Like I say at the begining… I'mnot the greatest public speaker, but I am getting better!

The bottom line really is that we all need to work together to build this community back the way we want it. And if you have ears and a mouth and want to talk, I'm open to it.

Do you mean to tell me that 4000 people around the Lake could change the direction of this district? That 4000 people could show that we want to Put People First and actually have a say in our own future?!

4000 people could change everything in November 2026.

Are you one of the 4000? 👀

#smalls #missouri #lakeoftheozarks #putpeoplefirst #badediting

I don't know if I believe Jeff really wants us to have a choice.

#PutPeopleFirst #District123 #Missouri #HD123 #ElectHutch

As we said in the military: This Video is the BLUF: The Bottom Line Up Front. If you don’t want to read the whole article. Take a listen to the 6 minute overview and then focus specifically on the infographics below.

I spent 20 years in uniform.

I wore five different uniforms in that time — not because the mission changed, but because we had the money.

I watched chairs get replaced every two years.

Not because they were broken.

Because we had to spend the budget or lose it next year.

I watched a unit during GWOT buy all new tools and equipment they didn’t need — brand new, still in the crates — because someone up the chain said use it before we lose it.

And in my first year working requirements, I flagged a $20 million fraud, waste, and abuse issue and stopped it before it could go on further— redirecting that money to a new operations floor for 3 sectors that actually needed it.

I know what war costs.

• Not just in dollars — in people.

• In families.

• In towns that never fully come back.

So when I saw this budget — $1.5 trillion for the Pentagon, a 42% increase — I got angry about what we are going to lose.

About Camden County.

About the people I talk to every Friday morning who are already stretched thin.

Here’s what this budget says out loud: the war comes first.

You come last.

And for an Administration that runs on America First- I’m not seeing it.

Why would we hand them GWOT-level money all over again — when I watched with my own eyes what was done with it?

Trump said it himself, on April 1st:

“We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of daycare... It’s not possible for us to take care of Medicaid, Medicare.”

That’s his policy statement. And every line of this budget backs it up.

$1.5 trillion for the Pentagon. A 42% increase. And here’s how they plan to pay for it.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR CAMDEN COUNTY

• Rural hospitals.

  • We already have 55% of Missouri’s rural hospitals operating at a loss.

  • Twelve have closed since 2014.

  • The Medicaid cuts alone cost Missouri an estimated $23 billion over the next decade — and now add $5 billion cut from public health programs, $5 billion from medical research, and $356 million from emergency preparedness. Lake Regional Health System serves this county do you think they are going to benefit from any federal dollars coming in when the cities are right there?

• Your heating bill.

  • LIHEAP — the program that helped low-income seniors and families pay for heat and air conditioning — is completely eliminated with this budget.

    • $4 billion. Gone.

  • The weatherization program that saved families $372 a year on utilities?

    • Also gone. Meanwhile Ameren keeps raising rates.

• Your kids’ school.

  • $8.5 billion cut from public education.

  • Rural schools funding eliminated.

  • Vocational training eliminated.

  • Before- and after-school programs gutted.

  • Camdenton R-III is already working with tight margins.

• Broadband.

  • The $2.2 billion cut to NTIA — the agency managing BEAD — means the internet access Camden County was promised gets pushed further away.

    • The EDA, which funded rural economic development grants, is gone entirely.

• Your roads and water.

  • $15.2 billion cut from roads and bridges.

• $2.5 billion cut from clean water infrastructure.

  • The west side of the Lake already needs water and sewer work. This makes that harder, not easier.

• Your business.

  • Rural small business loans — eliminated.

  • Community development block grants — eliminated.

  • Small business development programs — eliminated.

  • The infrastructure that helps local entrepreneurs start and grow: gutted.

• NOAA. Weather forecasting cut by $1.6 billion out of an already fleeced budget. For Tornado Alley- this is a travesty.

THE BOTTOM LINE

This is not about left or right. This is about math.

You cannot add $445 billion to the Pentagon and take it away from rural hospitals, schools, energy assistance, broadband, roads, and job programs — and tell us we’re better off.

I served so that others could live a comfortable life back at home.

So seniors didn’t have to choose between their heating bill and groceries so that the defense budget can hit $1.5 trillion.

So kids in my home state could go to schools and learn how to be better so we didn’t have to go through another GWOT timeline…

Washington is making their choice.

District 123 deserves a representative who will fight back for us here in Missouri.

“Put People First. Always.”

WHAT YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW

If this made you angry — good.

► Share this article. Send it to someone who needs to see it — your neighbor, your family, your Facebook feed.

► Talk about it. At the boat dock. At the hardware store. At the kitchen table.

► Come find me at Coffee Talk — Vinta-lit-ious Bookstore, Camdenton, every Friday morning 10:30-12 Noon.

► Call your elected officials in D.C. (For us, that’s Mark Alford)

► Follow along: Elect Cody Hutcheson District 123 on Substack and @HutchforMO on Facebook.

Bibliography: For The Readers!

All facts, figures, and statistics in this article are sourced from the following primary documents, congressional analyses, and credentialed reporting.

FEDERAL BUDGET DOCUMENTS

Trump Administration FY2027 Budget Request (Official White House Document, April 2026) whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/budget_fy2027.pdf

House Budget Committee Democrats — “Trump’s 2027 Budget Puts America Last” (April 2026) democrats-budget.house.gov

House Appropriations Committee Democrats — “Trump and Vought Propose Budget Worsening Cost-of-Living Crisis” (April 2026) democrats-appropriations.house.gov

Senate Appropriations Committee — Senator Murray Statement on FY2027 Budget (April 2026) appropriations.senate.gov

National Association of Counties — “White House Releases Budget Request for FY2027” (April 2026) naco.org

NADO — “President Trump Releases FY27 Budget Request” (April 2026) nado.org

Nextgov/FCW — “Trump’s FY27 Budget Makes Both Boosts and Cuts to Tech Operations” (April 2026) nextgov.com

HEALTHCARE, MEDICAID & RURAL HOSPITALS

Families USA — “President Trump’s 2027 Budget Proposes Even More Steep Cuts to Health Care” (April 2026) familiesusa.org

Georgetown University Center for Children and Families — “States Are Beginning to Grapple with Federal Medicaid Cuts” (March 2026) ccf.georgetown.edu

NBC News — “Rural Hospitals Brace for Painful Choices After Trump’s Medicaid and Obamacare Cuts” (July 2025) nbcnews.com

Newsweek — “What New Trump Budget Says About Social Security, Medicare and VA Benefits” (April 2026) newsweek.com

MISSOURI-SPECIFIC SOURCES

KCUR — “Missouri Wins $216 Million Federal Grant to Close Rural Health Gap, But Medicaid Cuts Loom” (January 2026) kcur.org

KBIA — “Federal Rural Health Funding Arrives as Missouri Faces Medicaid Cuts” (January 2026) kbia.org

The Beacon — “How Federal Medicaid Changes Will Affect MO HealthNet” (July 2025) thebeaconnews.org

The Beacon — “As Missouri Stares Down Medicaid Cuts, It Seeks Federal Rural Health Funding” (December 2025) thebeaconnews.org

Missouri Independent — “Federal Spending Bill Could Be ‘Devastating’ for Missouri Medicaid Patients, Rural Hospitals” (June 2025) missouriindependent.com

My Ozarks Online — “Rural Hospitals in Missouri Struggle to Turn a Profit. Medicaid Cuts Could Force Some to Close” (August 2025) myozarksonline.com

Empower Missouri — “Deep Federal Medicaid Cuts Will Eliminate Coverage, Increase Health Care Costs, and Jeopardize Rural Health” empowermissouri.org

BROADBAND & BEAD

Capital B News — “Broadband Program Changes Stir Uncertainty for Rural Black Communities” (March 2025) capitalbnews.org

Public Knowledge — “4 Ways the Trump Administration Has Sabotaged America’s Broadband Future” publicknowledge.org

Broadband Breakfast — “USDA, NTIA Receive Budget Cuts in Fiscal Year 2026” (October 2025) broadbandbreakfast.com

Light Reading — “2025 in Review: The BEAD Goes On” (December 2025) lightreading.com

EDUCATION

Education Week — “Trump Again Proposes Major Education Cuts in New Budget Proposal” (April 2026) edweek.org

Note: All sources accessed April 2026. Budget figures are from the proposed FY2027 Presidential Budget Request and are subject to congressional action. Proposed budgets do not become law until passed by Congress.

LET’S SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT

Before I officially announced, I ended up on live radio (KRMS) with a caller who decided to characterize my views for me.

I want to address that directly — because some of what was said was a distortion, and one thing I said myself didn’t come out the way I meant it.

• First, the fabrication.

I was called pro-pornography in libraries for children.

That is flatly false. It does not appear anywhere in my Substack.

It was not said on that radio call. I challenge anyone to find it — because it doesn’t exist. That kind of lie deserves to be named as one.

• Second, the socialist label.

What I actually said was that the military is a socialist-type institution — communal housing, communal healthcare, communal mission.

And I want those same basics extended to the people of this community.

If that makes me a socialist to you, I’d ask what you call the VA, the fire department, and the public road you drove here on.

My Catholic faith and my real-world views are sometimes at odds with each other.

That doesn’t make me sad.

It makes me think harder.

That’s exactly what my Catholic high school theology classes taught me to do — to sit with the tension, apply reason, and arrive at something honest.

I’m still doing that.

I think that’s called being a person of faith, not a hypocrite.

As your representative, my faith is mine.

Your faith is yours.

My job is to serve all of you — not to preach at any of you.

WHAT I ACTUALLY STAND FOR

I am pro-choice.

I am for everybody having the same rights.

I believe our judicial system should be a blank slate — that judges should look at each case with fresh eyes and the law in front of them, not a party behind them.

My job is to advocate for the lake area — to make sure we are the loudest voice in that building.

Right now, I don’t think we are.

What I see instead are priorities that benefit certain people around the lake, not everybody who lives here.

That’s not representation.

That’s not what you deserve.

Take minimum wage and paid sick time.

When those were on the table, we should have had open houses.

Real conversations.

Collaboration — finding a way to yes that worked for small businesses and the people grinding for them every day.

And then advocating LOUDLY for those revisions to the bill.

No one is fighting for you.

For the people out here trying to put food on the table in a seasonal economy.

That has to change.

WHY I’M STANDING UP

The Air Force taught me three things:

• Integrity first.

• Service before self.

• Excellence in all you do.

I lived that mantra for 20 years. It’s not a motto I recite. It’s just who I am. I managed teams. I managed multi-billion dollar projects and requirements. I know how to get things done.

In the Air Force we were also taught: if no one is volunteering, that’s your cue. I looked around. Nobody was standing up.

I know you’re tired. I’m tired too — extra tired, honestly. But nothing changes until somebody stands up and starts pushing. So I decided that somebody was going to be me.

It should not be four months in Jeff City and then ghosting people for the rest of the year — only showing up for the biggest donors.

That’s not representation.

That ends with me.

WHY I FIGHT

In the Air Force, I was asked a lot: why are you so stubborn?

Why do you fight so hard for your people — the most marginalized, the most undervalued? And I always told them the same thing: I’m stubborn because that’s how Missouri raised me. I am a Missourian, born and raised.

I will push and push and push until I get things done the way they’re supposed to be done.

All I’m asking is that you let me work for you. I know how to do this. And I would love nothing more than to do it for the state that taught me how.

Please know that I am a human.

My mouth has always gotten me into trouble.

I am not a politician.

I am an Airman.

