Mississippi River Toodleoo
NOTE: A conflict between the legislatures of the states of Missouri and Illinois over how to pay for a new bridge over the Mississippi River at St. Louis has been heating up over the past few months. Missouri wants to create a toll bridge and stick it to Illinoisans who have to cross the river to commute to work in St. Louis daily. This Illinois resident thinks it's unfair and that Missouri has the money but not the guts to use tax dollars to pay for a crucial American crossroad. Illinois already has allocated the funds to get a federal match while Missouri won't even negotiate.
So he wrote the...
So he wrote the...
MISSISSIPPI RIVER BRIDGE TOODLEOO
As a geographical undesirable (GU) from Illinois, I have personally experienced the social conceit and undeserved arrogance that Missouri legislators and some of its so-called civic leaders dump on people from anywhere else. My answer when asked where I went to high school leaves most Missourians with a typical blank expression on their faces. No, I’m not from the Show Me State. I’m from the much bigger, richer and more sophisticated Land of Lincoln, so stow the Confederate war flag in the back of your beat up pickup and listen up.
Lately the hillbillies in the Missouri legislature have been trying to stiff the residents of my great state by demanding a toll to cross the river from Illinois into Missourah or Missouree! Perhaps their third-world education system failed them when it comes to economics or sociology. Let me help you out a little.
Illinoisans already pay our share of taxes in your backward state and we don’t intend to pay any more for nothing. You see, about 100,000 of us work in St. Louis City and County. For that privilege we are forced to pay a one-percent “Head Tax” by the city, an income tax in Missouri where we earn our living, an income tax in Illinois if our spouses work here, federal taxes on both, and local sales taxes. What? Do you think we drive back to Illinois for lunch everyday?
The state of Missouri even taxes your newspapers. So much for your claim to fame as a low-tax state!
Don’t even get me started on politics in Jefferson City. Central Missouri, politely referred to as “outstate,” would rather St. Louis and Kansas City didn’t exist. If he could, your governor would sell St. Louis to finance the rest of the state. Your boneheaded legislature dominated by outstate rubes, still control the Big City’s police department because of the Civil War, so let’s not go there.
Let me shed some light on where I’m coming from. The people who cross the Mississippi River consist of three categories: commuters, commerce and tourists. (No, I didn’t forget the St. Louis executives and leaders lunch at the topless bars daily. I just can’t decide which category they fit into.)
Now pay attention because here is where it gets complicated. If you build a bridge across the Mississippi River and charge a toll to cross it, the people who cross it every day, won’t use it. Why not? Because all the other bridges are FREE! Pretty sophisticated, huh?
So, if they don’t use it, that leaves the other two groups in the category, which means, your anti-tax state will be taxing interstate commerce and tourism.
Now having lived and worked in Missouri, as well as promoted it for some years to the rest of the world, I know that the last thing Missouri wants is a reputation as being anti-business and anti-tourism. So where does that leave us?
In attempting to cut off your nose to spite your face, you will be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. (That from an Ozark dialect I learned from a legislator from Carthage) It means, by trying to create a user tax on Illinoisan citizens, what the Missouri legislature will have achieved is to place a tax on the goods being shipped to and from Missouri companies! That isn’t exactly in the Chamber of Commerce good idea book, is it? Not to mention that many over-the-road truckers go through downtown St. Louis because it’s shorter than going around it. With a toll-booth slowdown and a fee, those truck drivers will think twice about the route to their destination. I’m sure the truck stop owners will benefit when they get bypassed.
Grandma and grandpa in their Winnebago also will be forced to pay a tourism tax because I-70 is the fastest east-west route through St. Louis, and Mobile Homes aren’t Hondas when it comes to gas mileage.
Yes. Missouri, despite the Victorian Hancock Amendment, you can find the money to pay your portion of a bridge that you need more than we do. Now that the Highway 40/Interstate 64 project is scaled back, why not scrap it entirely? Nobody wants it except for your Transportation Department Director and it isn’t even needed. For decades you failed to maintain the McKinley Bridge, from which Illinois had to bail you out, but we learn fast over here in the Prairie State. Once fooled….
