That's because a Senate committee endorsed Thursday giving private pensioners and people with dependents an income tax cut. The House bill's sponsor, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Ken Jacob, D-Columbia, immediately labeled the Senate's approach as unacceptable. But Senate President Pro Tem Jim Mathewson said people raising a family are the ones he thought the state should help with tax relief. Joining Mathewson, the Senate's top Democrat, in proposing the income tax reductions with the Senate's Republican Leader Franc Flotron, R-St. Senate committee members pointed out several red-flag issues during Wednesday's hearing.
Government goes in peaks and valleys.
Right now, we're in a peak. Jacob argues that Missourians would start reaping the benefits of his food-tax cut this July while, according to the state budget office, taxpayers would not get the benefits of an income tax reduction until 1998. By the end of the debate, the bill would have merely established a flood plain data collection agency, said the bill's sponsor, Gary Wiggins, D-New Cambria. The Missouri Levee and Drainage District Association played a strong role in the bill's defeat, Wiggins said. Members of the state-wide grassroots association, spent the last few days calling representatives, urging them to vote against the measure.