I know how to complete a mission.

I do not know how to politick — and that interview shows it.

I’m sorry.

All I can say is that I will do better.

I will communicate more clearly.

And I will keep showing up — because that’s what Airmen do.

— Cody “Hutch” Hutcheson | Put People First. Always. | HD123

YOUR BROADBAND MONEY IS ABOUT TO LEAVE MISSOURI.

I have 1 GB fiber internet at my house in Camden County.

Co-Mo Connect put it there working with SW Electric Co-Op Infrastructure.

It is fast, it is reliable, and it stays on through the kind of weather that knocks everything else out.

Other folks in this district are road are on satellite, cell towers, DSL, or nothing. Same District. Same community. Different technological world.

There is $1.7 billion in federal BEAD money — Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment — sitting in limbo right now, theoretically meant to close that gap.

Missouri got the third largest allocation in the country.

Only California and Texas got more.

So why isn’t the gap closing? Why doesn’t the average Missourian know about this program, and why haven’t I heard of anyone Jeff City asking the right questions?

Well- I have been asking around... and this is what I’ve learned.

First — “Hutch You Worked In Air Defense, We Know!”

Well, did you know while working Air Defense for 20 full years in the military- I also spent 19 of those 20 years in the United States Air Force as an Advanced JICC Operator.

JICC stands for Joint Interface Control Cell.

In plain language: I was a multi-platform network architect and manager.

My job was making sure that communications systems from different branches, different nations, and different technology generations could talk to each other reliably under pressure — when failure was not an option.

Shortest description: I got targets to Jets and let Generals see in real time how those Jets would prosecute those targets.

I know the difference between a dedicated circuit and a shared pipe.

I know what happens when a network degrades under real load versus what it can do in ideal conditions.

I know how to read a coverage map and tell you what it isn’t showing you.

Most people talking about broadband policy in Jeff City don’t have that background.

I’m not saying that to be harsh.

I’m saying it because it matters — and because the gaps I’m about to describe are exactly the kind of thing that only shows up when someone who has actually built and managed networks looks at the plan.

Here’s what the plan is currently missing

The Trump administration restructured BEAD in June 2025, eliminating the fiber preference and declaring the program “technology neutral.” That opened the door for Starlink and Amazon’s Kuiper to compete for the same dollars that were supposed to build permanent fiber infrastructure.

On paper, that sounds like competition. Capitalism at its finest.

In practice, it is a technical disaster.

Here’s why — in plain terms.

Satellite is a shared pipe.

Fiber to your home is not.

When you have Co-Mo Connect fiber, that bandwidth is yours.

Your neighbor streaming a movie doesn’t slow you down. A hundred new people moving to the lake doesn’t degrade your service. The pipe is dedicated to your house.

Satellite is different.

Every subscriber under that satellite’s coverage beam is sharing the same capacity.

The more people who sign up in your area, the less each person gets.

When a storm keeps everyone home on a Tuesday and every dish in your coverage cell is online at once, everyone slows down together.

That is not an infrastructure problem — it is the physics of a shared medium, and no amount of marketing changes it.

Then there’s the geography problem.

Satellite needs a clear view of the sky. The Ozarks are not a parking lot. Deep wooded coves. Thick tree canopies. Rolling hills.

Many homes at the lake are tucked into the landscape by design.

A single tree between your dish and the sky degrades your signal.

Ice on the dish reduces reception.

And when a wind or ice storm takes out your power — which happens out here — your satellite internet goes dark at the exact moment you need emergency communication.

Satellite Does Not have a Battery Backup.

“But Hutch, when my power goes out, so does my internet!”

Yes, friend — it does, for two reasons.

• First, your home’s modem doesn’t have a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) attached for backup power.

• Second, most of the fiber lines out here are still run on poles — and we’ll get to that.

But the deeper point is this: fiber infrastructure nodes can be maintained on battery backup during an outage.

A satellite dish cannot.

When the grid goes down, satellite internet dies instantly — at the exact moment you need emergency communication most.

Solar Weather

We are at the peak of Solar Cycle 25. In May 2024, a major geomagnetic storm blacked out 40% of Starlink users nationwide and knocked 12 satellites out of orbit early. Buried fiber is completely immune to solar weather.

The cables under your yard don’t care about the sun.

The satellites overhead very much do.

Here’s something that should make every rural Missourian angry.

BEAD funding is allocated based on FCC broadband maps.

Those maps are built from provider self-reporting — meaning a satellite company can claim coverage over a huge area, and that entire area gets counted as “served” and removed from BEAD eligibility.

A nationwide audit found the FCC’s maps undercount unserved Americans by 33%.

The FCC says 19.6 million people lack broadband. The real number is closer to 26 million.

That mapping error could misdirect $14 billion in BEAD funds away from the communities that actually need them.

In other words: satellite providers can claim your neighborhood is covered, your neighborhood loses its BEAD eligibility, and you’re still sitting on a dish that goes dark every time it rains hard.

Covered on paper. Unserved in reality.

And what about your grandma who still lives out in the sticks?

Who is going to set up her Starlink dish?

You?

Is she a technical expert who understands how to troubleshoot satellite equipment and dish alignment?

Or is she going to stick that box in the corner and hope for the best?

And when gas, medicine, and food prices go up — will she pawn the Starlink dish to pay for her necessities? These are things I think about.

Because I know my Grandma Shirley wouldn’t be above doing exactly that.

This is not a policy debate.

This is real people in our District being handed an expensive, complicated, weather-dependent piece of equipment by an out-of-state corporation — and being told that counts as “served.”

But it shouldn’t count.

The Money is leaving Missouri

According to researched information on the FCC site, somewhere between 10 and 20% of Missouri's BEAD expansion homes statewide are expected to be allocated to low Earth orbit satellite providers like Starlink and Amazon Kuiper.

That means one in five rural Missouri homes that federal broadband dollars were supposed to reach could end up assigned to out-of-state satellite corporations — including homes right here in HD123

Starlink is owned by Elon Musk. SpaceX is headquartered in California.

Amazon Kuiper is a subsidiary of Amazon — headquartered in Seattle, Washington.

T-Mobile is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington.

Shoot even Charter/Spectrum is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut.

Every dollar that goes to these providers leaves Missouri.

Co-Mo Connect is owned by its members — your neighbors in Camden County.

Southwest Electric Cooperative is owned by its members.

Laclede Cooperative as well.

And all three local co-ops, work together to work for us.

The money stays here.

The infrastructure stays here.

The jobs stay here.

When something goes wrong, you talk to someone who lives here.

That is a fundamentally different relationship than a satellite dish pointed at a California corporation’s servers.

Co-Mo already proved the model works.

Starting in 2012, they built gigabit fiber to their membership before federal broadband funding programs existed — on their own, because their members needed it.

They have since used ARPA, and other grants to expand further into the Niangua Arm and beyond.

They are ready to keep going, shovel proverbially in hand. The technology is proven. The local accountability is built in.

What's standing in the way is federal program limbo — a restructured BEAD program with no clear timeline, out-of-state satellite companies demanding Missouri money without public accountability, and a state legislature that hasn't prioritized the fight.

What I’ll fight for in Jeff City

HD123 needs someone in Jeff City who understands this well enough to fight for the right outcome.

Not satellite.

Not 5G towers that can’t get through the tree line.

Fiber: in the ground — permanent, dedicated, locally owned, built to last generations.

Specifically that means: holding Missouri’s 81% fiber target as a floor and not letting SpaceX negotiate it down.

Requiring real performance guarantees from any provider that gets BEAD money.

Pushing for FCC map reform so satellite providers can’t claim coverage they can’t actually deliver.

Finding a fix to the pole attachment problem that’s blocking Co-Mo from expanding further into the Lake Area…

And keeping Missouri broadband dollars in Missouri.

The gap between my house and other folks in this District is not a technology problem.

The technology exists and it already works.

The gap exists because nobody in Jeff City is fighting hard enough to close it.

I’m running because I know what the fight looks like, I fought to modernize my architecture in the USAF for 20 years— and I will happily do it here, for our district.

If you would like to know more about BEAD and the hurdles that HD123 needs to clear to extend our broadband coverage I would direct you here: Google Document

Additionally, I would tell you to reach out to your local Co-Op and see what type of advocacy you can do on their behalf to ensure our services remain with our local providers.

And if you’re ready to help fight for real broadband in HD123 — reach out at electhutchmo123@gmail.com or find us at @HutchforMO on Facebook.

Cody Hutcheson | Candidate, Missouri House District 123 | Put People First. Always.

**More fun things I’m trying- tell me if you all like this video more than the audio only.

***If you are looking for my sources (and Acronym help!), please go to the link for the google document above and it will have everything for you.

The Hancock Amendment

Before you read another word, you need to understand one thing.

There is a reason Jeff Vernetti and his colleagues didn’t show up last night to explain their vote. It’s not just that this plan raises your taxes. It’s how they’re doing it.

They found a loophole in your constitutional rights. And they used it.

In 1980, Missouri voters passed the Hancock Amendment — Article X of the state constitution. The idea is simple. State and local government can’t grow tax revenue faster than inflation and population growth without a vote of the people. It was designed to put a leash on politicians who want to dig deeper into your pocket.

HJR 173 and 174 cut right around it.

Here’s how. The legislature already has the power to cut the income tax without asking you. But because of the Hancock Amendment, they can’t massively expand the sales tax to pay for those cuts without a statewide vote. So they got clever. They packaged the whole scheme as a constitutional amendment and put it on the November ballot — asking voters to hand them upfront permission to shift the tax burden from the wealthy to working people.

And here’s the part that should make your blood boil.

If voters approve it, future legislators get what Rep. Rudy Veit himself called “broad authority” to expand sales taxes to everyday services — without ever coming back to ask you again. No vote. No check. No leash.

Critics call it exactly what it is. Voters would be surrendering the very constitutional protections their parents and grandparents fought to put in place in 1980. One vague ballot question — and politicians get carte blanche to tax your haircut, your childcare, your car repair, your internet bill. Forever.

That’s what Jeff Vernetti voted for. And then he didn’t show up to explain it.

Timing Couldn’t Be Worse

Missouri is already staring down a $2 billion budget shortfall by fiscal year 2027. Here’s how we got there. During COVID, the federal government flooded states with emergency relief money. Missouri was able to bank massive amounts of its own revenue while the feds covered the bills. They built up a historic savings cushion.

That cushion is almost gone.

The state currently collects about $13.2 billion in general revenue but spends $15.5 billion. They’ve been quietly draining that savings account to cover the gap. The savings are nearly depleted. A $2 billion cliff is coming.

And instead of closing that gap, the politicians in Jeff City want to blow a $5 billion hole in the budget on top of it.

Here’s the thing that really ought to make you angry. Missouri is legally allowed to collect $4.4 billion more per year than it currently does — because of a decade of tax cuts that already blew past the Hancock limits in the other direction. There are also corporations making billions in profit right here in Missouri, using accounting tricks to drain their taxable income on paper before the state can collect a dime. Closing those corporate loopholes alone could fix the deficit without raising a single tax on working people.

But instead of doing that, they want to do this.

We invited five of our local state representatives and our state senator to come look us in the eye and explain their vote. We set out empty chairs for them right up front. Out of all of them, only two bothered to write back. Zero showed up.

