Voice For Liberty

Category: Kansas state government

  • Bailout-mania spreads to the states

    Bailout-mania spreads to the states, and Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius is at the forefront. As reported in Kansas Liberty:

    Sebelius , a Democrat and vigorous Obama supporter who is rumored to be a candidate for a cabinet appointment, formally presented Obama with a request on behalf of the National Governors Association for $40 billion to help fund health care assistance for the poor.

    “President-Elect Obama made it clear that he wanted input and ideas from governors about the focus and size of the stimulus package which he plans to propose to help get the economy back on track,” Sebelius said in a statement issued after the meeting.

    Read the whole story at Bailout-mania spreads to the states.

  • Kansas highways influence, for better or worse

    Kansas Department of Transportation Secretary Deb Miller wrote a Wichita Eagle editorial in which she states:

    One of the studies examines the K-96 northeast Wichita bypass. The study found that since it was finished in 1993, the bypass has dramatically influenced the region’s development patterns. Much of Wichita’s job growth between 1994 and 2006 has occurred along the K-96 corridor.

    No doubt this is true. But what are the consequences? Highways like K-96 enable and encourage growth in the outer fringes of Wichita and in suburban towns like Andover. Then, there’s a reaction.

    Officials of USD 259 complain that there’s a “doughnut” and that urban schools are being underfunded. Much taxpayer money will be needed to fix this, they say.

    Politicians like Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer still want to have a vibrant downtown, even though people have moved away. To achieve this, they’ll propose spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer funds to lure people back downtown. At tomorrow’s meeting of the Wichita City Council, more of this will be proposed.

    The corker, though, is the global warming alarmists who don’t want people driving carbon-emitting automobiles on these roads. But since we’re doing that, they want us to undertake expensive and job-killing measures to mitigate these carbon emissions.

  • Susan Wagle for Kansas Senate President

    Tomorrow, the Kansas Senate meets to select its leadership. Senate Republicans could do Kansans a favor by electing Susan Wagle of Wichita to be senate president.

    Part of the reason why a Wagle victory would be good for Kansas is her opponent, current senate president Stephen Morris of Hugoton. His political leanings are not right for Kansas as our state enters a tough budgetary period. His lifetime rating from the Kansas Taxpayers Network is 32.5%. There are many Democrats with better ratings. In a New York Times article from earlier this year (One Hand on Her Job, the Other Across the Aisle ), he was quoted as saying “But that’s the only major disagreement we’ve had since she took office,” referring to the expansion of the Holcomb Station coal-fired power plant. Someone who rarely disagrees with Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius is certainly someone who shouldn’t be in charge of leading the Kansas Senate.

    Susan Wagle, on the other hand, disagrees with the governor on many things. She’d be a great leader of the Kansas Senate.

  • Just Say It: We Need to Raise Taxes in Kansas

    Rhonda Holman’s Wichita Eagle editorial today (State budget pain must be shared) makes the case for raising Kansas taxes without directly saying so. It’s actually quite artful the way she dodges actually saying what she wants Kansas legislators to do.

    Using language like “Nobody ever wants to raise taxes …” and “Lawmakers also must not forget that they played a role in bringing Kansas to this point … without adding new revenue and by cutting taxes” she makes the case for tax hikes without actually saying the word. She did say this: “But cuts won’t be enough.” That’s pretty close, I guess.

    My question is this: Rhonda, why won’t you just say in plain language that you believe we need to raise taxes in Kansas? Just say it, if you believe it.

  • Broad-based Economic Development Will Work Best for Kansas

    Alan Cobb of Americans For Prosperity — Kansas argues that instead of micro-management of economic development efforts, Kansas should aim for a businesses climate that’s good for everyone. See Yes, but it’s only $1.3 billion.

    We should heed this advice locally in Wichita.

  • No Kansas subsidy to Northern Flyer

    When it comes to government money, there’s no shortage of people who have ideas on how to spend it. One group that has grand ideas of how government should spend your money is the Northern Flyer Alliance. This group promotes passenger train service in our area. Currently they’re promoting extension of rail service from Oklahoma City to Wichita.

    The problem with this group, as alluded to above, is that they seek to accomplish their goal by using government. As reported in the Wichita Eagle (Group seeks support for train service through Wichita), “The director of a group seeking expanded passenger rail service through Wichita today asked City Council members to pass a resolution urging the state to include in its upcoming transportation plan a new Amtrak line stretching from Oklahoma City to Wichita and on to Kansas City.”

