The big thing that we are watching today here in Kansas City is what's going to happen with the 1% earnings tax that is on the ballot. You can go to the polls right now and vote on it. It passed with 77% of those voting five years ago saying we want to continue the 1% earnings tax that's been in place in Kansas City since 1963. Started off as a half cent, got up to a full or not a half cent, a half percent, got up to a full percentage point and that's where it's been for a very long time. So you're hearing from a lot of people around Kansas City on this obviously all the city leaders are all in on making sure this thing renews today. If you're going to the polls, if you've been there, I would love to hear from you right now at 913-408-7957. I just want to get a feel on if anybody's actually at the polls. My sense is that you will walk in and you will walk out in less than five minutes. There has been a coordinated effort to continue with the earnings tax. There has been some media that has been spent by those on the pro side. There's been nothing on the anti earnings tax side of this, which happens every time. That's why it passes. But this came from Melissa Johnson, Jackson County prosecutor and Bridget Williams, who is the head of the heavies construction organization a couple of days ago. Without the e-tax, Kansas City will face immediate and devastating cuts, including police officer and EMT layoffs. It's so important to the quality of life of the people who live and work in this community. Are you buying that? Even from Melissa Johnson, who I think is a solid prosecutor, has been far better than what this county had under Gene Peters Baker. Well, it would not be immediate and devastating when it comes to the cuts in Kansas City. It wouldn't be. There would be a 10-year phase out of the earnings tax. They never make the case for the earnings tax. They fear monger into, without the earnings tax, here's what would happen in Kansas City. Everything is going to go to Hell in a Handbasket. And if you don't do this, well, you just wait to see what happens to this town. Oh, the potholes, no cops, no fire, no first responders, no one picks up the phone when you dial 911, which by the way, barely happens anyway right now. Remember that whole thing? A couple of years ago, it got a lot of attention. The wait times for 911 in Kansas City is like well over a minute, as is. So it is absolutely brutal right now when you look at some of these things. And without the earnings tax, you sit there and you say to yourself, okay, quality of life issues may get worse. A lot of you are wondering if that's even possible. But this is kind of the fear tactic that takes place on something like the earnings tax, despite the fact that you have municipalities all over the region who don't have an earnings tax and still manage to have police and fire and first responders go figure and they actually fill the potholes. Roberts in Kansas City, what's up, Robert? You're on KCMO. Good morning. Yeah, I'm getting ready to go and vote for the tax and why wouldn't I? I'm a retiree. I've paid the taxes for all since the 60s and right now I'm a retiree, so I need to go ahead and protect myself and make sure that that tax is implemented. How are you protecting yourself? Well, I have a house and I have property taxes. I don't want them to go up. I just battled Jackson County on my assessments and I'm sure that they would raise my property taxes. So you're right. You are now here's the thing. This is what's interesting, Robert. You're right. Now, here's the tricky part of this. Since you are a retiree, you don't have a traditional income, so you won't even pay the earnings tax. So people like yourself, I'm not blaming you, Robert, but this is what's interesting about this. People like yourself are incentivized to go vote yes on the earnings tax because you don't have a traditional income anyway. So you're like, hey, you know what? I get people outside of the city to subsidize my services. I don't want to risk my property or sales taxes going up, so I'm going to vote yes on this. Yes, that's definitely going to vote yes. And even though, let me ask you this, Robert, do you inherently admit that Kansas City could operate without it? But your attitude is I don't want to risk increasing my own taxes, so I'm just going to vote yes, even though I know it's irresponsible tax policy. Yes. Okay. I've been paying for it for years prior, and basically I was a little upset with it when I was paying for it, but it would always pass 70% tile or something like that. Yep. I don't know. I'm sitting here with a lot of retirees. We don't like taxes. We've just battled our property taxes here in Jackson County, and we don't want them raised. And I don't trust our government. I don't trust our mayor. I don't trust the city council. They would implement a tax on us on our property taxes. Yeah, it would basically be a revenge. Yes, absolutely. So, you know, I had no choice but to vote for it. Listen, this is the hard part of this, Robert. It's a great call. I want to disagree with you, but I think you're agreeing with me, but