That includes Jeff Vernetti. My opponent. The man who wants your vote for another term in the Missouri House. He told me he had a prior engagement. This wasn’t a partisan ambush. It was a bipartisan town hall — just neighbors asking their elected representative to come explain his vote. A chance for him to stand up and tell his constituents where he stands and why. That should have been more important than whatever he had going on. He voted YES on HJR 173 and HJR 174. Yes to the tax swap. Yes to jacking up your sales tax. Yes to making you pay more so the wealthy pay less. And when his own constituents asked him to come talk about it — he had somewhere else to be.

They’re calling it a big income tax cut.

But down here in the real world, it’s a bait and switch.

Amy Blouin from the Missouri Budget Project was there in person last night. She ran the math right in front of us. This scheme blows a $5 billion hole in the state budget. To make up for it, they have to crank the state and local sales tax through the roof. Right here in this part of Missouri, we could see our combined sales tax hit as high as 18.6%. Sales tax collections would have to more than triple — jumping from $3.1 billion to $11.1 billion.

That’s not a tax cut. That’s a gut punch to everyone who buys groceries, fills a gas tank, or pays a repair bill.

And it doesn’t stop there. They want to tax services too. Getting a haircut? Taxed. Childcare for your kids? Taxed. Getting your car fixed? Taxed. Your internet bill? Taxed. Vet services for your dog? Taxed. The list goes on and on — and remember, future legislators would have broad authority to keep adding to it without asking you.

Tax Stacking…

I call it tax stacking.

And it will destroy the construction industry.

Think about building a house. You hire a general contractor. That contractor hires subcontractors — a plumber, an electrician, a roofer, a drywaller. Each one is a 1099 independent contractor providing a service. Under this plan, every one of those services gets hit with a sales tax. But it doesn’t stop there. The general contractor takes each subcontractor’s taxed bill, adds their markup, and presents the final bill to the homeowner. And because the general contractor is providing a service to the homeowner, that final bill gets taxed again.

You are taxing the plumber’s tax.

It stacks at every single layer of the build.

Experts at last night’s town hall estimated that the cost to build a new house in Missouri could jump 25 to 30 percent overnight.

In a country already facing a housing affordability crisis, that is a gut punch to every family trying to build a home and every contractor trying to make a living.

The Butterfly Effect

Think about the guys pulling trailers before sun-up every morning out here in the Lake area. The 1099 independent contractors — the plumbers, the electricians, the HVAC guys — keeping our houses running. This plan hammers them coming and going.

And our seniors? Retired folks don’t pay state income tax on Social Security or pensions to begin with. They get zero benefit from an income tax cut. What they do get is a massive hike on the cost of everything they buy just to live.

But it gets worse than that.

Without an income tax system, the state loses the entire administrative machinery it uses to deliver targeted relief to vulnerable people. That means the circuit breaker tax credit disappears.

That’s the credit that offsets property taxes for low-income seniors — the mechanism that keeps an 80-year-old widow from being priced out of the home she’s lived in for 50 years. If the state isn’t collecting income tax returns, there’s no way to calculate or mail her that check. It’s gone.

The working family tax credit disappears too. The tax credits keeping local childcare facilities and diaper banks open disappear. The entire safety net tied to the tax code simply ceases to exist.

Missouri is already dead last in the country — 50th — in public health spending. We’re 49th in state revenue spent per K-12 student. And these guys want to blow a $5 billion crater in the budget on top of that.

Schools

Then there are our schools. Without state income tax revenue, Senate District 6 school districts could lose up to $1,415 per student. That’s like cutting 455 teachers or 791 support staff.

And rural schools get hit hardest. A wealthy suburban district can pass a small bond issue and cover the shortfall from local property taxes. A rural town like Stover or Versailles can’t. You can’t tax a small population of farmers enough to generate $3 million in missing state aid. When 75 to 80 percent of a school budget is fixed costs — utilities, bus fuel, mandated teacher salaries — and your state funding vanishes, you cannibalize the only flexible money you have left. You cut programs. You cut sports. You cut art and music. You cut teachers.

How do you pay good teachers and keep the Camdenton Lakers on the field Friday nights with cuts like that?

We’ve seen this movie before. Kansas tried the same experiment. They bypassed their own safeguards. The result? Severe education cuts, four-day school weeks, and bond rating downgrades. They were eventually forced to reverse course. Missouri does not have to repeat that mistake.

We are the Show Me State- haven’t we already been shown?

Here’s the thing.

Not every Republican voted yes. State Representative Rudy Veit out of Wardsville stood up and voted NO.

He called it exactly what it is. “It’s not a tax cut, it’s a tax swap.” He knows that swapping a tax on the wealthy for a tax on working people is a raw deal — and he knows that handing future politicians unchecked authority over your tax bill is dangerous no matter which party they belong to.

But Don Mayhew voted yes — and then couldn’t be bothered to show up and explain why. Neither could Vernetti. The vote is on the record. Their names are highlighted right there in the Journal of the House.

That’s the pattern. Vote yes in Jeff City. Go silent when the neighbors start asking questions.

And here’s what happens when you do ask questions.

Today, a constituent who attended the town hall last night called Vernetti’s office this morning to ask why he voted to raise taxes on seniors in Camden County.

The person who answered the phone told him he was the first person to complain.

The first one.

About a vote that would jack up sales taxes on every senior in this district living on a fixed income.

They think nobody is paying attention. They think we don’t know what they voted for. They think they can hide it.

They’re wrong.

Here’s what you do right now.

Call Senator Mike Bernskoetter.

He’s the man who can stop this in the Senate.

Flood his voicemail.

Send him an email.

Tell him We say NO to HJR 173 and 174. Tell him to vote it down.

📞 (573) 751-2076 📧 Mike.Bernskoetter@senate.mo.gov

Call Representative Jeff Vernetti. Tell him his constituents are paying attention. Ask him to explain his vote.

📞 (573) 751-1119 📧 Jeff.Vernetti@house.mo.gov

The politicians in Jeff City have written the rules for their wealthy friends long enough.

The rest of us have been left holding the bag.

Not anymore.

Put People First. Always

.

I’m adding a podcast styled synopsis of this article for you all that don’t like to read ;) Drop a comment below and let me know if this type of content is something that is better for you than the long, article styled product.

I’m not going to stop with long form- but if enough folks like this… I will continue this two pronged approach.

So here we go!

• This isn’t a woman’s issue.

• This isn’t a Democrat issue.

• This is a YOU issue.

Last night I was at the Lake Area Federation Meeting.

A candidate running for Congressional District 4 was there, Jordan Herrera. He brought up the SAVE Act.

The room was already irritated just hearing the name.

But it gave me pause.

Some folks in that room were under the impression that their voter registration card and their driver’s license would be enough.

They’ll be just fine…

Out here, information doesn’t always travel fast.

And that’s exactly how something this important slips through the cracks.

They won’t be.

And I need to make that as loud and as clear as I possibly can.

A draft executive order has been circulating inside Trump’s orbit — and when you read what’s in it, your jaw will drop.

The 17-page document, reviewed in full by PBS News, proposes that every registered voter in America would have to re-register before the 2026 midterm elections.

• Every single one of us.

• Gone.

• Start over.

And this time, you’d have to prove your citizenship with documents most people don’t have sitting on the kitchen table.

Trump denied it when reporters asked him directly.

When PBS asked him about it, his exact response was “Who told you that?”

But one of the men who drafted it — a Florida attorney who has known Trump personally for decades — confirmed to reporters that it has been circulating “for a while now” among the president’s supporters.

Sound familiar? He said the same thing about Project 2025. Never read it. Nothing to do with it. Didn’t even know what it was. Then spent his first year in office checking off its wish list one item at a time.

He’s slipperier than a damned Catfish…

What the Draft Order Actually Says

Here’s what’s in it, based on reporting from PBS News and the Washington Post:

• Wipe all existing voter registrations.

  • Everyone re-registers for 2026.

• Proof of citizenship required to re-register.

  • Think passport or birth certificate.

• All ballots must be hand-marked and hand-counted in public.

  • Election experts say hand-counting is slower and more error-prone than machines.

• Mail-in voting severely restricted.

  • Active military, disability, illness, or travel only.

• Federal agencies

  • Including DHS, Justice, SSA, and the Postal Service — given power to flag and remove voters from rolls.

The White House says this hasn’t been signed.

Trump denied it when asked.

But he’s also posted on Truth Social that voter ID will happen before the midterms “whether approved by Congress or not,” and promised to issue an executive order.

Courts have already blocked his first voting executive order from 2025, ruling it exceeded presidential authority. A second one would face the same fight — but the chaos alone could suppress millions of votes before any judge acts.

2 Sides Of The Same Coin

The draft order doesn’t stand alone.

It runs alongside the SAVE America Act, which passed the House on February 11, 2026 — 218 to 213.

Five votes.

That’s it.

This bill would require every American to show a passport or birth certificate — in person — every time they register or update their voter registration.

• Move across town?

• You need to show up with your papers.

• Change your name?

• Same deal.

Here’s the number that matters: more than 21 million American citizens don’t have ready access to those documents, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Roughly half of Americans don’t even own a passport.

Today — Here’s Where We Stand

Before we talk about what’s coming, let’s be clear about what’s true right now.

Today, in Missouri, registering to vote is straightforward. You fill out an application. You provide your Missouri driver’s license number or state ID number. You swear under penalty of perjury that you are a U.S. citizen. Done. No passport. No birth certificate. No trip to a government office with a stack of documents. Your word, backed by law, is enough.

That’s how it works today.

The second the SAVE Act is signed into law — or the second that executive order hits — you are FUBAR’d. Every Missourian.

Every registered voter.

Starting from zero, with documents most people don’t have ready to hand.

So What About Your Driver’s License?

This is the part I need you to hear.

This is what people got wrong last night.

Your Missouri driver’s license will not be enough.

Your Missouri Enhanced ID will not be enough either.

Missouri’s Enhanced ID is not the same as an enhanced driver’s license that indicates citizenship.

Only five states issue that kind of ID — Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, and Washington.

Missouri is not one of them.

PolitiFact found no evidence that Missouri issues any ID that meets the citizenship proof required by the SAVE Act. None.

Your Missouri driver’s license proves who you are.

Your Missouri Enhanced ID proves who you are. Neither one proves you’re an American citizen. Under these rules, that distinction is everything.

To re-register, you would need one of these:

• A U.S. passport or passport card

• A birth certificate plus a valid photo ID

• Naturalization papers

That’s it. No exceptions for people who don’t have those things. No grandfather clause for someone who’s been registered for 30 years. No workaround for folks whose documents are buried in a box in the spare bedroom — or lost entirely.

Your voter registration card? Also not enough. It proves you were registered. Under these rules, that registration gets wiped. You start from zero.

And online voter registration? Gone. Mail-in registration? Gone. Community voter drives at churches, libraries, and county fairs? Gone — because election workers can’t accept copies of documents, and volunteers can’t haul your originals around town.

The bill also orders states to purge voter rolls every 30 days, eliminating the current 90-day quiet period that protects voters from being wrongly removed right before Election Day.

What We Can Do Right Now

The SAVE America Act is sitting in the Senate.

It needs 60 votes to pass — that means it needs Democrats to cross over, and right now the math isn’t there.

One Republican, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, has already come out against it.

But Trump has made clear he may act by executive order regardless of what Congress does.

And we’ve seen what happens when that order hits:

• chaos,

• lawsuits, and

• confusion — all of which suppress turnout.

  ---

Here’s how to protect yourself and your neighbors:

They are not hiding what they’re doing. They’re betting you won’t pay attention until it’s too late.

I’m paying attention. And now you are too.

Cody “Hutch” Hutcheson is a 20-year Air Force veteran and Democratic candidate for Missouri House District 123. Her campaign slogan is “Put People First. Always.” Learn more and get involved at electhutchmo123@gmail.com.

