A measure cutting income and sales taxes sits on Gov. Sam Brownback’s desk. It isn’t exactly the bill he asked for, but he said it would create growth.
That’s not all it would create. The non-partisan Legislative Research department said it would result in deficits of nearly $2.5 billion in fiscal year 2018.
A smart aleck lawmaker said that couldn’t happen because the law requires the state budget to be balanced. Bingo. So if taxes are whacked that hard, one of two consequences will result: (1) spending will be cut enough to balance the budget or (2) taxes will be increased enough to do so.
Gov. Brownback seems to recognize these obvious facts. He observed that if an estimated 191,000 “small” businesses no longer pay a share of the state’s operating costs, “Kansas will need to constrain its spending in future years.”
Before continuing, let’s stop a bit and recognize that many of those 191,000 enterprises Gov. Brownback targeted for tax exemption are very profitable LLCs and sole proprietorships that provide incomes for some of the state’s wealthiest citizens. Perhaps some in that huge tax-free bundle really need to be coddled; a very large number of them do not. Taxes on businesses should be based on ability to pay rather than on the way they are organized.
At this point in the 2012 session — a day past the scheduled final adjournment — the Legislature has yet to pass a budget, fund the schools, deal with the state’s retirement program, which is grossly underfunded, decide on state worker compensation for the next year or complete the political redistricting that the law requires be done every 10 years.
To put it another way, the main tasks it was handed on Jan. 1 remain undone.
THE STALEMATE is caused by the war between the ultra-conservative Republicans and the just plain conservatives in the party, who are being labeled moderates for convenience. The ultras want to draw new district maps for the Senate that would give them the extra votes they need to kick the so-called moderates out, and eliminate a few Democrats as well.
The targets of this mean-spirited gerrymandering happen to include the Senate leadership of both parties. Unsurprisingly, they are resisting and pushing back hard enough to stymie action.
If the redistricting contest continues without an acceptable compromise being reached, perhaps it will be turned over to the courts to resolve so the primary election can be held more or less on schedule.
With that issue off the table, the rest of the unfinished business will be wrapped up in desperate compromises that will leave no one happy and will guarantee a 2013 session equally full of infighting, backbiting and bile.
Kansas state politics, dear reader, is seriously ill with antigovernmentitis. We have elected a coven of public officials who hate government and have sought and achieved office so that they could do government in. The disease could prove terminal to them. But not to Kansas. Once the dark forces go to their just reward, Kansas can start over with a new crop of office-holders who understand the concept of public service and the state will start its journey to the stars all over again, overcoming whatever difficulties lie in its path.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
