Legislators this week headed off a tax tiff with Kansas that shouldn’t have been a headache in the first place.
Here’s how it works: If you live in Missouri but work in Kansas, you can deduct your home property taxes from your Kansas income tax. And it goes the other way too.
Last year, legislators changed that law because they wanted Missouri to have parity with Illinois. Apparently they overlooked the fact that Missouri borders another seven states besides Illinois. Kansas, for example, threatened to retaliate.
It’s taken until late in the session, but Missouri lawmakers finally reverted to the old policy, the one that made sense. State Rep. Paul LeVota, a Democrat from Independence who is the House minority leader, gets a thumbs up for sponsoring the bill.
As a sidelight, state Rep. Bryan Yates, R-Lee’s Summit, used the occasion to argue for getting rid of the earnings taxes in Kansas City and St. Louis. He says they hamper regional growth, and he probably right. Thumbs up for raising the issue.
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The Bomdardier debate brought some interesting comments this week as state senators watered down the proposal. The Canadian company would reap tens of millions in state incentives if it builds an airplane plant at Kansas City International Airport.
The Senate passed the bill 24-8, but one of those eight was Republican Matt Bartle of Lee’s Summit, who has criticized the idea all along. Some of his arguments made sense. A couple were head-scratchers.
“Americans are unwilling to work for the going rate for manufacturing, and it’s been this way for 50 years,” he said, according to the Missouri School of Journalism State Capitol Reporting Program. “For 50 years manufacturing jobs have been moving to countries where the wage base will work for less.”
In a sense, he’s right. In the context of this debate, he’s missing the point entirely. Manufacturing jobs have left the country for several reasons. Chief among those have been viciously protectionist policies that allowed overseas industries to grow with massive government support. Ask a steelworker. Ask an autoworker.
The Bombardier proposal – tax incentives to create jobs – is the meekest form of protectionism in response to those global pressures.
Manufacturing jobs with good pay and good benefits have been at the heart of the American middle class for decades. For Bartle to dismiss that is distressing.
As we’ve said before, this plan might or might not make sense. It’s a judgment call for our legislators. And at least Bartle didn’t hop on board just because it’s a Kansas City thing. That’s commendable.
But he’s dead wrong about the primacy of manufacturing for long-term economic health. A nation doesn’t run on selling. It’s still about goods and services. That won’t change.
