Eighteen months out from the Nov. 6, 2018, general election, Carl Brewer was in Iola Tuesday to campaign for Kansas governor.
A former two-term mayor of Wichita, Brewer is running for the Democratic nomination.
Brewer asserts the wheels of the state’s proverbial “wagon” have fallen off and left its citizens stranded.
“Six years of mismanagement will do that,” he said. “We not only have to put the wheels back on, but also pull the wagon in the right direction,” by making education the state’s No. 1 priority and “recapturing” money that was “given away through tax cuts and tax breaks.”
Gov. Sam Brownback’s “race to zero” income tax model is criticized as having plunged the state in debt. The state budget is currently $900 million short of balancing for the next two budget years and its reserves have been drained.
Brewer also is a fan of expanding Medicaid, recognizing the harm done from those lost dollars and services to the poor, the disabled and public hospitals and mental health facilities.
BREWER, 60, started his political career as a grassroots activist in his hometown of Wichita as a union organizer in the meatpacking and aviation industries. Mediating came naturally to Brewer, who said he has a low boiling point.
As an African American, Brewer said he’s been tested more than once throughout his civic, civilian and military careers. Brewer retired as a captain after 21 years with the Kansas National Guard. He also served two terms on the Wichita Council and was president of the Kansas League of Municipalities.
At a meeting Tuesday night of the Allen County Democratic Party, Cynthia Chalker, Iola, asked Brewer if his race would be a stumbling block to his campaign.
Brewer answered diplomatically, saying that with all he hopes to bring to the table — tax reform, adequately funding Kansas schools, restoring roads and infrastructure and providing adequate health care — the color of his skin should be the least on people’s minds.
“Human nature tells us race is an issue,” he said. “But at the end of the day, it should be the person who is willing to stand up for you, the person who wants to help you put food on the table, that makes the difference in how you vote.”
Several at Tuesday’s forum had traveled from Chanute and made note of the poor condition of Hwy. 169 along the 15-mile stretch to Iola, giving Brewer an opportunity to lament the annual diversion of funds from the Kansas Department of Transportation to help prop up the state budget.
In 2010, the state passed a 10-year $8 billion transportation program designed to preserve and improve state highways and bridges. To date, more than $2 billion has been diverted from the program and hundreds of bridge and road projects have been postponed.
Brewer used such setbacks — as well as cuts to public education — to illustrate the damage done to state institutions by the Brownback administration.
“It will take 10 to 20 years to undue the damage,” he said.
“First we need to stop the bleeding,” he said, including tax reform by reverting to the state’s pre-2012 tax rates.
AS A former operations manager with Spirit Aero Systems, Brewer said he recognized the importance of adequately providing for education because “Once they graduate, our students are in competition with the rest of the world. The job market is global, not local.”
“Prospective industries look at a community and say, ‘Do I have a 50-year future here,’” in terms of an educated workforce coming down the pipeline to fill upcoming vacancies as well as provide for growth.
“And that includes adequate supplies,” Brewer said. “Construction workers aren’t expected to provide their own hammers and nails, but yet our teachers are outfitting classrooms with their own funds, buying paper and crayons, rulers and boxes of tissues.
“We need to treat students as the prized possession they are.”
“We have the impression that people who don’t do well, don’t want to,” he said. “Nothing could be further from the truth. Give them the right tools — good schools, affordable health care, low consumption taxes — and they’ll take care of the rest.”
