DARDENNE PRAIRIE - Tax policy was among the dividing lines today in the first general-election debate between the two major 9th District Congressional candidates - Republican Blaine Luetkemeyer and Democrat Judy Baker.

The two pretty much stuck to campaign themes on taxes and other issues that they’ve pushed in appearances and TV and radio ads since winning their August primaries in the district.

On taxes, Luetkemeyer, a former state representative from St. Elizabeth, said it’s important to keep the tax cuts enacted by Congress at the request of President George W. Bush - especially with a struggling economy. “The last thing we need is a tax increase, something my opponent supports,” he said. “That is going backward.”

Baker, a state representative from Columbia, said she wants to redirect some of those Bush-inspired reductions away from the wealthy and toward middle-class people. She said she’d keep other tax breaks enacted under Bush.

“It is time we reward not just wealth but we reward work and working families,” she said. “My opponent, on the other hand, supports tax cuts for people and millionaires who don’t even live in the district.”

Baker, meanwhile, accused Luetkemeyer of backing a 23 percent tax increase on groceries and gasoline.

Luetkemeyer said Baker’s comment, relating to a statement he made in July about a consumption tax, was misleading. He said he liked the “principle” of such a tax as a possible replacement for “all the other income taxes that are out there”  but said he wasn’t pushing the idea. “It’s a replacement of one tax for the other; it’s not an additional tax,” he said.

Luetkemeyer, meanwhile, attacked Baker for voting in the Legislature against a bill passed last year to gradually remove the state income tax from Social Security payments for retired Missourians.

Baker, in reply, said she opposed the measure because it aided wealthier retirees earning more than $80,000 a year. She instead wanted to restore health benefits for some lower-income seniors that had been cut previously. “We have to make choices,” she said. “To me, a budget is a moral document.”

Before the change, Missourians paid no taxes on Social Security if their income - minus half their Social Security - fell below $25,000 for an individual and $32,000 for a married couple.

Under the change, the state began phasing out the Social Security tax for retirees earning more than those amounts. To get the full break, individuals under the bill can earn no more than $85,000 and married couples, $100,000. Above those levels, people can get a partial tax cut.  

The hour-long debate was at Barat Academy, a Catholic high school. The session was sponsored by the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association and Partners for Progress, an organization made up of St. Charles County’s largest employers.

More than 200 people, including a large contingent of Barat students, watched the event. Another debate is scheduled for later this month in Kirksville.

The 9th District takes in a wide swath of eastern and central Missouri, including southern and western portions of St. Charles County such as Lake Saint Louis, Weldon Spring and part of Dardenne Prairie.

The Baker-Luetkemeyer race has been one of the biggest-spending in the Missouri this year, mainly because there’s no incumbent running. Kenny Hulshof, the 9th District Congressman since 1997, is the GOP gubernatorial nominee.