Bibliography:

1. PBS NewsHour — “Trump says he’s not mulling a draft executive order to seize control over elections. Here’s what we know” — February/March 2026 — https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-says-hes-not-mulling-a-draft-executive-order-to-seize-control-over-elections-heres-what-we-know

2. Washington Post — “Trump, seeking executive power over elections, is urged to declare emergency” — February 26, 2026 — https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/02/26/trump-elections-executive-order-activists/

3. Brennan Center for Justice — “SAVE Act Would Undermine Voter Registration for All Americans” — https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/save-act-would-undermine-voter-registration-all-americans

4. Brennan Center for Justice — “New SAVE Act Bills Would Still Block Millions of Americans From Voting” — https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/new-save-act-bills-would-still-block-millions-americans-voting

5. Campaign Legal Center — “What You Need to Know About the SAVE Act” — https://campaignlegal.org/update/what-you-need-know-about-save-act

6. Center for American Progress — “The SAVE America Act Explained” — https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-save-america-act-explained-how-the-new-show-your-papers-voting-bill-is-even-more-extreme-than-the-save-act/

7. NPR — “A Republican plan to overhaul voting is back. Here’s what’s new in the bill” — February 19, 2026 — https://www.npr.org/2026/02/19/nx-s1-5719252/trump-voting-save-america-act-explainer

8. NPR — “President Trump is trying to make it harder to vote. Here’s why that matters” — March 3, 2026 — https://www.npr.org/2026/03/03/nx-s1-5734005/president-trump-is-trying-to-make-it-harder-to-vote-heres-why-that-matters

9. PolitiFact — “Can voters use REAL ID to register to vote under GOP bill?” — https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2025/apr/18/byron-donalds/can-voters-use-real-id-to-vote-under-save-act/

10. PolitiFact — “SAVE Act would make it harder, not impossible, for married women to vote” — February 17, 2025 — https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2025/feb/17/tiktok-posts/save-act-would-make-it-harder-not-impossible-for-m/

11. FactCheck.org — “Will SAVE Act Prevent Married Women from Registering to Vote?” — https://www.factcheck.org/2025/02/will-save-act-prevent-married-women-from-registering-to-vote/

12. FactCheck.org — “Q&A on the SAVE America Act” — March 2026 — https://www.factcheck.org/2026/03/qa-on-the-save-america-act/

13. Congress.gov — “H.R.22 — SAVE Act, 119th Congress” — https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/22

14. CNBC — “Trump says he will issue executive order to get voter-ID requirements before midterms” — February 13, 2026 — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/13/trump-congress-voter-id-midterms.html

15. NPR — “Trump has rolled out many of the Project 2025 policies he once claimed ignorance about” — January 19, 2026 — https://www.npr.org/2026/01/19/nx-s1-5640006/trump-has-rolled-out-many-of-the-project-2025-policies-he-once-claimed-ignorance-about

TYFYS (Thank You For Your Service)

I have been to many different states during my time in the military. Some of them took care of their veterans. Some of them hadn’t changed a thing since before 9/11. Missouri is one of those states.

For over 20 years, service members have come home to a “thank you for your service” and a swift kick in the ass. Bills get introduced. Bills get stripped. Bills die. And veterans keep leaving — or never come back at all.

If I’m elected, that will end.

I’m a Pain…But the Good Kind…

As a candidate for HD123, I want to be a voice for all people — and that absolutely means veterans.

I fought hard for my Airmen while I was in uniform.

I will fight just as hard for Missouri’s veterans when I get to Jeff City.

These five bills are the first thing I’m tackling when I walk through that door — because if we get this right, we stop bleeding bodies and start attracting them.

• Younger veterans.

• Professionals.

• Families.

• People ready to plant roots somewhere that actually respects what they gave.

GWOT started over 20 years ago.

I’m 40. (sheesh I know!)

My generation is ready to settle down, buy a house on the Lake, start a business, raise kids in Camden County.

Missouri can be that place.

But right now we’re losing them to Texas, Arkansas, and Illinois because those states did the math first.

I’m doing the math now.

Put People First. Always.

Bibliography

RAND Corporation — A Summary of Veteran-Related Statistics, 2nd Edition (2025)

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Veterans Employment Report (2024)

VA Claims Insider — GWOT VA Disability Statistics (2025)

Student Veterans of America — GI Bill Policy Report (2025)

U.S. Army Fort Leonard Wood — Official Installation Data

Scott Air Force Base — Installation Overview, MilitaryBases.us

Whiteman Air Force Base — Official Installation Website

Missouri Times — It’s Time to Provide Real Tax Relief to Missouri’s 100% Disabled Veterans (Oct. 2025)

KFF — 5 Key Facts About Medicaid and Veterans (2025)

Illinois HFS — Veterans Care Program

Washington State RCW 28B.15.621 — Tuition Waivers for Dependents of Veterans

TexVet — Texas Disabled Veteran Property Tax Exemptions

Installation separation estimates based on DoD average annual separation rates applied to assigned personnel figures. Exact numbers vary year to year.

They Couldn’t Ban the Books. So Now They’re Closing the Building.

Jeff City is using a budget crisis it helped create to finish what the book ban started.

District 123 | Camden County, will feel it in real dollars — and real closed doors.

Walk into the Camden County Library on the right day of the week and you will find exactly what you would expect from a community center.

Seniors on the computers.

Kids doing homework and working in the technology lab.

A veteran looking up benefits.

A homeschool parent pulling ebooks and audiobooks because that is their curriculum.

A mom printing a job application because the home internet is horrible and she doesn’t have a printer.

Now imagine the doors closed more than 1 day a week… that is what is going on at the other rural libraries in our district: Climax Springs just adjusted their hours to go Mon-Wed and then Saturday as well… so 4 days a week.

That is the reality right now.

Our library system is running reduced hours — not because the staff does not want to be there, but because the money is not there.

And if Jeff City gets its way, it is about to get a whole lot worse.

The Real Numbers in Camden County.

At the most recent Camden County Library District board meeting (yesterday), the board discussed a proposed state cut that would drop the Camden County Library’s expected funding from $46,000 to $17,000 for fiscal year 2027.

That is a 63% cut.

Not a trim.

Not a reduction.

More than half the money — gone.

That fund is what the library uses to buy:

• large print books for seniors,

• ebooks and audiobooks for patrons without reliable internet,

• Subscriptions to platforms like World Book Online — a resource homeschool families and students rely on every single day.

The board already was presented with letters to sign and send to their state representatives urging full funding to be restored.

They know what is at stake.

Now the rest of Camden County and District 123 needs to know too.

The Back Door They Are Using Now

Governor Kehoe is proposing $600 million in cuts to Missouri’s core budget for FY2027.

He calls it “fiscal responsibility.”

At the same time, he is pushing to eliminate Missouri’s individual income tax entirely.

That income tax funds 65% of Missouri’s general revenue.

Eliminating it — without a solid plan to replace it — blows a hole in the state budget worth billions of dollars.

So the library funding that pays for large print books, ebooks, and World Book Online?

It comes from a tax on athlete and entertainer income.

That revenue stream is already being cut in half as part of this broader gutting of state finances.

They could not cut library funding as revenge when everyone was watching.

Now they are doing it under cover of a budget crisis they are manufacturing.

Libraries Are Rural Community Centers

I have heard people say: “It’s just a library.”

But for Rural folks…it’s not “just a library.”

In Camden County, the library is often the only free public space we have.

There is no community center in every town.

There is no public Wi-Fi on every corner.

The library is where you go when you do not have anywhere else to go.

Veterans filling out VA paperwork.

Job seekers without home internet or printers.

Seniors who need large print books they cannot afford to buy.

Homeschool families who use the library’s digital subscriptions as their core curriculum — World Book Online, ebooks, audiobooks.

Kids who need more books than their school can provide or their parents can afford.

State aid matters more to rural libraries than it does to big-city systems.

A cut this deep does not just trim a budget.

It cuts hours, staff, and programs.

In the worst case, it closes doors.

The district is already running reduced hours.

We cannot and should not absorb this.

Where Do I Stand? With the Libraries.

I grew up poor in Cape Girardeau.

And you know what I looked forward to every summer when we couldn’t afford anything else?

Riding my bike down to the Cape County Public Library.

We would check out VHS tapes of the BBC Chronicles of Narnia and ride home and watch them.

I would always grab a book or two for after — my personal hobby was to see how thick of a book I could finish.

Old books were better.

If I could get through Alexander Dumas spending an entire chapter describing a door or follow Moby Dick all the way past “Call me Ishmael” without losing the plot— I called that a win.

I ran away to books.

And if it weren’t for the library, I wouldn’t have had that avenue.

My school had books, sure — but the library at Saint Mary’s School was the size of a classroom for K through 8.

I topped out in Accelerated Reader at a 12th grade reading level in 6th grade.

I read The Scarlet Letter for fun in 7th grade.

The library was my home away from home.

So when public libraries are threatened, I get concerned.

Concerned for the kids like me — the ones who have nothing else.

For the communities that also have little else.

Libraries are written into the Missouri Constitution.

They belong to all of us —

• the working family,

• the retired veteran,

• the homeschool parent,

• the kid who just wants a book for the summer.

Defunding them to settle a political grudge is not fiscal responsibility.

It is a betrayal of every rural community in this state.

Jeff City thinks we’re is not paying attention.

They think we are too busy, too inundated with daily life and just trying to get by to notice this.

Let us prove them wrong.

What You Can Do Right Now

• Use the Camden County Library District.

  • Your foot traffic matters as much as funding

• Contact your state representative (Jeff Vernetti in this case).

  • Tell them to fully fund library aid in the FY2027 budget

  • Tell them why libraries are important to you

• Share this article.

  • Most people in Missouri do not know this is happening.

Cody “Hutch” Hutcheson is the Democratic candidate for Missouri House District 123 in Camden County. She is a retired Air Force Master Sergeant with 20 years of service and is working for veterans like her, rural families, and every neighbor who deserves a rep who shows up.

Paid for by The Committee To Elect Cody Hutcheson | Treasurer: Macy Barnett

Bibliography

Sources for: “They Couldn’t Ban the Books. So Now They’re Closing the Building.”

