State Republican leaders in the House have figured out how to defraud the people of Kansas without going to jail.
When it came time to pass a supplemental budget for this year amounting to $24.5 million the House refused to pass the Senate version. Why? Because the Senate and the governor wanted the money to come from the general fund. House leaders balked. They wanted to steal the money from the Department of Transportation budget, instead.
Again, why? To make the general fund look richer so that bigger revenue cuts could be justified.
That, gentle reader, is unadulterated fraud.
It is fraud because it takes money largely generated from highway fuels taxes Kansas motorists innocently expect to be spent building and maintaining Kansas highways and dumps it into the general fund to be spent everywhere else but on highways.
It is fraud because it leads Kansas taxpayers to believe the state has fiscal room for tax reductions, as the swollen general fund balance appears to demonstrate.
Truth is found elsewhere.
Because the supplemental appropriation was not made before the lawmakers took off for their three-week end-of-session break, school districts will be squeezed still tighter, the courts may be forced to furlough employees without pay for several days and other state entities will have to figure out how to get along without the funds they were expecting until the lawmakers return and —maybe, but only maybe — decide they should do the job they were elected to do.
Have a word or two with Rep. Bill Otto if you happen to see him.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
