A Platform Built on Ownership, Transparency, and Constitutional Government
My platform starts with a simple conviction: government should protect the people who work, build, own property, and keep Missouri communities alive. These priorities reflect that standard — lower taxes without gimmicks, stronger property rights, Missouri-first economic policy, and a future where more workers can become owners instead of being left behind by insider politics and out-of-state interests.
Policy Priorities
Lower taxes without gimmicks or constitutional shortcuts. Politicians have been promising tax relief for decades while Missouri's budget has grown from $29.6 billion when my opponent took office to over $53.8 billion today. I support lower taxes, but I oppose HJR 173 and 174 because they promise to eliminate the income tax someday while immediately expanding sales taxes to services and weakening Hancock Amendment voter protections. My plan is direct: a 2.5 percent flat income tax, elimination of special-interest tax credits, and a statutory cap on budget growth. Same rate. Same rules. No constitutional shortcuts. No shell games.
Your home should finally be yours. My Mortgage Payoff Homestead Exemption starts from a simple belief: when you make that final mortgage payment on your primary residence, ownership should mean something. Under Missouri's current system, families can pay off a house and still face rising real estate taxes and assessments year after year. My proposal would exempt a primary residence from real estate taxes once the mortgage is fully satisfied and recorded, for as long as it remains your home. Not a discount. Not a deferral. An end to the obligation — because families and retirees should not be taxed out of homes they already paid for.
Keep Missouri business in Missouri hands. Missouri already has procurement laws meant to give preference to Missouri businesses, but Jefferson City too often treats them like suggestions. At the same time, family farms are assessed on speculative value instead of productivity, while taxpayer dollars flow out of state and local businesses struggle to compete. I will push to enforce Missouri-first procurement, protect agricultural land assessment under existing Missouri law, and fight the kind of regulatory cronyism that tried to crush Missouri’s small hemp businesses to protect politically connected competitors. I know this fight personally — because they came after mine.
A thousand more McCarthys. Missouri is heading into a wave of small business ownership transitions as longtime owners retire. Too often those businesses are sold to outside buyers or closed outright, which breaks local roots, scatters workers, and strips communities of businesses that took decades to build. I have seen the alternative firsthand. I want to expand Missouri’s existing ESOP foundation, create a Missouri Small Business Ownership Transition Fund, and prioritize employee-owned Missouri businesses in state procurement. The goal is simple: keep Missouri businesses in Missouri hands, and keep Missouri workers as Missouri owners.
Across all four of these issues, my standard is the same: honest government, constitutional limits, and policies that reward work, ownership, and local accountability instead of insider favoritism. I am not running to manage decline or preserve a system that benefits lobbyists and politically connected interests. I am running to defend taxpayers, protect property, and build a Missouri economy where families can own more of what they earn and keep more of what they build.