Elect Cody Hutcheson District 123 | Substack

Missouri Book Ban & Library Defunding Attempts (2022–2023)

• Missouri House gives initial approval to budget that defunds libraries — KCUR, March 29, 2023

• Missouri lawmakers move to strip public library funding in retaliation over book ban lawsuit — Chicago Tribune / Missouri Independent, March 24, 2023

• Missouri House Republicans want to defund libraries — here’s why — PBS NewsHour, April 14, 2023

• Missouri’s new effort to punish libraries is vindictive and harmful — Missouri Independent, April 10, 2023

• ACLU: Missouri Republicans move to defund libraries ‘abhorrent’ — KSDK, March 2023

• Library funding becomes the ‘nuclear option’ as the battle over books escalates — NPR, May 4, 2023

Governor Kehoe’s FY2027 Budget & Income Tax Elimination

• Missouri revenue surplus nearly gone as Gov. Kehoe unveils budget plan — Missouri Independent, January 13, 2026

• Kehoe outlines 2027 budget with $600M in cuts — ABC17 News, January 13, 2026

• Governor Kehoe delivers 2026 State of the State Address — Office of Governor Mike Kehoe, January 13, 2026

• Missouri House passes authorization for sales tax increase to allow elimination of income tax — Voice of Missouri Business, March 12, 2026

• Missouri House debates income tax phase-out plan — ABC17 News, March 10, 2026

• HJR 173 bill tracking — Missouri 2026 legislative session — FastDemocracy, 2026

Kehoe Budget Vetoes & Library Cuts (2025)

• Kansas City arts groups ‘left reeling’ after Missouri governor slashes millions from budget — KCUR, July 2, 2025

• Missouri Gov. Kehoe’s budget vetoes cut $1 million from Kansas City Public Library expansion — KSHB, July 10, 2025

• Missouri governor cuts millions of dollars destined for Kansas City — The Beacon, July 14, 2025

HJR 173 & 174 — Roll Call Vote

• HCS HJRs 173 & 174 — Missouri House third reading vote, March 12, 2026 (98–54) — Missouri House Journal, March 12, 2026

• HJR 173 introduced bill text — Missouri House of Representatives, January 21, 2026

Camden County Library District

• Camden County Library District — official website — Camden County Library District, Accessed March 2026

• Camden County Library District board meeting notes — March 2026 — Camden County Library District Board, March 2026 (on file)

Rep. Jeff Vernetti — HD123

• Representative Jeff Vernetti — official Missouri House profile — Missouri House of Representatives, 2026

• Jeff Vernetti campaign website — vernetti123.com, Accessed March 2026

Paid for by The Committee To Elect Cody Hutcheson | Treasurer: Macy Barnett

He says people in the country illegally are being hired to mess with Missouri’s ballot process.

Sounds serious.

But nobody can point to it actually happening here.

The whole thing traces back to Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway.

Last November, she posted on social media claiming a petition signature firm was hiring people in the country illegally.

No evidence.

The company she named denied it — every one of their workers goes through E-Verify.

Reporters asked her office where the claim came from.

No answer.

Months later, it’s still unproven.

Vernetti saw that post and spent time and resources building a bill on an unproven claim. Mark Alford co-signed it from Washington.

That’s not how you make a law — or why.

Don’t we have bigger things to worry about in Missouri?

If this were based on facts that had actually been proven, I could see the reason for it. But it looks like a distraction from the bigger fish we need to fry in District 123.

Missouri Already Has This Covered

The state already has three layers of protection.

• Petition circulators must be Missouri residents.

• Every page must be signed and notarized — that’s a legal paper trail.

• Petition signature fraud is already a Class A misdemeanor.

And in July 2025, Missouri signed SB 152 — which bans foreign nationals from contributing to ballot campaigns.

That’s done.

Already law.

So what exactly is Vernetti trying to fix?

Now let’s talk about what he’s actually doing to your wallet.

Right now, Jeff City Republicans are moving to eliminate Missouri’s state income tax and replace it with a bigger sales tax on just about everything you buy.

That’s HJR 173 and 174.

Vernetti voted yes.

His name is right there on the board —

• Yes on Jefferson City’s Great Tax Shift

• Yes to tax the little guy more.

• Yes to make sure that what little we make- stretches less far than it already has to.

Here’s what that means for the Lake Area specifically.

Not just higher sales tax — but brand-new taxes on services that have never been taxed before.

• Boat repair — taxed.

• Haircut — taxed.

• Doctor visit — taxed.

• Farm cattle sale — taxed.

• Lawn maintenance — taxed.

• Photography — taxed.

• Legal services — taxed.

• Tree removal — taxed.

• Auto towing — taxed.

• Everything. Taxed.

Here’s the part they’re not telling you.

The legislature already has the power to cut income taxes on their own.

They don’t need your vote for that.

What they can’t do on their own is touch the constitutional protection Missouri voters passed in 2016 — the amendment that banned new sales taxes on services.

You voted for that protection 58 to 42 percent.

The Hancock Amendment.

It’s in your constitution.

That’s why this has to go to a public vote.

They need voters to hand that protection back over to them.

To vote against their own good judgement.

That’s why they Always use manipulative language.

Right now, it’s “No More Income Tax!! WooHoo!” But they don’t say where they will be making up those lost funds.

Once Missourian’s vote yes on this tax shift, there are no limits on what they can tax or how much — no voter approval required for future increases.

It’s a bait and switch.

The bill’s own handler admitted on the House floor that if this plan works exactly as promised, it will take about 30 years to eliminate the income tax.

Thirty years.

Meanwhile the sales tax expansion on services starts immediately.

You pay now.

They promise to deliver in 30 years.

Maybe.

And there’s one more thing buried in the fine print.

Missouri has the Hancock Amendment — a constitutional protection that limits how much the government can raise your taxes without your approval.

It’s been protecting Missouri taxpayers for decades.

Section 26.5 of this bill creates a three-year window where that protection disappears entirely.

If the legislature passes the sales tax expansion within three years of voters approving this amendment, the new revenue is exempt from the Hancock Amendment. No limits.

No voter approval on rates.

Whatever they decide to charge you, you pay.

They need your vote to blow open the door. After that, you don’t get another vote on what comes through it.

Do the math.

Look at your Missouri income tax bill from last year.

For a lot of working families and retirees at the Lake — after deductions, exemptions for Social Security, military pay, and pensions — that number might be pretty small.

Now look at your credit card statement.

Add up every service you pay for in a year.

• Roof repair

• car work

• doctor visits

• lawn care

• haircuts

Tax all of that — and remember, this bill sets no limit on how high that rate can go.

You’ll pay a whole lot more than you do today.

And it doesn’t stop with the state rate.

Don’t Forget!

Your city and county have their own sales tax rates layered on top.

Every level of government gets a piece. That new roof isn’t just a state tax hit — it’s a state, county, and city tax hit all at once.

60 to 80 percent of Missourians would see a net tax increase.

Only the wealthiest 20 percent — those earning close to $300,000 and above — would actually see their taxes go down.

A middle-income Missourian earning $65,000 a year would face a $535 net tax increase.

Retirees on fixed incomes get hit hardest.

Active duty military and Guard members who currently pay no state income tax on their service pay — they’d be paying sales tax on nearly every dollar they spend instead.

Small business owners would be stuck collecting and sending that tax revenue to Jeff City on every service they provide.

Even Missouri’s own business community has pushed back.

The Associated Industries of Missouri said there is no plan for replacing the lost revenue — meaning future legislators could decide what to tax and how much, with no voter approval required.

The Kansas Experiment.

In 2012, Kansas tried the same thing — massive income tax cuts on the path to elimination.

They promised economic growth and jobs.

What they got was a 25 percent drop in income tax collections in a single year.

• Schools cut programs,

• shortened the school year,

• and eliminated teaching positions.

• Roads and infrastructure took hits.

• The state’s credit rating was downgraded three times.

By 2017, the Republican-controlled legislature voted to roll the whole thing back. Their own party called it a failure.

Missouri Republicans are standing in line to repeat that mistake.

And Vernetti is at the front of the line.

And this isn’t the first time he’s voted against what the people decided.

In November 2024, Missourians voted nearly 58 percent in favor of raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Within weeks, Vernetti filed HB546 to exempt small and seasonal businesses from that raise — businesses just like the restaurant and sports complex he personally owned at the Lake.

Voters spoke.

He filed paperwork to work around it.

Now he’s voted yes on undoing the constitutional protection voters passed in 2016.

There’s a pattern here.

The voters decide.

Vernetti works around it.

The People of District 123 Deserve Better.

Not a ghost story built on an unproven social media post.

Not a bait-and-switch tax scheme that protects the wealthy and squeezes everyone else.

Not a rep who votes against the people he works for and hopes nobody notices.

This community deserves someone focused on what actually matters — protecting the Lake’s economy, keeping healthcare affordable, bringing real broadband to rural areas, and keeping more money in working families’ pockets.

Someone who understands that no matter their personal opinion- a representative is a mouthpiece for the people they serve.

That is how I led in the military and how I plan to continue to lead.

I’m Cody Hutcheson. I’m running for House District 123 because this community deserves a representative who puts people first.

Put People First. Always.

Paid for by The Committee To Elect Cody Hutcheson · Macy Barnett, Treasurer

Sources & Bibliography

All sources used in the Substack article: ‘While Vernetti Hunts Ghosts, Jeff City Is Picking Your Pocket.’ — Hutch for HD123

Hanaway / Petition Signature Claim

1. LakeExpo — Missouri Republicans File Bill To Keep Illegal Aliens Out Of The Citizen Petition Process

2. Democracy Docket — Missouri AG Launches Last-Ditch Immigration Probe into Referendum

3. Democracy Docket — Missouri AG Now Siccing ICE on Gerrymander Referendum Signature Gatherers

4. Missouri Independent — Missouri GOP Goes Scorched Earth to Keep Its Gerrymandered Map Off the 2026 Ballot

5. Missouri Attorney General — AG Launches Investigation Into Advanced Micro Targeting (official press release)

6. KCUR — Missouri Anti-Redistricting Group Accuses Attorney General of ‘Political Thuggery’

7. ABC17 News — Signature Gathering Company Denies Missouri AG’s Claims of Illegal Activity

8. Ballot Access News — Missouri GOP Goes After Firm Circulating Referendum Petition, Accusing It of Human Trafficking

9. Legal News Line — AG Sues Signature-Gathering Firm Alleging Obstruction

Missouri Petition Process — Existing Protections

10. Ballotpedia — Laws Governing the Initiative Process in Missouri

11. Missouri Independent — As Few as 5% of Voters Could Defeat Initiative Petitions Under Missouri GOP Legislation

12. Ballotpedia — Missouri Amendment 4, Require Approval in Each Congressional District (2026)

HJR 173 & 174 — Income Tax Elimination / Great Tax Shift

13. Associated Industries of Missouri — Missouri House Passes Authorization for Sales Tax Increase to Eliminate Income Tax

14. Missouri House — HCS HJRs 173 & 174 Bill Summary (official PDF)

15. Missouri House — HCS HJRs 173 & 174 Fiscal Note (official PDF)

16. Missouri House — Full Bill Text HCS HJRs 173 & 174 (official PDF)

17. Missouri Budget Project — Ill-Conceived Tax Proposals Would Increase Taxes for Most Missourians

18. Missouri Budget Project — Testimony Opposing HJR 173 & HJR 174

19. Missouri Independent — Missouri House Backs GOP Plan to Replace Income Tax with Expanded Sales Tax

20. Missouri Independent — Republicans Push Forward With Proposal to Replace Missouri Income Tax with Sales Tax

21. St. Louis Public Radio — Plan to Expand Sales and Use Taxes to Eliminate Missouri’s Income Tax Advances

22. ABC17 News — Missouri House Commerce Committee Advances Income Tax Elimination Measure

23. CPA Practice Advisor — Missouri House Panel Advances Plan to Phase Out State’s Income Tax

2016 Constitutional Amendment 4 — Ban on Taxing Services

24. Ballotpedia — Missouri Prohibition on Extending Sales Tax to Previously Untaxed Services, Amendment 4 (2016)

25. Governing — Missouri Passes Nation’s First-Ever Ban on Services Sales Taxes

HB546 — Vernetti Minimum Wage Exemption Bill

26. LakeExpo — Proposed ‘Entrepreneur Rights Act’ Would Shield Some Missouri Businesses From Minimum Wage Increases

27. LegiScan — Missouri HB546 (2025)

Kansas Tax Experiment — Historical Record

28. Wikipedia — Kansas Experiment

29. Brookings — The Kansas Tax Cut Experiment

30. NPR — Kansas’ 2012 Tax Cut Experiment Could Serve As A Cautionary Tale

31. CBPP — Kansas Provides Compelling Evidence of Failure of ‘Supply-Side’ Tax Cuts

Camden County / Camdenton Demographics & Tax Rates

32. U.S. Census Bureau — Camden County, Missouri QuickFacts

33. Data USA — Camden County, MO (median income $62,927)

34. Avalara — 2025 Camdenton, Missouri Sales Tax Rate (9.5%)

Vernetti Background

35. Missouri House of Representatives — Representative Jeff Vernetti (official bio)

36. ABC17 News — Vernetti Announces Reelection Bid for Statehouse

Paid for by The Committee To Elect Cody Hutcheson · Macy Barnett, Treasurer

In September of 2025, while most of us were getting kids back to school and wrapping up summer, Missouri’s Republican-controlled legislature called a special session. They had two things on the agenda. First: redraw the congressional map to wipe out one of the two Democratic seats in Congress. Second: make it nearly impossible for Missouri voters to ever again pass the kinds of laws the legislature doesn’t like.

