" I stnd for the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Good reading, you should check it out. They are the foundation for our Republic." You know the government's right to tax is in the Constitution, so I guess you don't stand for everything in the Constitution, only the things you prefer. Interesting.

Revere Paul, You should study the Constitution and Bill of Rights more.
-The Constitution does not give anyone rights, it is a document that explains rights given simply because you are a person.
-The government has no rights. The Constitution states the rights of the individual and is actually written to take power AWAY from government.
- The government has no rights, hence no right to tax. It has the power to tax, but power in itself is not a right, and can be taken away or in fact, never given.
People have rights, not the government. The Bill of Rights and the Constitution explain and outline those rights given to the people, and limits the power of the government. It was created to limit government, since government is inherently an evil entity, but necessary. It seems absurd to give rights to a government that individuals wanted to keep powerless.

Much better put Louis, thank you.

Now that would raise some money.

Nicely put Susan because sometimes they don't ask.

They do charge admission to go up in the Arch, although the Westward Expansion museum is free. Not to say I'm for the tax. Just thought I'd point that out.

This tax isn't for the operation of the Arch. It is to build a lid over highway 70.

3/16 of a cent is nothing. It's when you add in the 50 other 3/16 of a cent that we start talking money. And in another year, another 3/16 cent. And another year. another...and another, and another, and another.

The problem with all specific taxes is that once passed, the money does in fact go to the specified cause. The problem is that the funding that used to be allocated from the general funds previously is cut by the exact same amount or more .This trick has been perpetrated again and again. Look at 'gambling revenue for education' to see how this will play out again.

I have no problem with use or access fees with reduced rates for those of us that are already paying for it with our local taxes.

Let's fix the arch, who cares if it means creating more poverty surrounding it?
Taxes don't fix everything. If you'd look at where they come from & what's happening to those people, you should be able to see that they don't fix anything, but have the direct-opposite effect.
How many more taxes would it take for you embicils to see that they are the very reason you have to "resurrect" the city.
Ask yourself this. If tax-increases are always the answer, then how is it that every time the "current tax-cuts" are set to expire that we run into a "fiscal-cliff", or have to raise the debt ceiling?
I get that you haters will always hate, especially when you don't understand cause & effect. But trying to attack the Tea Party like they aren't on YOUR side is just the programmed verson of ignorant. I think you have them mixed-up with Occupy.
When the Tea-Party assembles, it's peaceful, self-sufficient, organized, civil, aware of the issues pertaining to the economy & they clean-up afterwards.
Occupy deficates on police cars, has sex in the streets, leaves trash everywhere, breaks the law, abuses the resources of others (whom they are protesting, mind you), destroys property, disrupts commerce, etc.
It basically boils-down to you hating people because they are aware of what has been crashing this economy for 20 years, and you aren't.

I never say I'm from St. Louis. I say Creve Coeur. My daughter and I were touring a college in New Orleans recently. A lady from Indiana asked the student tour guide whether it was safe there. The kid hemmed and hawed for a while and said, "well, it is an urban area, so you always have to be aware, but, its nothing like St. Louis, or anything like that." Yeah, I want to brag about being from there.

No, I don't live East of Skinker. I do not live in "St. Louis," and I will not vote to pay taxes to it. You may not care about Creve Coeur, but the people who live here do.

I don't have to care about Creve Coeur - but the people of Creve Coeur, the people of St. Charles, the people of Kirkwood, the people of Florissant, the people of O'Fallon, the people of Belleville would have it in their best interest to care about the City of Saint Louis. As STL goes, so goes the region. That's really all there is to it.

You may not care about Creve Coeur, just like I don't really care about wherever it is you live. However, the people who live here do.

What city anchors the region, then, if not STL? Because by all appearances STL is increasingly the place to be for the forseeable future even if it wasn't from the '60s until a decade ago. Increasing housing prices, increasing incomes, more and more neighborhoods gentrifying, more business, a downtown on the edge of exploding. A consistently lower crime rate than in the '70s, '80s, and '90s. Millenials and transplants reclaiming it. All the pieces are in place. The suburbs and exurbs are tomorrow's ghettos.

I don't see much tourism happening for areas outside STL city limits. Nobody is saying, "Ooooh! Arnold! I've always wanted to go there! I hear the scenery/restaurants are amazeballs!" Doesn't happen.All those folks are passing through our 'burbs to get to STL City, and the best we can hope is they'll stop here for fuel or supplies or to eat craptastic chain food. If we don't all chip in to maintain our city treasures, you can be sure even that nugget of money will decline and our suburban economies will suffer.

Folks, I have travelled to every major market in this country. Guess what? Mom and Pop Cleveland, Ohio are not sitting around the kitchen table saying, "hey, how about St. Louis, this year?" Unless someone is going to pass a bond issue for some mountains or an ocean, St. Louis is a regional tourist destination, at best. Nobody is going to come, or not come here whether the arch has a lid over 70, or if it remains difficult to traverse. This local fixation with tourism is a waste of time and a delusion foisted by the few people here who actually do make a buck on it. I don't make a dime on tourism and I am tired of subsidizing it. We should focus on generating real, substantial jobs so our people can afford to actually go to Orlando, instead of wishing we'd turn into it.

