You're listening to Mundo in the morning on 957 FM KCMO. Even the Kansas City star kind of a tepid endorsement of the earnings tax which is on the ballot coming up on Tuesday in Kansas City. That's one percent of the money that you make if you are a Kansas City, Missouri residence or one percent of the money that you make if you're not a resident but you work in Kansas City will be stolen from you and taken by the Kansas City, Missouri government. That has to be renewed coming up on Tuesday. Patrick Tuey with the Show Me Institute is here. He wrote a piece about this in the Kansas City Star titled, Kansas City's earnings tax is a regressive giveaway to big corporations. I know you're against it Patrick but even the stars may be realizing you know there's things not all it's hyped up to be. So what do you think that says about the e-tax in general? Well I think the argument to support the earnings tax is weak and I think progressives are kind of waking up to that. You know when it wasn't just the star editorial, David Hudnall, a left of center columnist for the star wrote a piece responding to mine where he pretty much conceded all my points but his argument I think is just that getting rid of the earnings tax will be difficult and that's right but that's the point because Kansas City government needs to learn some spending restraint. They talk about the earnings tax as losing revenue but Kansas City, Missouri, the city spends more per person than any of the municipalities around us and Kansas City is one of the slowest growing municipalities of any of those around us and that's not accidental. If Kansas City legitimately wants to grow and you've heard me talk about this for years, it needs to demonstrate that it is a good place to live and work and raise a family. This tax does not help with that and taxing people at the exits as they flee the city is not a strategy to grow. So why is it a regressive giveaway to big corporations? Sure, so what the earnings tax does is it taxes everybody on the first dollar of their earnings and earnings is important. You may be a low income household in Kansas City and you're exempted from the federal income tax because they say well you don't earn enough for us to tax you yet Kansas City still swoops in and takes its 1%. A lot of people, and Dave Helling wrote about this on his blog, a lot of people who live in the wealthier parts of Kansas City, for example, Brookside, have an awful lot of income that is from investments and of course that's not taxed. So if you're retired and wealthy and you don't have earnings, then this tax doesn't touch you. So it's definitely a tax that leans on the poor and what it allows the city to do because it has this earnings tax, it allows the city then to be very generous in giving away its property tax and sales tax revenue and sometimes it's earning tax revenue to big developers. So it very much is, I argue, a reverse Robin Hood where the city takes from the poor so that it can give to the rich. That's a salient argument, Patrick Tuey, and I'm not sure who's possibly against it. I mean, I know that obviously city councils against it for the most part, they need this earning tax they believe to survive. But what would it look like? How much money are we talking about here from that earnings tax and how they would actually phase it out if the improbable were to happen? So right now the city says that it counts for around, what, $373 million. If the earnings tax were voted down, it would be phased out over 10 years. It's not all of a sudden a blow in the budget. So they'd have to cut $37 million next year and $37 million the next year. And that's reasonable. Right now with the earnings tax, we're being told that the city is running a $55 million deficit and that's with the earnings tax. And that's how I try to demonstrate to people that it's not a revenue problem, it's a spending problem. The city simply does not understand that it's focused should be on core services rather than all these ridiculous programs the city funds that don't show any return on investment. The subsidies, it needs to focus on basic services. And I was at a live presentation talking about this and the representative of the city council was there and he said, oh, if we lose this, we won't be able to fund public safety or we won't be able to fund road resurfacing or snow plows. But I live in Waldo. We already have those problems right now. The city doesn't run a tight budget. And one last point, what the star said is we hope, it's a bad tax, we hope the city council will look into it and reform their behavior. But the star said that five years ago when this was up and the city council has demonstrated that it will not reform itself, it will not change its spending habits. So the voters must insist upon it. All right, Patrick Tuhey with the Show Me Institute is here on KCMO. You also, I want to talk about this. Critical Ameri-Lucas' plan that would make the Economic Development Council and Port KC requirements to get tax breaks more similar aiming to ensure that public incentives are used to complimentary rather than competitively. What exactly, what does that mean, especially as we sit here maybe on the eve of a Royal Stadium announcement at some point in the not too distant future? Well, yeah, I'm sure the city wants to make sure it's collecting its earnings tax before it announces another big giveaway to John Sherman or another developer. So the city's approach to housing is awful and has been backward and counterproductive for years. And what this