I never thought I would find myself on the same side of an issue as Rex Sinquefield.
The multi-millionaire (maybe billionaire) from the St. Louis area is about as conservative and libertarian as a person can get.
His overall goal is to see state taxes restructured by dumping the state income tax and replacing it with a greatly expanded sales tax.
In other words, he would like to shift the tax burden from the wealthy to middle- and lower-income residents. His philosophy? Let those who are eating cake pay more for their cake, while my buddies and I — who make truckloads of money off our investments — get a nice break.
But on Amendment 7, Sinquefield opposes a new three-quarter-cent sales tax to raise more than $6 million over the next 10 years to finance an array of transportation projects.
It being his tax or choice, I’m not sure why he opposes it, but I suspect it’s because if Amendment 7 passed, voters would be less likely to approve the even-higher sales taxes that he envisions.
Kind of like Brad Bradshaw’s reasoning last year when he poured a couple of hundred thousand dollars of his own money into the successful effort to defeat Jackson County’s proposed translational medical research tax. The lawyer/doctor from Springfield favors a statewide sales tax for medical research, and if the county’s tax had passed, it would have made passage of a statewide tax extremely difficult.
Rex to the rescue
Sinquefield is president of the Show-Me Institute, an organization that says it is interested in “advancing liberty with responsibility.” The organization’s chairman is none other than Crosby Kemper III, executive director of the Kansas City Public Library system. (Might be the best damn library director the system has ever had.)
An article published today on the Show-Me Institute’s website took issue with some Amendment 7 proponents’ assertion that Missouri’s roads and bridges desperately need repair.
The writer, a man by the name of Joseph Miller, cited two foundation reports that ranked Missouri’s highway system as seventh and eighth best, respectively, in the nation.
Miller went on to say:
“MoDOT does have a funding problem, but there is time to select the right funding solution. There is no imminent crisis which would force us to accept an unfair, and economically unsound, transportation tax.”
You got it, Rex, this tax would be eminently unfair. So, let’s team up and beat the crap out of it on Aug. 5.
Then, I’ll take a good, long shower and go back to calling you the turd in the punch bowl.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
I’m telling you, you’re in denial. I remember when I was fighting corruption in the state health department in North Dakota that a state Sen. running for Lt Gov on the Republican ticket wanted me to be in a picture with him and I wouldn’t do it because I didn’t want to have my picture taken with Republicans, much less conservative Republicans and then I figured out that they were the only ones who cared about fighting corruption in government. You’re on your way, Soon you’ll be having supper at Rex’ house and be bosom buddies.