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Missouri business interests release 2011 legislative agenda

Marshall Griffin, St. Louis Public Radio

Business interests in Missouri have outlined what they want from lawmakers during the 2011 legislative session, which begins tomorrow.

Their requests include increased protection from lawsuits, changing worker compensation laws, and freezing corporate franchise taxes.

 

And Robert Bonney with the Missouri Restaurant Association supports changing the law requiring minimum wage hikes whenever inflation goes up.

"The automatic increase could result in a higher minimum wage in Missouri than the federal minimum wage and therefore seven of our neighboring states, thereby discouraging job creation in Missouri," Bonney told reporters during a press conference at the State Capitol.

In addition, Ray McCarty with Associated Industries of Missouri wants changes made to bonds used to pay for unemployment insurance.

"It's gonna take the legislature doing an amendment to the law to stretch the bond terms out," McCarty said.  "This helps level the shock to employers' tax accounts as we go into the future and (as) we're trying to recover from this horrible economic downturn that we've had."

McCarty says doing nothing on unemployment insurance bonds would result in a tax increase for all Missouri employers.

Marshal was a political reporter for St. Louis Public Radio until 2018.