They did both.

In nine days.

The second item — the one targeting your right to citizen initiatives — is now headed to your ballot on November 3, 2026 as Amendment 4.

It has a friendly name: the “Protect Missouri Voters Amendment.” That name was not an accident.

There is already a citizen-led organization called Respect MO Voters fighting to protect your rights.

The legislature chose something close enough to cause confusion on purpose.

That is the kind of thing we are dealing with here in Missouri right now.

This piece is going to walk you through exactly what Amendment 4 does, how it connects to a second attack called HB 2124, and what you can do about it come November.

Just the facts — and they are damning enough on their own.

What Is Amendment 4?

Right now, if Missouri voters want to change the state constitution, they can put a question on the ballot.

If more than half of all voters say yes — it passes.

Simple.

That’s called a citizen initiative, and it’s one of the most powerful tools regular people have.

Amendment 4 would change all of that.

Under this new rule, a citizen amendment would have to win a majority in all eight of Missouri’s congressional districts — not just statewide.

Six of those eight districts voted for Donald Trump in 2024. One of them — District 7 — is one of the most Republican districts in the country.

That means it only takes one district to say no and the whole thing dies — no matter what the rest of Missouri voted for.

Ballotpedia found that every citizen-approved amendment since 2020 would have failed under this rule — including Medicaid expansion, abortion rights, and minimum wage increases.

Every.

Single.

One.

They’re Coming at You From Two Directions

Amendment 4 is not the only attack on your right to vote.

Missouri Republicans are running a two-front operation.

One move happens at the ballot box in November. The other happened in a committee room. Both have the same target: your initiative petition process.

Angle 1 — HB 2124 (House Bill · Committee Stage)

A House bill that targets the initiative petition process directly — adding new barriers, requirements, and restrictions before a petition can even reach voters.

The public comment window closed March 10, 2026 (YES, TODAY).

This bill makes it harder to gather the signatures needed to even get a citizen initiative on the ballot.

Angle 2 — Amendment 4 (Constitutional Amendment · Nov. 3, 2026)

A constitutional amendment asking voters to approve a rule that makes citizen initiatives nearly impossible to pass — requiring a majority in all 8 congressional districts, not just statewide.

If passed, it becomes part of the constitution — nearly impossible to undo.

Same goal. Two weapons. Strip power from voters — permanently.

The Map Tells the Story

Missouri has 8 congressional districts.

Under Amendment 4, every single one must vote yes.

Six of eight went for Trump in 2024.

District 7 alone has killed every citizen-passed amendment since 2020.

Under Amendment 4, as few as 5.3% of Missouri voters — a majority in just the smallest district — could block something that 94.7% of the state voted for.

Rural Missouri has a legitimate beef with being outvoted by the cities.

But the answer to that isn't to hand one district a loaded veto and call it fair.

If Kansas City or Saint Louis decided farmers could only own two cows per square mile, we'd call it what it is — an attack.

This is the same thing.

The Fine Print

The people who wrote Amendment 4 buried it under extra add-ons.

They threw in language about banning foreign money in campaigns and cracking down on petition fraud.

Those sound reasonable, right?

Here’s the catch: the fraud penalty actually gets smaller under this amendment. Right now, Missouri law fines petition fraud up to $10,000.

Amendment 4 drops that to just $1,000 — a 90% cut in the punishment.

The foreign money ban?

Already law.

Missouri passed Senate Bill 152 in July 2025, which already blocks foreign nationals from giving to ballot measure campaigns.

Amendment 4 is solving a problem that’s already solved.

No Other State Does This

Some states do require more than a simple majority to pass constitutional amendments. New Hampshire requires two-thirds, Florida and Illinois require 60%, and Colorado requires 55%. Those are higher bars — but they still count every vote equally.

Zero states currently require a win in every congressional district. Not one. Missouri’s legislature invented this rule from scratch.

Rushed Through in 9 Days

Rep. Ed Lewis (R-Moberly) introduced HJR 3 on September 3, 2025. The Missouri House passed it 98–58. The Senate followed. It was done by September 12, 2025 — nine days total.

What happened the year before? Missouri voters approved abortion rights, minimum wage increases, paid sick leave, and Medicaid expansion — all by popular vote. Then the legislature turned around and repealed paid sick leave and minimum wage indexing that voters passed in 2024 via MO HB 567.

Amendment 4 is the next step — making sure voters can’t pass it again.

Don’t Let the Names Fool You

The Ole Switcheroo

Republicans officially named Amendment 4 the “Protect Missouri Voters Amendment.”

The grassroots campaign fighting back is called Respect MO Voters. Nearly identical names. Completely opposite goals.

HB 2124 —

• Politicians wrote it.

• Kills petitions before a vote.

• Adds barriers to signature collection.

• No equal rules for the legislature.

Amendment 4 —

• Politicians wrote it.

• Kills petitions at the vote.

• Requires winning all 8 districts.

• Legislature is exempt from the same rules.

• Cuts fraud penalties 90%.

Respect MO Voters —

• Citizens wrote it.

• Locks your power in permanently.

• Requires 80% bipartisan supermajority before lawmakers can overturn your vote.

• Requires honest, plain-language ballot summaries.

• Protects the signature process.

⚠ This is not a coincidence.

HB 2124 hits the petition process before a vote.

Amendment 4 kills it at the vote.

Both were pushed by the same Republican-controlled legislature, in the same session, aimed at the same target.

This is a coordinated strategy — not two separate ideas.

What This Means for District 123

Camden County sits in Missouri’s 4th Congressional District —

Rated at R+21, one of the most Republican districts in the country.

Under Amendment 4, our district would already be working against most citizen initiatives — even ones that benefit us directly.

Think about: rural fiber internet.

Clean water protections for the Lake.

Lower drug prices.

Medicaid for working families who fall through the cracks.

These are issues where regular Missourians — Republicans and Democrats alike — have voted yes when they got the chance.

Amendment 4 takes that chance away. A small group of the most partisan voters in one district can kill what everyone else voted for. That is not what democracy looks like. That is what control looks like.

I’m running for District 123 because people here deserve a seat at the table — not a locked door.

Here’s How to Vote on This

VOTE NO on HB 2124 —

• The legislature’s sneak attack on petition gathering.

VOTE NO on Amendment 4 —

• The ballot-box power grab.

• Requires all 8 districts.

• Exempts the legislature.

• Makes citizen initiatives nearly impossible.

VOTE YES on the Respect MO Voters Amendment —

• The People’s Amendment.

• Locks in your right to initiative petitions.

• Stops lawmakers from overturning what you vote for.

• Written by citizens, for citizens.

Check your voter registration →

Support the Campaign

No PAC money.

No corporate donors.

Just neighbors helping neighbors take back District 123.

Even $10 keeps this campaign on the ground and in your community.

Chip in at Zeffy →

Paid for by The Committee to Elect Cody Hutcheson / Treasurer: Macy Barnett

Bibliography

1. Ballotpedia. Missouri Amendment 4, Require Congressional District Approval for Initiated Constitutional Amendments, Prohibit Foreign Contributions, and Penalize Petition Fraud Amendment (2026). ballotpedia.org

2. Ballotpedia News. Under proposed supermajority requirement, every Missouri ballot initiative since 2020 would have failed. October 10, 2025. news.ballotpedia.org

3. Bolts Magazine. Under this GOP Measure, All of Missouri’s Recent Popular Initiatives Would Have Failed. September 18, 2025. boltsmag.org

4. Missouri Independent. Proposal targeting Missouri initiatives lowers penalties for fraud, foreign donations. February 25, 2026. missouriindependent.com

5. Respect MO Voters. About the Respect Missouri Voters Amendment. respectmovoters.org

6. Ballotpedia. Missouri’s 4th Congressional District. Cook Partisan Voter Index: R+21 heading into 2026. ballotpedia.org

7. MultiState. What Are Citizen Initiatives? Missouri as 2026 Direct Democracy Battleground. December 10, 2025. multistate.us

Missouri's founders knew governments stop listening. They knew lawmakers would sometimes ignore voters. So they built a backstop into the constitution. It's called the initiative petition process. It is not a loophole. It is the last tool citizens have when the government won't do its job.

Here's how it works. Regular voters gather enough signatures to put a question on the ballot. Then every Missouri voter gets to answer it. Wild concept, we know.

Missourians have used this power. Medicaid expansion passed by petition in 2020 after the legislature blocked it for years. So did the minimum wage increase. Medical marijuana. Abortion rights protections. These were not extreme ideas. They were things most Missouri voters wanted. Their lawmakers refused to act. The petition process was the only door left open. HB 2124 wants to nail that door shut.

Four Ways This Bill Hurts You

The bill is scheduled for a hearing in the House Elections Committee on Tuesday, March 10, 2026 at 8:00 AM. Written opposition testimony is accepted through 11:59 PM that same night. Here is exactly what you'd be opposing:

Same Ride. Different Bill. We Want Off.

This is not the first time. It will not be the last — unless we stop it. The pattern is simple. Missourians vote on something. It passes. The legislature doesn't like it. A new bill shows up to make sure it can't happen again. Scroll through the timeline below. Every single entry follows the same script.

"If you don't win at something, you get mad. We do too, but yet we respect the will of the voters. You sit here and try to undo it."

— Rep. Emily Weber, D-Kansas City · Missouri House Floor · September 2025

Follow the Power: Who This Bill Really Serves

Supporters say this bill stops fraud and blocks out-of-state influence. That sounds reasonable. But look at who actually wins and who loses if it passes.

Every part of this bill makes it harder for regular people to run a petition drive. Small groups with no party backing and no big donors get squeezed out. The legislature benefits directly. Fewer petitions mean fewer times voters can overrule them.

By the Numbers

Plain Talk

I believe leading is collaborative.

That is how I led in the Air Force.

It is how I plan to lead here in District 123.

You listen. You work together.

You let people have a real say in what happens to them.

Taking away the initiative petition process sends a clear message to every Missourian — that the people in Jefferson City think your voice does not matter. That collaborative leadership is useless.

I disagree with that.

Completely.

In the military, we were always told to read the regs and use them to your benefit. That's not cheating. That's how the system is supposed to work. Missourians did exactly that. They read the rules. They followed the process. They gathered the signatures. They won at the ballot box. Then they won again. And again. And again.

And over and over, the legislators in Jefferson City have said it's not good enough. That we don't know what we want as Missourians. They are changing the rules. Again. Moving the goalposts. Again. Another bill. Again.

That should not be how this works. This is our sacred right as Missourians. We should be able to use it. If we are not being represented, we need a way to fix that. The initiative petition is that way. It is not a loophole. It is the rulebook working exactly as written.

