Your Opinion: Proposal penalizes poorest

Dear Editor:

Though the massive tax cuts currently under consideration in the Missouri Legislature will be a boon to Missouri's wealthiest citizens, they will be a definite burden for most. I refer to Senate Bill 26 and similar tax cut proposals.

Taxes will increase for low and middle income families, including seniors who rely on Social Security income, in order to pay for tax cuts for corporations and millionaires. All Missourians, especially the most vulnerable, will feel the pain of cuts to critical public services.

Education, health, mental health, and other services have already been cut dramatically over the past several years. The additional cuts that would result from the extreme tax proposal reflected in SB26 would devastate these services, resulting in even larger class sizes, longer waiting lists for critical mental health services, cuts to programs for seniors like meal delivery, and decreased treatment for infectious disease.

In addition to starving our schools and communities of resources, SB26 would give millionaires a hefty tax cut while the 40 percent of Missourians earning less than $33,000 per year would actually pay more - particularly senior citizens on limited incomes. This is blatantly unjust tax policy.

Missourians should call upon their legislators to oppose tax cuts that benefit the wealthy at the expense of the state's poorest, including senior citizens on fixed incomes, and work instead to invest in the well-being of all its citizens, that is, to work for the common good, a cherished principle of justice in public policy.

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