Not since Cate O’Leary’s legendary cow kicked over a lantern and started the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 has a community been subjected to as wanton an act of civic irresponsibility as Rex Sinquefield’s attempt to perpetrate Proposition A on Missouri.

The cow was just being a cow. Mr. Sinquefield has no excuse.

The retired investment guru has spent $10,718,000 — and counting — on Proposition A, a ballot question that is part of his crusade against municipal earnings taxes, the residents of St. Louis and Kansas City and the rights of local voters in municipalities across the state.

His efforts are not driven by sound public policy or in support of broad political sentiment. Rather, he is acting on personal and philosophical antipathy toward income taxes — and subjecting the people of Missouri to a reckless experiment.

The campaign website for Proposition A claims that the initiative is needed because “loopholes in Missouri’s current state law allow politicians to continue the earnings tax in St. Louis and Kansas City forever — without any voter approval — and to impose local earnings taxes in other Missouri communities. Proposition A will close these loopholes.”

What loopholes?

Missouri’s tax-limiting Hancock Amendment already prevents state and local governments from imposing new taxes without voter approval. Voters dissatisfied with local taxes can replace mayors and council members with new officials who will reset tax policy.

Only two Missouri cities — Kansas City and St. Louis — have enacted earnings taxes. Their 1 percent rate has been stable for decades and has come to be a cornerstone of each city’s budget for city services.

“Let Voters Decide” is Mr. Sinquefield’s campaign slogan. More correctly it should be, “Let’s Strip Most Voters of Their Right to Decide.”

Voters in any other city in Missouri, even those facing a revenue crisis, would be forbidden from ever enacting an earnings tax, no matter how much conditions might change.

Mr. Sinquefield also wants to take the question out of St. Louis and Kansas City voters’ hands. Both cities would be required to hold local elections every five years — beginning next April — to retain the tax.

If at any point, voters decide to get rid of earnings taxes, the cuts would be phased in over 10 years, beginning immediately, and the tax never could be reimposed. Mr. Sinquefield blithely figures that 10 years is plenty of time to figure out what comes next.

This is like blowing up a dam and saying we’ll figure out how to deal with the water later.

Mr. Sinquefield argues that earnings taxes limit economic growth. In 2009, a study he commissioned from PFM Group of Philadelphia concluded that St. Louis’ and Kansas City’s e-taxes are a “primary competitive disadvantage.”

This is particularly so, the study said, because the two cities compete for jobs and growth within regions in which other cities don’t levy the e-tax.

Other studies have disputed the real effect of the earnings tax on a city’s growth, saying there are far more important factors in individual and business relocation decisions.

The flip side of the coin is what sort of competitive disadvantage would be created by removing the e-tax? Who’s going to open — or keep — a business in a city that loses nearly a third of its tax base?

To maintain city services, property taxes and sales taxes (the other legs of the city revenue stool) would have to be raised dramatically — and, again, the Hancock Amendment requires a public vote for tax increases.

If such votes failed, the only alternative would be drastic cuts in city services.

The executive committee and Public Policy Council of the Regional Chamber and Growth Association, the city’s largest business organization, on Wednesday recommended a “no” vote.

“The loss of one-third of the city’s general revenue could cripple its ability to deliver basic services like police and fire protection,” an RCGA statement said. “Furthermore, the requirement of a retention vote for the tax every five years could adversely impact the city’s bond rating, both now and in the future.”

Proposition A is an eccentric multimillionaire’s ego trip. It needlessly and heedlessly undermines Missouri’s economic stability and political democracy.

Voters across the state should vote No on Proposition A.