This bill is not about stopping fraud. Fraud is already illegal. This bill makes the process so expensive and so complicated that only big organizations can use it. Regular Missourians get left out. Call it what it is: the legislature protecting itself from the people it's supposed to serve. I oppose HB 2124. If I am elected, I will oppose every bill that tries to take this right away from the people.

What Can You Do?

Tonight — March 10, 11:59 PM is your deadline.

The hearing is at 8:00 AM.

You do not have to go to Jefferson City.

You can submit written testimony online.

It takes about five minutes.

Your name goes on the official record.

→ Submit your opposition here

Don't Get Confused — They're Counting On It

After tonight, watch for HJR 3 on your November 2026 ballot. It will say "Protect Missouri Voters." Sound familiar? It should. There is already an organization called Respect MO Voters fighting for your rights. The legislature named their bill close enough to cause confusion on purpose. That is not an accident. That is a strategy. Do not be fooled.

"Protect Missouri Voters" on the ballot does the opposite of what the name says. It would require a petition to win in all eight congressional districts instead of just statewide. One single district could block the entire state. **Vote no.**

If you want to fight back right now, look for **Respect MO Voters** — the real one — and sign their petition before **April 19, 2026** to stop the legislature from undoing laws you already voted for.

Support the Campaign

If this article helped you understand what is at stake, consider supporting my campaign.

Every dollar goes toward making sure District 123 has a representative who actually shows up for you.

→ Donate here:

Or scan the QR code —

Cody "Hutch" Hutcheson · Veteran · Democrat · Candidate for MO House District 123

They Want You to Work.

They Just Don’t Want to Make It Easy.

Missouri’s new Medicaid rules demand proof of employment — during the 32 hours a week you’re supposed to be at work.

There’s a word for what Missouri lawmakers are building right now.

It’s a Trap.

But the way they are wording it- the same language we’ve all been raised on here in Missouri— Boot Strappin’ language… That’s the problem.

Down Hill…

In the military, we had a saying: “shit rolls downhill.”

So here, we see Washington passing a mandate, Jefferson City figures out how to comply, and working Missourians at the bottom of that hill are the ones who get buried in the manure.

Jefferson City could push back.

They just won’t because the super majority doesn’t care how it’s going to effect the everyday Missourian and they already were pushing against the Medicare/Medicaid expansion that the supreme court said they needed to find money for.

So here we are: the Trump administration has pushed sweeping new rules requiring states to overhaul their Medicaid programs.

Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Missouri residents on MO HealthNet must now prove they are:

• working,

• volunteering,

• caregiving,

• or in school for at least 80 hours every single month

— and the state must verify their eligibility twice a year instead of once.

Missouri’s Department of Social Services estimates it will cost the state up to $294 million just to build the systems and hire the staff to carry out these requirements. (and if you read my article about Jefferson City’s newest plan to eliminate our state income tax- you should be more concerned about that price tag)

That’s not money going toward doctors, prescriptions, or patient care.

That’s money going toward a machine designed to make it harder for people to stay enrolled.

And if Missouri fails to comply?

State officials have warned lawmakers the federal penalties could top $1 billion.

Prove It or Lose It!

Here’s the part that should make you furious.

To prove you’re working, you have to call Missouri’s Department of Social Services.

Their hours of operation:

Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

That’s it.

• No Fridays.

• No evenings.

• No weekends.

In other words, the state is telling working Missourians to prove they’re working — by calling a government office during the exact hours they’re supposed to be at work.

And when you do call?

The average wait time is 51 minutes.

On a bad day, it stretches to three hours.

When call volume gets too high, the system stops accepting calls and hangs up on you automatically.

In a single month, over 64,000 callers were cut off this way.

As of early 2025, 56% of benefit applications were being denied solely because people couldn’t get through on the phone — not because they were ineligible.

Not because they weren’t working.

Because the phone system failed them.

Now imagine doing that every six months, while working two or three jobs, raising kids, with no paid time off, on spotty rural internet, and a minimum of minutes from the nearest DSS office.

Who Gets Hurt

Let’s be clear about who we’re talking about.

MO HealthNet covers:

• Working families,

• elderly residents,

• people with disabilities,

• and children.

The vast majority of adult enrollees who can work already do.

This isn’t a program full of people refusing to work.

It’s a program full of people whose jobs just don’t come with health insurance.

Estimates suggest up to 130,000 Missourians could lose their coverage under these changes — not because they stop qualifying, but because they can’t navigate the paperwork.

• A missed form.

• A letter that arrived late.

• A phone call that never went through.

That’s all it takes.

The American Cancer Society has already raised the alarm: cancer patients mid-treatment could lose coverage if they can’t keep up with the documentation.

Think about that.

You’re in chemotherapy.

You’re fighting for your life.

And the state of Missouri needs you to prove you’re working — by calling a phone line that might hang up on you.

I’m here to tell you as a kid that watched her mom go through chemo and radiation while I was in 8th grade before these programs exsisted… it was hell, for all of us. She was working and going to doctor appointments, coming home wrapping herself around the toilette and it was up to me to pick up the slack as the oldest kid.

I would not wish either scenario (the patient or the caretaker) on anyone honestly.

Kick ‘em While They’re Down…

Complying with a broken federal mandate wasn’t enough.

Missouri Republicans voted 99–48 to put Medicaid work requirements directly into the state Constitution, sending the question to voters on the November ballot.

While I love that we, as Missourian’s get a Choice… I do not love the reason behind this choice.

The reason given: to make the policy permanent, so a future administration can’t reverse it.

To lock it in, no matter what Missourians decide they want down the road.

But the constitutional amendment goes beyond federal law.

But, there’s an underlying motive as well:

It would also strip out a provision requiring Missouri to seek maximum federal funding for Medicaid expansion — the same expansion Missouri voters approved in 2020.

The same one the state legislature tried to defund before the Missouri Supreme Court intervened.

This is that fight, round three.

Paperwork, Paperwork, Paperwork.

If this were genuinely about getting people into the workforce, the state would be funding helpful services like:

• Job training

• Childcare

• Transportation

• Broadband access in rural counties.

Instead, Missouri is spending $294 million to hire 120 new state workers to audit poor people’s schedules.

The paperwork burden isn’t a side effect of this policy.

It is the policy.

When you build a system that requires working people to navigate a four-day, business-hours phone line with an hour-long average wait and a 56% application denial rate, you are not checking whether people work.

You are creating a trap that Missourians that work, do not have the luxury to afford.

The people most likely to lose coverage aren’t the ones “gaming the system.”

It will be people working three jobs and raising a family who couldn’t get through on a Thursday afternoon.

This Is a Choice

Come talk to me about it.

Every Friday, I host a Coffee Talk at the bookstore in Camdenton. Come on down. We can talk about this article, the last one, or whatever’s on your mind. I’m there, I’m accessible, and I genuinely want to hear from you.

And if you believe in what we’re building —

Consider making a small donation to the campaign.

Every dollar goes directly toward getting this message in front of more people across District 123.

No PAC money.

No corporate backing.

Just neighbors helping neighbors.

👉 Donate here

Paid for by the Committee to Elect Cody Hutcheson · Treasurer: Macy Barnett

Bibliography

1. Missouri Independent — Plan to put Medicaid work requirements in Missouri Constitution advances (Feb. 19, 2026)

2. Missouri Independent — Republicans push to put Medicaid work requirements into Missouri constitution (Jan. 16, 2026)

3. Missouri Independent — Missouri is still illegally denying food assistance despite court order (May 7, 2025)

4. Missouri Independent — ‘Broken system’: Call center backlogs impede Missouri families seeking food assistance (Nov. 2, 2023)

5. St. Louis Public Radio — Missouri voters could be asked to require many Medicaid recipients to work (Feb. 19, 2026)

6. KCUR — Missouri’s ‘unacceptably long’ call center wait times for food assistance got even worse (Nov. 25, 2022)

7. KCUR — Missouri voters could be asked to require many Medicaid recipients to work (Feb. 20, 2026)

8. National Center for Law and Economic Justice — Federal Court Orders Missouri to Take Remedial Action to Improve SNAP Program (May 8, 2025)

9. Missouri DSS — Hours of Operation (Monday–Thursday, 8am–5pm) (official state website)

10. U.S. Congress — H.R. 1 — One Big Beautiful Bill Act (119th Congress)

A note on sources:

I include a bibliography and inline hyperlinks in everything I write — not to show off, but because I want you to dig in. Don’t take my word as gold. Read the original reporting. Follow the links. Arm yourself with information. That is how we protect our families and neighbors from misinformation.

Here's what this week actually looked like for me:

📍 Franklin D. Roosevelt Democrat Club meeting in Springfield — heard Will Westmoreland speak

📍 Democrats Cuss & Discuss in Osage Beach (yes, it's exactly what it sounds like)

📝 Published an article on Missouri's proposed income tax elimination — because before we pull major pieces out of the state budget, we should understand what that means for schools, roads, and local services
🔗 https://open.substack.com/pub/topicnomad/p/missouri-tax-shift?r=53iokk&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

🪧 Working with local sign maker Braden Coffey to get campaign yard signs off the ground

📸 Headshot is officially up

Tomorrow:
☕ Coffee Talk 10:30–12:00 at Vinta-lit-ious

🤝 Meeting with the incumbent after

---

Now — about those yard signs.

We're ordering 50 to start, and they're available with a $10 donation to the Committee to Elect Cody Hutcheson.

That $10 covers:
💸 Printing
💸 Stakes
💸 Gas to get signs where they need to go
💸 And the hundred little things that add up fast in a grassroots campaign

Donate here → https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/committee-to-elect-cody-hutcheson

If you're donating for a sign, just leave a note that says: 👉 YARD SIGN

There's no PAC behind this.
No special interests.
No corporate money.
Just real people who want to see change in District 123 — and that's exactly how it should be.

And if you've been thinking about helping — I'm still looking for it.

Volunteers, organizers, hosts for any small conversations around the Lake and of course a place to put a sign!

All of it matters when you're building something from the ground up.

Things are moving. Come be part of it.

— Hutch
#PeopleFirst #district123

Let me tell you a bit about where I come from because I feel like the context matters:

• My mother’s side of the family were union workers and military members.

  • Natural gas and the Navy — with one Army guy thrown in for good measure.

  • They were immigrants from Germany who came over between the two World Wars.

• My father’s side came over from Germany on that same timeline and worked at the Ste. Geneviève lime kiln company for two generations.

My parents divorced when I was in second grade.

When my mom remarried, she married blue collar — a union electrician in Cape Girardeau.

Blue collar workers have always been the backbone of my family.

When I was growing up, there were exactly three people between both sides of my family who had gone to college.

My uncle on my mother’s side, my aunt on my father’s, and my great aunt on my mother’s side.

Everyone else went into the trades, or into whatever work they could find — P&G, Fru-Con, Anheuser-Busch, Huck’s gas station, the Sweet Shop doughnut place on Independence Street in Cape.

We couldn’t afford college.

I’d been told that from the jump.

So I had to figure out another way.

I had to “bootstrap” myself. As they say.

My choice seemed pretty clear.

My grades were good- but money wasn’t so— thankfully, we took the ASVAB and I was offered another path.

Join the military right after 9/11.

Get my college paid for.

Dodge some strategically placed mortars along the way.

So that’s what I did.

And that background — those roots, that family, that upbringing — is exactly why what’s happening in Jefferson City right now makes me angry.

Jeff City Loves Bootstrappin!

I actually did that.

I know what it takes.

