Voice For Liberty

Category: Kansas state government

  • The Kansas (Governor Budget) Comedy

    At National Review, Denis Boyles makes an observation about Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius and her handling of the Kansas budget this year, particularly events this week:

    Sebelius knew about this coming shortfall because the state legislature has been telling her about it for months. Instead of following the rules, she let the clock run out, canceled a meeting to discuss the problem with legislative leaders, and then sent out a press release claiming the poor would soon die because Republicans had made her stop sending people their tax refunds. The press did the rest.

    The article is That Kansas Comedy.

  • Kansas budget crisis, now

    Breaking: see Kansas Governor Addresses Budget Crisis and Kansas Budget Crisis Heats Up.

    The Kansas Liberty story Lawmakers claim Sebelius’ demand for money would violate state statutes reports on a conflict between the two parties named in the story’s title.

    What Kansas Governor Kathleen Sibelius wants to do is to shift money from one state fund to another so that current bills, including state employee paychecks, can be paid. Later, the state would pay back the money borrowed.

    Republican legislative leaders are not willing to grant this authority to the Governor, however. Both sides accuse the other of playing politics with this issue. The Governor’s press release may be read here.

    (Similar information from Kansas House and Senate leaders is not available online, at least not where it can be found easily.)

    It’s difficult to be on the Governor’s side on this issue. Her initial attempt at balancing the 2009 budget complied with the law. But the law only required her to address revenue shortfalls based on estimates from two months ago, when everyone knew that the true situation was much worse. She took the easy way out, letting the legislature do the dirty work. (See Sebelius’ Proposed Cuts Not Likely Enough and Kansas Governor Not Facing Reality of Budget Crisis)

    For more coverage of this issue, see Wichitopekington, which has some coverage, as does the Wichita Eagle in Kansas may delay tax refunds, paychecks.

    Note: Kansas Liberty has recently become a subscription site, so you may not be able to read the entire article referred to above. I recommend, however, that you consider subscribing to Kansas Liberty.

  • 5 Questions: Proposition K

    The Shawnee Dispatch reports on an informational meeting in Johnson County. The article is 5 Questions: Proposition K.

    There’s also a poll to express your support (or not) or Proposition K.

  • Kansas minimum wage

    A group in Kansas is pressing for raising the state minimum wage. Will raising it help or harm low-wage earners? And are the policy goals — taken in their entirety — of the groups pressing for a higher minimum wage in the best interest of workers?

    The great appeal of a higher minimum wage mandated by an act of the legislature is that it seems like a wonderfully magical way to increase the wellbeing of low-wage workers. Those who were earning less than the new lawful wage and keep their jobs after the increase are happy. They are grateful to the lawmakers, labor leaders, newspaper editorialists, and others who pleaded for the higher minimum wage. News stories will report their good fortune.

    That’s the visible effect of raising the minimum wage. But to understand the entire issue, we must look for the unseen effects.

    The not-so-visible effect of the higher wage law is that demand for labor will be reduced. Those workers whose productivity, as measured by the give and take of supply and demand, lies below the new lawful wage rate are in danger of losing their jobs. The minimum wage law says if you hire someone you must pay them a certain amount. The law can’t compel you to hire someone, nor can it compel employers to keep workers on the payroll.

    The difficulty is that people with lose their jobs in dribs and drabs. A few workers here; a few there. They may not know who is to blame. Newspaper and television reporters will not seek these people, as they are largely invisible, especially so in the case of the people who are not hired because of the higher wage law.

    If we are truly concerned about the plight of low-wage workers we can face some harsh realities and deal with them openly. The simple fact is that some people are not able to produce output that our economy values very much. They are not very productive. Passing a law that requires employers to pay them more doesn’t change the fact that their productivity is low. But there are ways to increase productivity.

    One way to increase workers’ productivity is through education. Unfortunately, there is ample evidence that our public education system is failing badly.

    Capital — another way to increase wages — may be a dirty word to some. But as the economist Walter E. Williams says, ask yourself this question: who earns the higher wage: a man digging a ditch with a shovel, or a man digging a ditch using a power backhoe? The difference between the two is that the man with the backhoe is more productive. That productivity is provided by capital — the savings that someone accumulated (instead of spending on immediate consumption or taxes) and invested in a piece of equipment that increased the output of workers and our economy.

