Gov. Sam Brownback dumped a huge load of work in the Kansas Legislature’s lap Wednesday night:
Revamp the state income tax. Eliminate the long-term deficit in KPERS. Enact a new water rights law and find a way to save the Ogallala aquifer. Rewrite the way Kansas funds K-12 education by giving local school districts more say-so while keeping funding for each student adequate — and keep the courts out of the picture while you’re doing it.
Oh, and pretend that it’s no trick at all to run a state — or a family? — on less money every year.
The governor’s state-of-the-state message was typical: up-beat and self-congratulatory. But his charge to the lawmakers was unrealistic.
Kansas spends more than half of its general fund money each year on K-12 education. In a growing state, education costs increase each year because the number of students increases. It can also grow because a state wasn’t spending enough to teach its students the knowledge and skills they need to succeed and should spend more when it can.
Because of the Great Recession, Kansas — along with many other states — has had to cut its K-12 budget deeply over the past four years. It is therefore falling short of meeting the quality outcomes Kansas children deserve and have the right to expect. If Gov. Brownback can find a way to increase student performance without investing more money in K-12, more power to him. Otherwise, investing less in education will hurt Kansas children, diminish their future and the future of the state. It’s as straight forward as that.
The governor’s formula for curing the $8.3 billion deficit in the state employee pension program is probably the best way out of the quagmire: put additional state money into the KPERS reserves every year; change to a 401(k) system for younger and future state employees. State workers won’t like the change. The current defined benefit program guarantees pension amounts; 401(k) returns depend on investment results.
But the plain fact is that legislatures simply won’t fund defined benefit plans adequately and workers’ unions will always try to bully lawmakers into raising their benefits without asking for greater worker contributions. The discipline from both sides needed to keep defined benefit plans solvent doesn’t exist.
Turning this good idea into law will be a true challenge.
THE GOVERNOR’S TAX reforms are straight out of the conservative playbook: cut the income tax but keep the sales tax high and prosperity is just around the corner.
That is an economic myth.
Increasing income taxes was followed by a decade of prosperity and a balanced federal budget in the Bill Clinton years, while the biggest tax cuts in U.S. history led to the Great Recession and exploding deficits for the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Contrary to what presidents and governors say, those sequences of events do not necessarily have cause and effect relationships. It can safely be concluded from them, however, that tax increases don’t always cause recessions and tax decreases don’t inevitably prevent recessions.
What Gov. Brownback did in his first year of office had very little to do with the fact that Kansas and the rest of the country are beginning, after four miserable years, to show stirrings of economic recovery. His proposal to reduce the state income tax a tad will make it more difficult to fund K-12 and do the rest of the state’s business, but won’t stimulate the Kansas economy significantly.
Nevertheless, Kansas will have lower taxes. The Legislature is as conservative as the governor. Conservatives cut taxes. It’s scripture.
