Two hundred and fifty years ago this Independence Day, a band of patriots stood up to the most powerful empire on earth. The grievances were many, but the match that lit the powder keg was taxation. The Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, the tea duties were all impositions that were almost laughably modest by today’s standards. Historians estimate colonists bore a total tax burden of roughly one to two percent of their income. For that, they declared independence, bled at Valley Forge, and built our great republic.

Now put yourself in any Missourian’s backyard this Fourth of July and consider the irony.

The average Missourian lighting off fireworks to celebrate their independence from the Brits in 2026 has already run a gauntlet of taxation before the first fuse is lit. Their wages were taxed by the federal government, then Missouri took its share  (up to 4.7 percent of every dollar earned). The money that remains after the government’s theft continues to be taxed: on the home you live in, on property you own, on your vehicles, on the goods you buy, etc. When that Missourian drives to their nearest fireworks stand (if their jurisdiction hasn’t tyrannically banned those yet), their dollar they originally worked so hard to make has been taxed so many times that our founders would not have recognized this arrangement as “freedom;” it might have recognized it as the very tyranny they died to escape.

The layers of taxation a modern Missourian faces are not merely numerous, they are philosophically offensive in a way that tends to get lost in the numbness of annual filing. Income tax does not just take a portion of what you earn. Rather, it asserts a government claim on the fruits of your labor before you ever see them. Personal property tax does not merely fund services, it tells you that the truck in your driveway, the tractor in your field, is never quite yours as you continue to pay rent to the “king” for owning it. When you spend money that has already survived all of these extractions, you pay again. The colonists called this taxation without representation. We call it just your average day in “the land of the free.”

Our founders were clear about what government was for and what it was not for. They believed that a man’s labor was his own, that property was an extension of liberty, and that government existed to protect both; not to perpetually skim from them. Thomas Jefferson wrote not of economic policy but of self-evident truth when he described the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The pursuit Jefferson wrote about requires resources. Those resources require earnings. In Missouri, those earnings are stripped layer by layer before a man can provide for his family, inconsistent with the vision the founders bled to build.

This August 4th, just weeks after Missouri’s 250th Fourth of July celebration, voters will have a rare and concrete chance to actually do something about it.

Amendment 5 would create a constitutional framework to phase out and eventually eliminate Missouri’s individual income tax through a revenue-trigger mechanism tied to state economic growth.  A “yes” vote requires that if the legislature updates our archaic taxation structure and goes after items not taxed today like data centers, video lottery devices, online porn sites like Only Fans, businesses swapping human labor for artificial intelligence, that is there must be a corresponding reduction in the income tax rate. Our path to zero income tax will also be expedited by large reductions in spending and reversing course on all the crony capitalist business handouts (tax credits) that legislatures in years past have doled out as favors to their donors. Missouri’s income tax currently reaches up to 4.7 percent for individual taxpayers and eliminating it would mean that Missourians keep more of what they earn from the first dollar forward.

Opponents will argue the math doesn’t work, that services will be gutted, that someone else will end up paying more. While some of these are legitimate questions that deserve honest debate, which has taken place at town hall after town hall across this state, let’s not lose sight of the philosophical question underneath this debate which deserves equal attention: Is it right, in the nation founded on the proposition that taxation requires justification, to permanently claim a portion of every Missourian’s earned income as a condition of living and working in this state?Our nation’s founders answered that question 250 years ago… with muskets!

Supporters of Amendment 5 argue that Missouri’s neighboring states have been lowering their income tax rates and have attracted job creators, new residents, and an increase in tourism to their states. If Missouri  eliminates our income tax rate entirely it can replicate the success that Tennessee has had as Amendment 5 also requires a dollar-for-dollar offset in local property tax if local governments begin to see also creases in their revenue. Missouri can join our neighbors with no income tax, no property tax, and witness a tremendous amount of growth in our region as a result as people and prosperity will return  to Missouri.  But the more durable argument is older than economics. It is the argument written into the Declaration itself — that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, and that among the first principles of a free people is control over the money they earn!

This Independence Day, raise a glass to the men and women who bought this republic at a price we can barely fathom. Then, on August 4th, vote YES on Amendment 5 and restore our founders’ vision of this republic. Not because it solves everything. Not because every implementation detail is perfect. But because two hundred and fifty years after the founders declared that a man’s earnings are his own, it would be something to mean it.