As your Grandpa undoubtedly told you, never place all your eggs in a single basket. KCMO currently receives a preposterous 40% of its revenue from the dreaded 1% earnings tax. Including a huge portion from folks who work in KCMO, but plop their heads down at night on downy pillows in JoCo. That’s about to change.
Today, I predict voters will vote YES on Prop A.
So let’s hear it for St. Louis millionaire Rex Sinquefield, who funded the petition drive to put Prop A on the ballot. It will allow VOTERS to decide on any future earnings taxes. Not pols kissing up to bureaucrats trying to protect their jobs. Elected officials love to be heroes on Other People’s Money.
Then early next year, the actual repeal of the existing KCMO earnings tax will kill off this immoral, bloated whale
Know what? KCMO will survive.
It will reinvent themselves, and tax itself instead of Johnson County workers. Just like it did when the metro rejected BiState II, where JoCo would have paid to rehab Arrowhead. A stadium with an NFL private cable TV studio,I might add. And Kauffman with its box seats for the mink coat crowd.
Jackson County and KCMO stepped up after that defeat, and taxed itself. As it should have.
The new Arrowhead is great. If they want to charge us JoCo people MORE for our tickets, fine by me. I watch the Chiefs on TV.
So when Prop A passes, KCMO will dust itself off, hopefully elect a new mayor, and reinvent its financial model.
And who knows? Once businesses realize suburban employees no longer will need to cough up that 1% lug, maybe they’ll stay put in KCMO, instead of moving to JoCo.
Tracy Thomas
In Re: To Ripping off Johnson Countians
Hey Tracy you have some excellent points here. I have worked in KC and paid that dreaded tax forever but where will they make it up? I want to be able to drive on decent roads to get to Crown Center. That was the thing I noticed when I went back to work in downtown after a 10 year hiatus. The infrastructure sucks! If the KC folks vote it down they will be paying in other ways as in higher property, taxes etc. I know several people that have left perfectly nice homes in Brookside to live in the Northland area because of the taxes. This could cause even more flight to the burbs. Yes things aren’t great now but there is still a long way for KC to fall yet if there is a big drop in revenue.
Like it or not the burbs need KC. Will the mink coat crowd in Mission HIlls and beyond come by helicopter to the new Kauffman Performing Arts Center? Probably, nothing surprises me.