Missouri's Governor Calls for End to Contest of Incentives KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The long-running competition for jobs between Kansas and Missouri that has elicited all manner of battlefield imagery about arming and disarming, border wars and turf battles now has Gov. Jay Nixon of Missouri signaling for a new one: truce. Speaking to a group of business leaders on Tuesday, Mr. Nixon, a Democrat, called for a moratorium on state financial incentives that simply move businesses from one side of the state line to the other, rather than bring new jobs to the region. "That is bad for taxpayers," Mr. Nixon said of the moving of jobs. It's bad for our state budget, and it's not good for our economy. Later, he added, "This so-called border war between our two states has gone on long enough." The fight to attract businesses seems to have been escalating in recent years in the form of tax policy. Kansas lawmakers, during their past two sessions, have passed the largest income tax cuts in the state's history. Their counterparts in Missouri counterpunched by trying to pass their own major tax cut this year, but the effort failed when Mr. Nixon vetoed it, saying that the measure would have prevented the state from paying for vital services like education and mental health care. Tuesday's announcement zeroed in on incentives given directly to businesses. Since 2009, when Kansas started an incentive program similar to one in Missouri that allows employers to retain their employees" state income tax for a fixed time, the two states have forgiven a combined $212 million in taxes, according to Bill Hall, the president of the Hall Family Foundation. And Kansas seems to lead in the fight to attract jobs. More than 3,200 jobs within the greater Kansas City area have moved from Missouri to Kansas during that period, and just over 2,800 have gone the other way. Although some of Mr. Nixon's political opponents seemed to support the thrust of his proposal, they questioned the way he was going about it, and his timing. Timothy Jones, a Republican who is speaker of the House in Missouri, criticized Mr. Nixon for not supporting a bill that passed the House this year that would have created a neutral zone along parts of the border where no incentives would be used. Had it passed, he said, Kansas would have been prepared to take similar action, through an executive order of its governor, Sam Brownback, a Republican. Mr. Jones said that he and others in the Missouri House had been talking to Kansas officials for more than two years about such a plan. "We're very happy to finally welcome Governor Nixon to this discussion, which we've been having for over two years," Mr. Jones said. I just hope that folks don't get fixated on the fact that Governor Nixon has suddenly popped out of his rabbit hole and engaged in this discussion. Mr. Brownback's office did not respond to messages seeking comment. Mr. Nixon said that he had "had good and solid discussions" with Mr. Brownback and his senior staff, and that he believed the states were on a good path to ending the border war. Marvin Kleeb, a Kansas Republican representative from suburban Kansas City, said that employers choosing to move to Kansas from Missouri mostly made up their minds over what he believed was better infrastructure in his state, and that the tax incentives were merely a way of making the desired move financially feasible. The incentives, Mr. Kleeb added, are not meant to be spiteful to Missouri. "The plain fact is Kansas is working hard to say that we're open for business," he said. Decreasing our income taxes is to help our own local businesses go and grow and have money for expansion and investment, and yes, this will mean we're a more attractive state for businesses to relocate to and invest in from outside of the Kansas area.