you're also voting yes out of fear. And I think that's an element of this as well, because what do you hear from the elected leaders? They don't say, hey, you know, if Kansas City were to vote down the earnings tax, we're really going to have to go back to the drawing board. We're going to have to be more responsible in what we do. We're going to have to figure out how to be better stewards of the money that we get. We're going to have to figure out how to not have, you know, a spend of $4,400 per resident in this city. We just can't do that anymore. They don't say that to Robert's point. They say your sales taxes are going up, your property taxes are going up, and if you're Robert and you don't have a traditional income because you're retired, but you own property and obviously you're a consumer in your own city, why would you vote to increase your own taxes through property taxes and sales taxes when you don't pay the earnings tax anyway? There are thousands of Kansas Cityans just like Robert who are selfishly, he's admitting it. Like that's what I love about Robert's call, selfishly admitting that it is in his best interest to go out there and vote yes on the earnings tax even though he knows it's wrong. He knows it's bad policy, but he doesn't want to risk the city saying fine, you guys want to vote this thing down. You just wait to see how we screw you going forward. And that right there is why it passes with 70 to 80% of the vote. I am so appreciative of Robert's honesty and candor because there's not a lot of that out there. Eric's up north. Hey Eric, good morning. Hey, yeah, I'm also a retiree, but I'm basically planning to vote against it because my whole philosophy is that over the years I don't know how many businesses have not come to Kansas City because of this silly tax. Well, yeah, that's exactly right. Like how many businesses, how many people have said, well, you mean I could be on this side of state line or that side of state line and give myself a 1% raise at a principle of nothing else? I'll do that. There's really no way of knowing, but I totally agree with you. Like businesses are looking for every break for themselves and their employees they can get. How much has Kansas City lost in potential revenues because of this earning tax? They only talk about what they'll lose if they get rid of it, but they never talk about what could be gained by getting rid of it. Yep, that's exactly my way of thinking on it. But what about what Robert said? You're not afraid of basically retribution from the city if this thing were to go down? No, no. I mean, if it goes down, I'm sure they'll do some scare mongering and threaten to raise some other taxes, but I'm willing to weather that storm. Okay. All right. Well, good for you, my man. Thanks for the call, Eric. That is, listen, I'm with Eric, obviously, when it comes to this tax and the harm it's actually done to Kansas City. Going back 60-some-odd years at this point, do I think it's going down? Absolutely not. And it's because of voters like Robert coming to the conclusion of, hey, I am in no way incentivized to vote no on this thing. And then you've got a lot of people who are going to say, oh, you mean that we'll have the bill footed in part by Johnson County, Kansas, people who come here to work but don't live here and, you know, all around the metro? People who work in Kansas City but don't live in Kansas City, sign me up. I'm in. Taylor left a piece of change here over the summer, didn't she? That's right. Travis leaves a little chunk every week in the fall. Yep. That's true, too. They're all paying that as well, except for when come 2031. They're not paying that anymore, of course. Uh-oh. Yes. Exactly right. So that is fascinating to hear from some of those folks in that retiree lane who obviously have a very different viewpoint on this, which also points out the tax is regressive. Real quick, I heard another radio station reporting on this this morning and they said about the earnings tax. Critics say it's a regressive tax. It's not critics say it's factually a regressive tax. If you are wealthy on Ward Parkway living off investments, you're not paying the e-tax. If you are making 30 grand a year working in Kansas City, you are paying the e-tax. That's by definition. It's defined as a regressive tax. Not critics say it's regressive. It is regressive. Even the station that claims it's just the news station and the reporting station doesn't know how to report the news. Alright, there's my tirade Tuesday. Yours is coming up at 8.30. And I help people make the smartest money decisions possible. Joe, you know what's been great about being a saver? More money to make. And that money over the past couple of years has made a pretty good yield. Pre-pandemic, money was making zero. Now it's actually making something, but that's starting to go down, down, down. I love how we can play the fact that inflation's been really high as a positive. But if you're a saver, you know what that means? Cha-ching. Silver lining, Joe. Silver lining. Afford anything. 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