    Education and capital accumulation are the two best ways to increase the productivity and the wages of workers. Ironically, the people who are most vocal about raising wages through legislative fiat are also usually opposed to meaningful education reform and school choice, insisting on more resources being poured into the present system. They also usually support higher taxes on both individuals and business, which makes it harder to accumulate capital. These organizations should examine the effects of the policies they promote, as they are not in alignment with their stated goals.

  • Advocates for Invisible Kansans comment, not one “thank you”

    About a week ago my post Invisible Kansans Tell Their Stories somehow came to the attention of advocates of the disabled, and several left a few comments to the article.

    As you might imagine, many of the comments are argumentative, some full of invective in their demand for more funding. This is typical of those who rely on government for funding and don’t believe they’re getting enough. We saw this last year in Wichita in the campaigning for the school bond issue.

    Here’s an example from one comment-writer: “I’m am outraged by the selfish idiots who have no clue about what people with disabilities must go through and could care less … And I seriously hope you can’t sleep at night for being such horrible human beings … So get busy and quit complaining about paying taxes. We are tired of hearing you.”

    Another: “… the TV ads are no longer running due to lack of funds, but get ready, ’cause you ain’t heard nothin’ yet. We’re not invisible any more, and we damn sure ain’t gonna keep our mouths shut.”

    Here’s what was missing from these comments: not one person said “thank you” for the funding they receive. No one at all.

    And why should they say thank you to the taxpayers? Government, after all, is all about force. If you can get the legislature and governor to agree with your program, whatever it may be, the state enforces your wishes against the will of others.

    Then, look at the result. Is anyone happy about this?

  • Have Kansas tax cuts caused our budget problem?

    The budget problem in Kansas is the result of “irresponsible tax cutting,” according to Steve Rose, publisher of the Johnson County Sun.

    He really wrote that.

    Rose’s piece We’ve cut our way into this crisis mentions by name many of the taxes that we’ve reduced in Kansas.

    He really believes these cuts are the source of the problem. He says “we knocked ourselves for a loop by cutting and cutting and cutting taxes over the past 15 years. We have had a wild tax-cutting orgy.”

    Rose cites a study that sums the costs of all the Kansas tax cuts since 1995. “The cumulative impact on Kansas, the study finds, is a loss of $7.6 billion in revenue during that period. We are now losing about $600 million a year from tax cuts.”

    There are several flaws in this line of thinking.

    First is the belief of Mr. Rose that the money belongs to the government first, so that any give-backs to the people in the form of tax cuts are a “cost” to government. That’s not the right way to think of these things. Money belongs to the people. Taxes are a cost to people.

    Second, had the state had these tax revenues during these years, it is certain that the money would have been spent. Whenever revenue goes up, politicians find something it needs to be spent on.

    Third, revenue flowing to the state has been increasing rapidly. Even with tax cuts.

    Finally, Kansas, over the long term, is becoming a high tax-state. This chart shows Kansas’ rank among the states for tax burden. A low ranking means the burden is high.

    Kansas tax burden rank among states

    Over the 30 years represented in this chart, it’s evident that Kansas has moved from a low-tax state to becoming a high-tax state. For much of the 2000s, Kansas was moving in the right direction. Compared to the other states, that is, but considering the situation in many states, that may not be saying much. But for the past few years, Kansas is moving in the wrong direction, relative to other states.

    The sense of entitlement by government to tax revenue is usually limited to government officials. A few years ago Governor Kathleen Sebelius, when discussing a business machinery tax cut, she said “We’re not giving away money for the sake of giving it away.” (See Paying For Tax Cuts.) This is another example of a politician believing the money belongs to them first. Tax cuts are a gift, according to Sebelius.

    Why Mr. Rose, a businessman, would align himself with big-taxing liberals like our governor is beyond my understanding.

  • Essential Government Employees Only

    When the weather’s bad with snow or ice, sometimes you’ll hear on morning radio or television news that because of dangerous road conditions “only essential government employees should report to work today.”

    Wait a minute — does this mean that some government employees are non-essential?

  • Proposition K opponents sometimes misinformed

    In public debate, sometimes people don’t let facts or reason get in the way of arguments they want to press. This is the case in some of the comments left to a Wichita Eagle article about Proposition K, an effort to reform property tax appraisals in Kansas.