program, the city was trying to do was say, if you're going to build a big development, you have to set aside a number of apartments that are affordable, however that's defined. And if you don't want to do that, you can pay $100,000 to be exempted from that rule. So what those developers did is they just went to Port KC, which didn't have that type of requirement. And so as a result of the city's policy, none of the, you know, they didn't end up building any affordable housing as a result of that program. Because of course, you know, the incentive was don't go through the city. I don't know that this approach will work because there are so many other things that make dealing with Port KC more attractive. And part of that is it's not nearly as transparent as the TIF commission, despite the TIF commission's flaws. It doesn't have buy-in or it doesn't have representation from the other taxing jurisdictions like the school district or the library or the mental health fund. So, you know, the money was one disincentive deal with the city, but there are plenty of other disincentives that I don't know, you know, if the money is equal between the TIF commission and Port KC, I still think a lot of businesses will go through Port KC because Port KC is much more of a rubber stamp and asks less of you to get those subsidies. All right. I don't know if you caught any of my interview with John Sherman this week, but he did reference and say, hey, you know, we're still talking to Kansas. We're still talking to North Kansas City. But it does seem like Kansas City is in the number one position to land the Royals and potentially get them down by Union Station and Crown Center. But he talked about it being a business, right? I mean, he made that very clear. So where should all this lead and where do you think it does end up based on the conversations you've heard and where you think things currently stand? The short answer is I have no idea. John Sherman told us in February of 2025 that he was going to have a decision by midyear, excuse me. So I don't know that John Sherman is a credible source of information based on deadlines or calendars. I don't know what the city is going to offer the city, despite the mayor saying he's open to answer questions, has not answered any questions. So, you know, again, I don't know. It's one more story in Kansas City that suggests there's movement on this issue, but has led us down every time in the past. Yeah, but it doesn't seem, do you still think there's like a super tiny chance they hang out of the cave for a couple more years just to kick the can down the road? I don't hear a guy the other day on my show who has any interest in doing that, but maybe they just don't have a choice if they can't get a deal done here soon. Yeah, that's it. I know that they have a choice and understand this. The prospect of building a stadium where you get abatements and you get, you know, your taxes returned to you is valuable, but it depends upon the stadium being built and it depends upon your ticket sales, right? You get a return back. But Jackson County offered these teams was free money regardless of ticket sales, right? Regardless of when the stadium opens. It's just free money through a sales tax in the county. That is very valuable to these guys, and I imagine they'll want to deal with Jackson County to get that free money. But again, we've been at this for years now, and all of these talk about urgency or deadlines hasn't mattered at all in the past. I don't know why I would think it matters now other than to your point, if they want to have a stadium built to play in 2031 or 2032, man, the clock is the clock is ticking. Yeah, by the way, that Washington Square Park site, you know, this is an old city. We have water lines and sewer lines that are made out of brick or terracotta. I'm told God only knows what they are going to find if they dig up Washington Square Park and look at what's underneath there. That is not a site that's going to lend itself to quick construction. Yeah, I find a couple of bodies from the Pendergast area down there too. You never know. Yeah, it could be. Who knows? Yeah. All right, Patrick. Good work. Thanks for being here. Hey, it's my pleasure to be here. Take care and happy Easter. Yes, you too, my friend. Happy Easter to Patrick Tuie on KCML. Hi, I'm Joe Salci. I host the Stacking Benjamin's podcast. You know what? A lot of us get taxes wrong. Filing your taxes is basically data entry. There's been this trend of people going, oh, it's so cool to file my taxes in August. It's so awesome. Don't worry, I have an extension. It'll be fine. I like totally do it later. Stop. Do your frigging taxes now. That was a really good fashion voice. Did you like it? You do that more frequently, please? Yes, every show from now on. Stacking Benjamin's. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. Full Send Golf. You guys know how much I really, really love golf, and I think every week would be dope to folks on the golf channel. I want to get a lot of guests on here. Salim's going to take a leap. I'm down to be in it. It's not really work to play golf. Join the party on the golf course. I was like, let's go to the range. So what are we putting on it? We said 10K, right? 10K? All right. We probably bet more than all the other golf channels, right? 10K, 9-ohls. Those guys bet for cookies. So I'm going to shank it. This guy's been trading like a Navy SEAL when it comes to golf. I'm very, very excited. Are you excited? Yes. Full Send Golf. This is my favorite platform.