And I know what it requires — not just grit, not just heart, but tools.

Opportunity.

A system that gives you at least a fighting chance.

So how are people supposed to bootstrap themselves when the state keeps cutting the straps off the boots?

There’s a push right now to get rid of Missouri’s income tax.

Sounds good, especially during tax season.

One less thing to do, one less bill to pay.

Until you do the math.

Compare and Contrast

My last duty station in the United States Air Force was in a state with no income tax.

And yes, it is nice not having to pay that extra bill from January through April.

But the tradeoff was HIGH sales tax. Road taxes. Gas taxes. Taxes on services.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

The money has to come from somewhere.

The question is never if you’ll pay — it’s how and who ends up paying more.

And here’s where the tax shift idea comes in… no income taxes means that the rich in our state pay Less than the lower income brackets.

They hit working families the hardest.

A Billionaire and a factory worker pay the same rate at the pump. What is $3.00/gallon to a Billionaire at the Lake?

The folks who worked at P&G and Fru-Con and the Sweet Shop — people just like my family — end up carrying more of the load while the people at the top of the ladder get a break.

That’s not a tax cut.

That’s a tax shift.

And Missouri’s sales tax is already above the national average.

The bill doesn’t disappear.

It just shows up somewhere else.

And this time it will be in your grocery cart, or on services you need.

Getting rid of the income tax would blow a $5 billion hole in the state budget.

According to the Missouri Budget Project, that translates to a 35% cut to every service funded by general revenue.

$5 BILLION, with a B.

That’s the engine of the whole operation — and they’ve got the map to prove it.

I’ve attached our district’s maps and the money we will be losing out on below:

Look up your county. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

We Should be Furious.

$5 BILLION. 35% of everything.

$12.9 MILLION from District 123.

And here’s who that actually helps: the top 20% of earners — people making close to $300,000 a year and above.

The other 60 to 80 percent of Missourians would end up paying more when sales taxes expand to make up the difference.

That’s not a plan for working families.

That’s a giveaway to people who are doing just fine.

When cuts that big hit, they will not start in wealthy areas.

They start in rural schools. Our schools. The schools in our district.

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Let’s look at where Missouri already stands.

Missouri teacher pay sits at 49th in the nation.

Our starting teacher salary is one of the lowest in the entire country — so low that in many districts, a brand new teacher makes about as much as someone working full time at minimum wage.

We are already losing teachers to neighboring states at more than double the national turnover rate.

We are already struggling to fill classrooms. And lawmakers were already talking about cutting special education — before any of this income tax talk even started.

We were already in the hole. And now they want to dig it deeper.

And this isn’t happening on its own.

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Missouri already has a school voucher program called MOScholars. You may not have heard much about it — and that’s kind of the point.

On the surface it sounds great. State funding helping lower and middle class kids attend private schools they couldn’t otherwise afford. Who’s against that?

Here’s the problem: the primary users of this program are families who already had their kids in private school.

It’s not opening doors for working families.

It’s subsidizing people who already walked through one.

And while that money flows out, your local rural school loses it.

It gets routed to private schools — mostly in the cities — that most families out here will never use.

• Too far away.

• No transportation.

• Not built for us.

Here’s the kicker: the state gives more money per student to those private schools through MOScholars than it gives to your local public school.

Rural Missouri is subsidizing an urban private school system.

Rob the rural to pay the cities.

I heard some version of that my whole life growing up in Missouri.

Back then we were saying it about Illinois — the place where Chicago took everything and the rest of the state got the scraps.

And here we are.

Missouri is running the same play now. With exactly the same talking points it seems.

Here At The Lake:

Out here at the Lake, we have two private schools. Both run by churches.

I don’t have a problem with that.

People have every right to choose a faith-based education for their kids.

But those schools should be paying their own way.

If a family in their congregation can’t afford tuition, that’s between the church and its members.

That’s actually how it used to work.

Growing up in Cape Girardeau, that’s exactly what my church did.

Families who needed help got help — from the church.

Not from taxpayers who may not share that faith, may not have kids in that school, and are already struggling to keep their own public school afloat.

My family wasn’t wealthy. We were food stamp poor for the majority of my childhood.

We weren’t the ones writing big checks.

We were the ones who needed the community to show up — and it did.

That’s how it’s supposed to work.

Public money should go to public schools. Period.

When voucher dollars flow to private religious schools, rural public schools lose.

And out here, there is no backup.

There is no other option down the road.

When that one rural school struggles, the whole community feels it.

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What Gets Cut in Rural MO

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What Gets Cut in Rural Missouri —

The numbers are in the graphic above. But here’s what the numbers don’t show:

• When special ed funding gets cut out here, there is no other school down the road.

  • That one teacher, that one aide — that’s it.

• When a trade program gets axed, a kid who could have been a welder or an electrician right here at home has to leave — or they give up.

Without the Air Force, I’d probably have spent my life working at P&G or Fru-Con — and honestly, there’s nothing wrong with that.

That’s good work.

That’s how my family built their lives.

But the military opened a door that let me see and do and be apart of something bigger.

Not every kid has access to that same door:

• Disabilities

• Childhood injuries

• Poor access to education

These aren’t excuses.

They’re real barriers that close the military door before a kid ever gets a chance to knock on it.

The trades and special ed aren’t extras.

They’re the whole point.

And they’re always the first things to go.

Kehoe Said it Best…

Missouri is losing people. And we aren’t getting them back. Families looking for a place to put down roots look at schools first. Missouri ranks 49th in teacher pay with a turnover rate double the national average. Here’s what’s driving them away:

• School ratings at or near the bottom nationally

• Teacher quality undermined by pay too low to compete

• Programs — trades, special ed, arts — already on the chopping block

While I was away serving in the United States Air Force, my family stayed. They built lives here with their hands, their stubbornness, and yes — their union cards. They didn’t need a handout. They needed a fair shot. And for a while, Missouri gave them one.

That’s what’s being blasted away.

A $5 billion hole will bury whatever’s left — and that’s not an accident.

It’s the result of years of choices made by people who don’t live with the consequences.

It hurts rural Missouri.

Places where the school is the biggest employer, the gym is the community center, and the teacher is also the coach and sometimes the most dependable adult in a kid’s life.

Wealthy families will figure it out — they always do.

The rest of us need public schools to work. So when someone tells you eliminating the income tax is about freedom from taxation, ask them the hard questions:

• Which rural school closes first?

• Which special ed aide gets laid off?

• Which trade program gets the axe?

• Why do out of state families keep passing Missouri by?

• Why do our kids keep leaving and not coming back?

Strong communities are built on strong schools.

People move there.

Businesses invest there.

Kids stay there.

I bootstrapped myself with the help of the United States Air Force.

Not every kid has that option.

But every kid in rural Missouri deserves some kind of option — and right now we’re one bad budget decision away from taking even that away.

There’s always a bill.

It just comes down to who’s footing it.

This tax shift doesn't fix an uneven system.

It makes it worse.

It moves the burden onto the people buying groceries when food prices are already high.

Paying for services to keep their homes and cars running.

The people who depend on public schools because they don't have another option.

People First. Always.

— Hutch, Candidate for Missouri House District 123

Sources

Missouri Budget Project — Income Tax Elimination Analysis

Missouri Budget Project — Eliminating the income tax would create a $5 billion hole in Missouri’s budget, leading to cuts for local public schools ← paste your Datawrapper link here

Missouri Budget Project — School Vouchers Would Increase Costs for Local Taxpayers

Missouri Independent — Missouri Revenue Surplus Nearly Gone

Missouri NEA — Missouri Falls to 49th in Teacher Pay

KSDK — Missouri Educators Await Increase in Starting Teacher Pay

St. Louis Post-Dispatch — MOScholars Voucher Program

St. Louis Public Radio — Missouri Tax Cuts and Budget Outlook 2026

PBS NewsHour — Missouri’s $40,000 Minimum Teacher Salary

The Beacon — Missouri Legislature Considers $50 Million MOScholars Program

You’re welcome. 🇺🇸

And yes — I will come down to Lebanon to make sure you get veteran parking spots there too.

Because “Thank you for your service” only goes so far.

This is Missouri.

Show me.

Action over words.

We’re surrounded by states offering stronger veteran benefits:

• 100% property tax waivers for 100% disabled vets

• Free public education for disabled veterans and their dependents

• Better state coordination of whole-health services

• Seamless workforce transition pipelines that turn military skills into civilian careers

Meanwhile, Missouri has two major military installations — and separating service members are often encouraged to look at other states because the long-term support is stronger elsewhere.

That should concern us.

We are leaking professionals.

•Doctors.

•Tradesmen.

•Engineers.

•Teachers.

•Leaders.

We say we want population growth.

If you build it — they will come.

Veterans prefer rural America.

We prefer space.

Community.

Purpose.

But respect isn’t a slogan.

It’s policy.

If you’re a veteran and you see these parking spots — take a picture.

Post it.

Tag me.

If you see a store in our district that should have one but does not — let me know.

Tag me and tag the store.

I’ll work on it.

Let’s turn appreciation into action.

Words into deeds.

As a Senior NCO, I advocated for my Airmen every single day.

I’ll advocate for the people in this District the same way — because that’s how things get better.

People First. Always.

— Hutch

Follow me on facebook!

After serving 20 years in the USAF, I’m here to say this clearly:

I do NOT support the current operation in Iran.

Operation Epic Fury is being described as limited. We’ve heard that before.

Let me be clear — I have complete confidence in our service members.

•My Airmen.

•The Sailors and Marines I’ve worked alongside for two decades.

The question is not whether they CAN execute the mission.

The question is whether the mission makes sense, makes us safer, and has a defined end state.

We’re already seeing retaliation, including reported strikes targeting U.S. 5th Fleet assets in Bahrain.

That’s Sailors, Marines, and Airmen absorbing the consequences of leadership decisions made thousands of miles away.

Meanwhile:

■ Our airframes are falling apart.

■ Operations and Maintenance crews are stretched thin — constantly told to do more with less, to be “multi-capable.”

■ Retention is down.

■ We struggle to provide basic uniform items and housing free of black mold

— Yet escalation overseas never seems to have a funding problem.

And families across this country are feeling the same strain:

■ Higher food prices for smaller portions.

■ Rising utility bills.

■ Higher medical and insurance costs.

■ Paychecks that don’t stretch far enough.

When I deployed as an 18-year-old Airman, I believed America was getting better.

I believed we were building a stronger country at home while defending it abroad.

Now it feels like we’re drifting.

I’ve spent my career inside the operational kill chain.

Every mission starts with clear objectives, defined effects, and an end state.

Without that planning foundation, execution drifts — and drift in military operations leads to escalation.

If we’re committing American lives and resources, Congress must step in and make that decision.

The American people deserve constitutional accountability and a clear objective.

We need to recage.

Refocus — not globally, but at home.

Our task should be making life in America better for our own people, not escalating into another open-ended conflict.

Putting People First means Americans first. And right now, that means taking care of business at home.

— Hutch

I’ll just say it plain.

You can’t run a campaign on hopes and dreams alone.

💸 Yard signs cost money.
💸 Gas costs money.
💸 Printing costs money.
💸 And knocking doors takes people 👥

If we’re serious about putting District 123 first, then we’ve got to build this the old-fashioned way — neighbors pitching in.

If you can give a few bucks, here’s the link:
https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/committee-to-elect-cody-hutcheson

If you can’t give money, give time. I need volunteers just as much.

We’re not backed by big money.

We’re backed by folks who live here.

Let’s get to work.

— Hutch