By Jeff Lehr

jlehr@joplinglobe.com

At least two of the three candidates in the Republican primary for Missouri’s 4th Congressional District want to replace the federal income tax with a national sales tax.

Jeff Parnell, 47, of Rogersville, and Stanley Plough Jr., 34, of Clinton, are advocates of the so-called fair tax. A third candidate in the district’s Republican primary, Joseph Terrazas, of Sedalia, could not be sounded out on the issue since he did not return multiple calls seeking an interview.

Parnell and Plough are vying for the right to face longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton, 76, in the general election. Skelton, seeking his 17th term in office, has drawn no challengers in the primary.

Parnell owns Jeff Parnell Tire in Springfield and is a 2004 graduate of that city’s Evangel University with a bachelor of arts degree in business administration.

Plough is self-employed and attended Pillsbury Baptist Bible College in Owatonna, Minn., for two years in the 1990s without obtaining a degree.

“I’m running because we’ve entrusted career politicians to do our work for us, and they have failed us,” Parnell told the Globe in a recent interview.

Parnell, who has served on Webster County Republican Central Committee, made “a grass-roots run” for the 4th District office in 2004 and again in 2006, losing in the primary both times to James Noland, who tried for years to unseat Skelton without success. This year, Noland decided not to run and has endorsed Parnell.

The owner of a tire and auto service in Springfield is convinced there is more of an anti-incumbent than an anti-Republican mood among voters this year. Congress has a lower approval rating than President Bush at the moment, and it has been in Democrats’ control the past two years, he said.

“I think this last Congress has done less than the do-nothing Congress of 1947,” Parnell said. “This Congress has declared war on the incandescent lightbulb and expressed concern with the steroid use of an old baseball player while our economy has dropped off into the abyss.”

He believes a national sales tax could fully fund Social Security and Medicare. If he is elected, he intends to co-sponsor reintroduction of a Georgia congressman’s fair-tax bill. He said he was undaunted when he recently spoke to Republican presidential candidate John McCain about the fair tax and got a tepid response at best.

“Most politicians don’t like it because they would be giving up too much power,” Parnell said.

Plough has never run for elective office.

“I want to help people. I want to make a difference in their lives,” he told the Globe.