Creating and maintaining good jobs and promoting a decent quality of life come from providing quality education from preschool through college, ensuring a solid safety net for when times are hard, and investing in reliable infrastructure, but Missouri is heading in the opposite direction.
In fiscal year 2016, which begins on July 1st, Missouri will be well short of the resources necessary to fully fund the K-12 education funding formula, and when the tax reductions passed last year begin to go into effect, the state’s finances will become far worse.
Even before the 2014 tax cuts go into effect, Missouri is facing general revenue tax levels that are at near record lows. Since 1993, Missouri has cut taxes more than 20 times, resulting in more than a $1 billion loss to general revenue in fiscal year 2014.
Were last year’s 
general revenue collections the same proportion of the economy as in 2003 (which was not even a high point), the state would have been able to fully fund K-12 education and meet many other state needs that would have helped strengthen the Missouri economy.