The CityArchRiver project has very little to do with tourism and very much to do with making the downtown riverfront a cohesive part of the city. The interstate effectively cuts off the river from downtown residents (in the DT census tract alone, the population has increased from 800 to 4000 since 2000) were added and is a huuuuuuuuge eyesore, especially now that the interstates can soon connect on the east side without cutting through downtown. The longer term goals of this project have been to eliminate the elevated and depressed parts of I-70 altogether so that near north, bottle district, Laclede's landing, and DT are all connected to one another and walkable, unlike today's scenario, where the interstate cuts a huge gash through DT. In addition to better connectivity to GRG river trails and the new Trestle.

Yes we know. The standard psuedo-enlightened pre-recorded cry of self-indulgence & name-calling from the ignorant masquerading as informed.
Maybe the problem is thinking the 21st century is the only one. There were a lot of centuries that led-up to the 21st. Here's where your idiology has worked during that time: Nowhere. Ever. There are endless examples of failure. None have ended well. All have ended & most ended ugly. Yet, you all continue to name-call & posture against anyone who knows it isn't wise to try it again.
PS- Here in Missouri, we have a politician that exploited poor people & programs just like this to put almost $60 million dollars in her own pocket, but since she isn't labeled as a "tea-partying hillbilly", you all re-elected her & put in charge of MORE of our tax dollars. Now, you same fools who praised her for doing it & voted for her again, want to pretend there just aren't enough tax dollars & are asking for more. It doesn't seem like there aren't enough, it just seems that you haven't the first clue what is happening to those tax-dollars, or what history shows is inevitable once a government gets this big.
I'm still waiting on an example of where your idiology hasn't failed miserably throughout history. I'm sure I will continue waiting, but will most surely get a personal attack instead, that I'm sure is somehow supposed to mean just as much as having actual information. It will though, be a perfect example of how the "enlightened" actually behave.

I'll be glad to accept any evidence you have that "there is a such thing as taxes being too low", and how the people (ALL people, not just your segregated, selected little groups, but ALL people) keeping more of their money hasn't worked-out better for them.
Do communities with money need someone else to come-in & insure that they live in nice places? No. The whole premise is broken. Your government-dependence mentality is speeding excessively in the wrong direction.
The most economically screwed-up & unstable states in this union are IL, CA, & NY. All Blue. All with higher per-capita taxes than we have.
Sorry, just another (21st century) example of how your idiology results ONLY in failure, and NEVER (not even 1 exception) success.
If facts & history don't mean anything to you, there's no point in bothering.

Feel free to donate as much of your money to the Federal Government as you like. "Improving" if that's what you call it, the area around the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial will do squat for "the region". They will squander the millions based on what ever formula for which ever special contractors and yeild minimal or no results for the "Region". We pay over 9% in sales tax now, where does it end? It doesn't. Have you ever seen local Governments propose a decrease in taxes? NOT! Enough taxes! Have you read what the "Fiscal Cliff" rescue plan does to our taxes? More, more more...... ENOUGH!

Even with that 8.49% sales tax, you still enjoy some of the lowest taxes in the country, so stop whining. In Little Rock, Arkansas, (a city I just randomly selected) you also pay about 8.5% in sales tax on non-food items. In St. Charles, the sales tax is about 7.5% a whole - GASP - one percent lower! What onerous usury! In MO, state taxes average $1700 or so per capita, and only 4 states pay less. Our more prosperous midwestern neighbors in IA pay about $2400, in MN about $3500, in IL about $2200, and in WI about $2700. In our southern neighbor Arkansas, you pay $2700 a year in state taxes on average, too. In MN, the parks, the schools, the roads, the courts, the transportation, the river management, etc - are top notch, and it makes a huge difference in quality of life and is worth every penny. You cannot have a well-functioning society if you don't properly fund the infrastructure and civic institutions. It just doesn't work. So yeah, this notion that you can live in Missouri and somehow be overtaxed, is nothing but a bunch of paranoid teaparty voodoo BS. Get over it.

Forget it Marc
These are people who can't seem to figure-out that this entire fiscal-cliff garbage happens every time our current tax CUTS are supposed to end. They can't figure out that those tax CUTS are apparently the only thing that's been keeping this economy going as long as it has. Each time these CUTS are set to expire, that's when the panic begins. Can no one see the relationship here? They are even admitting to you, that raising taxes will be what crashes this economy for good, but these people on here appear to be seeking just that.

This fiscal cliff garbage is what happens when a bunch of inbred morons who don't understand the difference between macroecon and microecon are elected to office.

