Sales-tax holiday after Thanksgiving would be big boost

This past legislative session saw this writer championing a measure called the sales-tax holiday bill. A concept that has worked well in six other states (including Texas and Florida, where the governors Bush signed it into law) plus New York City, sales-tax holiday is simply the suspension of sales taxes on purchases of $100 or less. This would last -- according to my original proposal -- for a nine-day period in August as parents are preparing their children for the return of school. The loss of revenue to cities and counties would be made up by the state. Our bill passed the Senate with relative ease only to die in the House as Democratic leaders didn't see it as a priority.

Championing this bill forged a strange, blue-moon alliance between this writer and Democratic Sen. Ken Jacob of Columbia, perhaps the Senate's leading liberal and a fairly frequent, often bitter antagonist. (Under criticism from the we've-never-done-it-this-way-before-and-therefore-can-never do-it-this-way crowd, in order to pass the bill we shortened the holiday period down to only four days -- essentially a long weekend of sales-tax relief. This is the version that rather easily passed the Senate. Later this summer, responding to inquiries from KSDK-Channel 5 on the proposal, Gov. Bob Holden replied that if the bill ever reached his desk, he would sign it.)

What's not to like? Hard-pressed working parents of little schoolchildren, their grandparents and extended family can do a little shopping for much-needed clothes and school items and save, for a few days, on the taxes. The sales-tax-dependent localities are made whole by the state, which loses a lousy few million bucks. The retailers love this proven boost to them and to consumers, made giddy by the savings.

Following the Sept. 11 terror attacks, our failed proposal has taken on new life at, of all places, the national level: the federal government. Of course, all the sales-tax action is at the state and local level, there being no national sales tax. Friends and allies at St. Louis-based May Co., the nation's largest department-store retailer, informed me a few weeks back of the federal effort. A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers is trying to pass a federal bill declaring that the feds would hold harmless any state that enacted a sales-tax holiday for a period following Thanksgiving, as the Christmas shopping season really gets going. The idea, I am informed, is being pitched to give the economy a post-Sept. 11 boost as we need it most. Supporters had in mind including this attractive proposal in the president's stimulus package, versions of which are moving their way through both the House and Senate.

Opening the morning papers the last day of October, readers found a wire story relating that two senators, one Republican and one Democrat, are pushing such a bill to enact a 10-day sales-tax holiday beginning after Thanksgiving. These would be Sen. Petty Murray, D-Wash., and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. My sources tell me that U.S. Rep. Lindsay Graham, R-South Carolina, who gained fame during the impeachment of the last president, is pushing hard to convince the House leadership and the White House to get on board in a big way.

A necessity will be swift action by Missouri's chief executive, in whom exclusive power to call us into special session resides. My guess is we could go up there and pass it in 72 hours, go home, and be enjoying a delightfully stimulating tax holiday inside a month.

Your move, governor.

Peter Kinder is assistant to the chairman of Rust Communications and president pro tem of the Missouri Senate.