You don’t have to Show Me what kind of ballgame is being played here. We didn’t pay for the Jones Dome or Busch Stadium and we aren’t going to pay your share of a new bridge to Missouri either.
Fed Up (GU) In Illinois
As a geographical undesirable (GU) from Illinois, I have personally experienced the social conceit and undeserved arrogance that Missouri legislators and some of its so-called civic leaders dump on people from anywhere else. My answer when asked where I went to high school leaves most Missourians with a typical blank expression on their faces. No, I’m not from the Show Me State. I’m from the much bigger, richer and more sophisticated Land of Lincoln, so stow the Confederate war flag in the back of your beat up pickup and listen up.
Lately the hillbillies in the Missouri legislature have been trying to stiff the residents of my great state by demanding a toll to cross the river from Illinois into Missourah or Missouree! Perhaps their third-world education system failed them when it comes to economics or sociology. Let me help you out a little.
Illinoisans already pay our share of taxes in your backward state and we don’t intend to pay any more for nothing. You see, about 100,000 of us work in St. Louis City and County. For that privilege we are forced to pay a one-percent “Head Tax” by the city, an income tax in Missouri where we earn our living, an income tax in Illinois if our spouses work here, federal taxes on both, and local sales taxes. What? Do you think we drive back to Illinois for lunch everyday?
The state of Missouri even taxes your newspapers. So much for your claim to fame as a low-tax state!
Don’t even get me started on politics in Jefferson City. Central Missouri, politely referred to as “outstate,” would rather St. Louis and Kansas City didn’t exist. If he could, your governor would sell St. Louis to finance the rest of the state. Your boneheaded legislature dominated by outstate rubes, still control the Big City’s police department because of the Civil War, so let’s not go there.
Let me shed some light on where I’m coming from. The people who cross the Mississippi River consist of three categories: commuters, commerce and tourists. (No, I didn’t forget the St. Louis executives and leaders lunch at the topless bars daily. I just can’t decide which category they fit into.)
Now pay attention because here is where it gets complicated. If you build a bridge across the Mississippi River and charge a toll to cross it, the people who cross it every day, won’t use it. Why not? Because all the other bridges are FREE! Pretty sophisticated, huh?
So, if they don’t use it, that leaves the other two groups in the category, which means, your anti-tax state will be taxing interstate commerce and tourism.
Now having lived and worked in Missouri, as well as promoted it for some years to the rest of the world, I know that the last thing Missouri wants is a reputation as being anti-business and anti-tourism. So where does that leave us?
In attempting to cut off your nose to spite your face, you will be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. (That from an Ozark dialect I learned from a legislator from Carthage) It means, by trying to create a user tax on Illinoisan citizens, what the Missouri legislature will have achieved is to place a tax on the goods being shipped to and from Missouri companies! That isn’t exactly in the Chamber of Commerce good idea book, is it? Not to mention that many over-the-road truckers go through downtown St. Louis because it’s shorter than going around it. With a toll-booth slowdown and a fee, those truck drivers will think twice about the route to their destination. I’m sure the truck stop owners will benefit when they get bypassed.
Grandma and grandpa in their Winnebago also will be forced to pay a tourism tax because I-70 is the fastest east-west route through St. Louis, and Mobile Homes aren’t Hondas when it comes to gas mileage.
Yes. Missouri, despite the Victorian Hancock Amendment, you can find the money to pay your portion of a bridge that you need more than we do. Now that the Highway 40/Interstate 64 project is scaled back, why not scrap it entirely? Nobody wants it except for your Transportation Department Director and it isn’t even needed. For decades you failed to maintain the McKinley Bridge, from which Illinois had to bail you out, but we learn fast over here in the Prairie State. Once fooled….
You don’t have to Show Me what kind of ballgame is being played here. We didn’t pay for the Jones Dome or Busch Stadium and we aren’t going to pay your share of a new bridge to Missouri either.
Fed Up (GU) In Illinois
posted by Jim | 8:49 PM
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