofit Missouri Budget Project show this plan could strip $42 million from schools in Lee’s Summit and Blue Springs alone — the equivalent of wiping out nearly 400 teacher salaries in each district. As a former educator, I know what that means: larger class sizes, fewer resources and students who pay the price for political experiments.

We are still living with rising housing costs, rising grocery bills and rising insurance premiums. An Everything Tax would only compound that burden. Businesses like mine would have to factor in new taxes on essential services such as vehicle maintenance, equipment repairs and professional services, driving our costs even higher. And when costs rise for small businesses, they snowball down through the entire community.

I say this not in anger, but in wariness and hope.

We deserve a tax system that supports working families, not one that asks them to subsidize massive tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy. We deserve stable school funding. We deserve policies grounded in reality, not ideology.

Speaker Patterson is not a distant figure in Jefferson City. He is our neighbor here in Lee’s Summit. That means our voices matter.

Missourians have the power to speak up before this proposal advances any further. Call your state representative. Email Speaker Patterson. Attend town halls. Ask hard questions. Demand transparency. Demand fairness. We cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past.

I’ve lived through one failed tax experiment. I don’t want Missouri families to be left picking up the pieces of another.

Stephanie Graham is a Lee’s Summit resident and small business owner.