“We believe that he’s manufactured this crisis so he can hop around the state on his new plane and get others to try to defeat a tax cut for Missouri,” Dempsey said.

Nixon did travel across the state Tuesday, making stops in Kansas City and Springfield to discuss the provision his administration contends is problematic.

At a Capitol news conference, the governor said the bill would prompt deep cuts to education, the closure of prisons and mental hospitals and a downgrade in the state’s AAA credit rating.

He said legislators either inserted the provision by accident or deliberately, to satisfy “ideological interests led by one St. Louis billionaire.”

Though Nixon did not name him, a major donor to the GOP majorities in the Legislature is Rex Sinquefield, a retired investment company executive who has pushed for elimination of the individual income tax. Grow Missouri, a group funded in part by Sinquefield, ran ads last year urging legislators to enact a tax cut over Nixon’s veto.

Lobbyist David Jackson of Grow Missouri said in an interview that his group was not involved in drafting this year’s tax cut bill.

“I did not write a single sentence or letter in that bill,” he said.