    Here’s one example of a comment left in response to the article:

    It’s like having 10 friends go out to eat 2 of them order the steak and lobster platter for $22 bucks each, 6 people order regular burger/fries plate for about $7 each and you and the remaining friend having only a cup of coffee for $1. All of a sudden, when the bill comes and it’s $88, the 2 that ordered steak and lobster say to you “oh well, why don’t we all just pay $8.80 to make it easier for everybody. Does that sound fair? But, hey…that’s what Republicans do…protect the rich.

    The argument this author makes is misleading on several levels. First, Proposition K has nothing to do with existing property values, only the increase in the appraised values. This writer makes the argument that everyone is going to start with the same value, whether they have a “burger/fries” home or a “steak and lobster” home. This is false.

    Second, in the story the author tells, the diners who ordered the expensive meals try to change the rules afterwards. But when purchasing a home, everyone knows that more expensive homes pay more taxes. There’s no secret, no trying to change this after everyone has made their menu choices, that is, purchased their homes.

    So the arguments this author makes are disingenuous, to say the least.

    Then, some writers may not be thinking the situation through:

    I am totally against this proposition. My home is already appraised at 20% more than it’s [sic] value. They have raised the value of my home 30% over the past 3 years. Adding an automatic 2% increase every year would then raise the value of my home by 50% over market in just 10 more years. I make $10 per hour and if taxes go up any more I will have to TRY to sell my house just to get out from under the tax burden.

    Proposition K, as this writer correctly notes, proposed a 2% increase in appraised value each year. This writer complains of a 10% increase in appraised value each year for three years running. Wouldn’t Proposition K have greatly helped this person, if it had been in effect for these years?

  • Steineger introduces Kansas county consolidation bill

    Kansas Senator Chris Steineger, Democrat from Kansas City, has introduced a bill whose aim is to reduce the number of counties in Kansas. The bill is Senate Bill 198. It’s pretty short to read at just two pages, part of that being the list of counties to be merged.

    I’ve covered this idea in earlier posts based on listening to Sen. Steinger speak in public, and in private. See Kansas Senator Chris Steineger on Redesigning Kansas Government and Redesigning Kansas County Government: Follow-up.

    Sen. Steineger also had an op-ed piece in the Wichita Eagle at Sen. Chris Steineger: Modernize Government. The Lawrence Journal-World has an Associated Press piece at Kansas legislator wants to consider drastically reducing number of counties. The Hutchinson News reports on this and has reader comments in Kansas too bountiful in number of counties?

    When I heard Sen. Steineger talk about this, my thinking went along the line that two counties would merge into one. But it turns my thinking was too constrained. Steineger’s bill proposes merging 105 Kansas counties into 13. For example, Sedgwick, Butler, Sumner, and Cowley counties would be merged into one new county. (The list of counties to merge is in the text of the bill.)

    Reporting in the Pittsburg Morning Sun reveals that southeast Kansas legislators are not keen on the idea of county consolidation, or on the reduction of their numbers (a related concern of Steineger’s). See
    Legislators sound off on idea to consolidate    .

    Comments left at the Journal-World article show mixed support and ridicule of the idea. But some of the detractors, I believe, are not thinking of the dynamic changes that would take place.

    For example, one comment says “You would end up with the situation where in a ‘populous’ new county it would take days to get access to any service even as simple as a marriage license.” Evidently this comment-writer believes that staffing levels would not be adjusted to match the number of people in these new counties.

    Another writer says “I also have the feeling that many small towns would lose economically by having the county seat taken away from them.” Related to this is the comment “Sure it might cut taxes, but what happens to all of those county jobs?” I imagine that some present county seats would suffer some if they were no longer the seat. These losses might come in the form of reduced employment if county offices are no longer in the town. If you believe that local government is a jobs program, that is a loss. But government jobs come at a price — taxation. If there are fewer government employees, that leaves more money in the pockets of taxpayers, and they will be able to spend it on other, more productive, uses. This leads to other jobs being created. But they’re not government jobs, which is a bad thing to some people.

    Another comment: “You think people want to spend a whole day driving to the courthouse 100 miles away to go handle thier [sic] business?” If courthouses are farther away than they are now, people will need to adjust. That might be difficult for some. Just last week I was talking to someone who complained about having to go through security at Wichita city hall (not a county office, I realize) in order to pay their water bill. Someone else remarked that there are many ways to pay a water bill besides going to city hall — mail, Internet, drop-off boxes at the grocery store, etc. But this person said they didn’t trust the system, and they wanted a receipt. With the government office being potentially a two-hour drive, will people change their ways and do more business by mail, telephone, or Internet?