So "The Missourian" wants to be like all of those other states. I wonder if he/she explored the condition of any of those examples. I know I saw IL in there.

Here are just a couple of 2012 Headlines addressing IL...
- Illinois Again Tops List of States With Highest Move Outs
- Illinois Pols Put-Off Paying State Debts. . .Again
- Illinois Retailers Brace For Disappointing Sales
- Illinois Seniors To Lose Prescription Assistance
- 31 percent of 1st-Quarter IL Home Sales Were Foreclosures
- Illinois New Laws Cover Everything From Fins to Facebook
How many more you want?

Just an additional note: Fiscal Cliff Explained in Plain English:
US Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000
New debt: $1,650,000,000,000
National debt: $16,271,000,000,000
Recent budget cuts: $38,500,000,000

Let's now remove 8 zeros & pretend it's a household budget:
Annual family income: $21,700
Money the family spent: $38,200
New debt on the credit card: $16,500
Balance owed on the credit card: $162,710
Total budget cuts so far: $3.85

Here's another way to look at it:
You come home from work and find there has been a sewer
backup in your neighborhood & your home has sewage all the way up to
your ceilings. What do you do? Raise the ceilings, or remove the crap?
Do you start mopping, or do you fix the broken plumbing first?
PS – Your Federal Government got both of those answers wrong.

Your logic & reason is no good here Marc, you whiner. hehe

^ In every case but Arkansas, per capita GDP - minus taxes and per capita state debt - exceeds MO by anywhere from $2k to $7k. So yeah, I have. MO is the poor man of the bunch. And MO's economy grew by a measly .04% last year, well behind the national average of 1.5%.

And FYI, "fiscal cliff" refers to the chart or graph line of the federal budget/deficit. It would have been a sudden sharp vertical line segment on the chart.

I can't figure why the Missourian makes a case for "our neighbor has higher taxes, so we should too" - don't make a bit of sense. I've been hearing that argument in a lot of speeches, and it never fails to amaze me. What about them lowering their taxes to match our? Would that even make any sense at all? I got a better one - most states have 100 counties...100 mayors, 100 police chiefs...you know...how about we cut them down to 10? Guaranteed we'd be paying the LOWEST tax rates in the midwest, and probably get better service...

Missourian,
So because everyone else pays more we should just shut up and pay more? Maybe the "whining" helps keep us at a lower rate. Maybe they're at a higher rate of taxation because they simply take it. Basically, Missouri stands up to bullies wanting our lunch money and the states you list hand it over...so you want us to be like the other states and just hand it over? One thing I never understood about taxes...........it is OUR money...PEOPLE work for THEIR money, It is an individual's time, it is that individuals know how, it is that person's work ethic and their drive that makes money.......so please explain how ANY of that money is anyone else's? If I came up to your home and told you you have to give me 10 percent of the money you have with the possibility I may want more in the future, you would laugh in my face, how is it ok for the government to do the same?

Follow the leader what? Have I not been clear? Spend a year or two in Minnesota or Iowa, and just for kicks spend some time in Brownbackistan to see the wrong way of doing things, then come back to Missouri and tell me with a straight face that this state has its priorities in order. It does not. If you want nice things, they cost money. Missouri has been slipping for years. We've seen the hillbilly way, it eats goat anus, please return us to the 21st century.

Maybe those states don't lower their taxes because they've collectively (and correctly) come to the conclusion that there is such a thing as taxes being too low. Maybe they like having responsive and effective government, world class parks and public amenities, great schools and universities, safe roads, and countless other things. Maybe the people just have a stronger sense of patriotism and community.

Honestly, I don't understand you tea partiers at all. You put some stupid tax rate - a number on paper - ahead of results. Is it not enough to say that in all of the above states that after taxes and public debt are taken out of the picture, GDP and incomes are STILL HIGHER than in MO. IL and MN are increasing their share of Fortune 500 companies, despite the higher taxes, while MO's share is decreasing. It's quality of life. Get that through your thick-to-solid heads. If you want nice things, you have to pay for them. If you want to sit around in your shed, polishing a knife, stringing up jerky, waiting for the apocalypse, while you talk to other "patriots" on the shortwave or whatever, that's your deal. But get out of the way.

cry me a river Marc, sack up

http://www.recovery.gov/Transparency/RecoveryData/Pages/RecipientReportedDataMap.aspx?stateCode=MO&PROJSTATUS=NPC&AWARDTYPE=CGL#

MO should have never let the gaming industry in because it's the gaming industry. On principle alone.

I can encapsulate all TP arguments into two words: "me! mine." Wrong. "We. Ours." You all think you built the hospital you were born in, invented the drugs that keep you healthy, and created the economic and cultural backdrop leading up to your success. It is, always has been, and always will be a group effort. In the west we call that group effort "government." So suck it.

Haha high praise for a group that has Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann in it. Can't wait till Momma Bear runs the country.

We're not afraid of her. We're find it incredulous that she has plural followers.