Amendment 7 is on your ballot in November, and I'm asking you to vote no on it.
Here's what it is. Its official name is the Show-Me Prosperity Fund, and the ballot title the Secretary of State certified asks whether to "establish a permanent public endowment fund to support state government instead of taxing Missouri residents." People donate money into it, the fund grows, and once it's big enough the earnings off it are meant to replace state taxes.
Two things bother me about that.
The first is oversight. As I read it, there are no restrictions on this fund and no oversight of it. Nobody has told us who can donate to it, or what happens if a very small number of very wealthy people put in most of the money. And then you wonder what influence there will be in this state. That's not a question I'm comfortable leaving unanswered.
The second is simpler. The income tax is what pays for schools. It's what pays for the state's share of health care. You cannot get rid of the money and keep the things the money buys. In a district like ours, the things the money buys are the schools our children go to and the hospitals our parents go to.
Read it for yourself. Do a good reading on it. Then vote no on 7.
The longer version, including how I read a ballot measure: Where I stand on Amendment 7
I'm asking you to vote for me on November 3rd, fighting for health care and education in District 149. God bless you.
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