    So this group is asking Wichita (and many other towns and cities) to apply pressure to the State of Kansas to subsidize this rail line. This group is another example of political entrepreneurship in action. Instead of practicing market entrepreneurship — that’s where you develop and deliver services and products that people actually want enough to pay for — this group seeks to accomplish its goals by influencing politicians and bureaucrats. They were successful in Oklahoma.

    If we want passenger train service that is truly successful, this group should work to raise private capital rather than seeking government subsidy. This is the only way we’ll know whether this train service is something that truly adds value, or whether it is just another “amenity” the government provides by taxing one person to subsidize someone else.

  • In Kansas, Tax Increases Loom

    As Kansas confronts a disastrous budget, the danger of tax increases is large. As reported by David Klepper in Shortfall means painful budget cuts for Kansas, “Because of declining tax revenue, Kansas faces a $1 billion deficit in next year’s budget, on top of a more than $140 million shortfall in the current budget year.”

    Right now, state officials and politicians are talking about spending cuts as a way to meet the challenge. It seems to me, however, that cutting spending the amount that is required will be politically impossible, as state spending has so many constituents. Also, Kansas spending has been growing rapidly in recent years. Calls to merely slow down the rate of growth are resisted strenuously.

    On the KPTS public affairs television program Kansas Week a few weeks ago, Martin Hawver mentioned that it’s sometimes possible to raise revenues in the first year of a two-year term. That’s what Kansas is heading into this January as a new legislature takes office. Citizens in Kansas need to keep informed during the upcoming legislative session so that proposals for tax increases may be opposed.

  • Kansas highway spending has not boosted economy

    Who isn’t in favor of good streets and highways? Don’t we need roads, highways, and bridges so that our economy can function? The problem with most studies that pump up the benefit of government spending is that they omit something very important: the cost of these projects, and who pays. A solution that I favor is to start the move towards market-based ownership and management of streets and highways.

    Highway Spending Has not Boosted Economy
    By Gregory L. Schneider

    Next legislative session, in spite of the poor budget news that will greet the newly elected and incumbent legislators, the lobbyists will be out in full force demanding more money for roads in the Sunflower State. It has been 10 years since the most recent massive infusion of highway spending, and the lobbyists will argue that roads bring economic development.

    Does a massive infusion of government spending and debt financing bring the results that lobbyists claim?

    In 1989, Kansas spent $3.15 billion on road construction and highways. In 1999, spending on highways quadrupled to $13.4 billion, about $8 billion of it state funds and the rest from federal and local governments.

    The result of such spending is that Kansas has some very good roads. According to a study by University of North Carolina professor David Hartgen, Kansas is one of six states with “zero percent poor road conditions for both rural and urban roads.” Kansas ranks ninth in the nation in per capita highway spending but 43rd in average daily traffic per lane.

    In 1999, when then-Gov. Bill Graves approved the massive increase in spending on roads, it was paid for by additional taxation, including a 6-cent-per-gallon fuel tax, an increase in sales tax, an increase in the motor vehicle registration fee, and an increase in debt to the tune of $1 billion.

    What has been the result of such munificence to road construction companies and contractors? Our per capita debt is higher than any of our neighboring states, as high as $1,218 per capita (Nebraska’s is $24 per capita). Our state debt (not all of it because of roads) has ballooned by 875.4 percent in the past 15 years (from $424 million in 1992 to $4.13 billion in 1997). Kansas already has the second-highest sales tax in the region; only Nebraska has a higher sales tax.

    A study by the University of Kansas Center for Applied Economics in May 2005 showed the counterargument to the claim that more roads bring economic development: “Over the last three decades, the presence of more highway capital in a state has not been found to attract more private capital to the economy.”

    The experience of Kansas over the past two decades bears this out. The state has spent billions on lightly traveled highways that have further burdened taxpayers with higher taxes and debt. Kansas has the best highways in the region, but private-sector development has not been a result of spending on highways.

    It is high time to stop spending money on roads in the state. If roads bring development, let’s see the evidence first before building more roads to nowhere. If it can’t be proved that roads lead to economic development, then change the focus of the debate on economic development to lowering taxes, decreasing government spending and paying off debt.

  • Climate change alarmism in Kansas is expensive

    Today’s Wichita Eagle reports on the high cost of climate change mitigation. (Climate cleanup costs could trickle down) Before Kansans commit to expensive courses of action that will be ineffective, we need to consider the wisdom of this action.

    As reported in the article, “there is the worry that regulation will drive up costs and push industry and jobs to other places.” Climate change alarmists treat these yet-to-be-passed regulations as a given, and are sure that they’ll be implemented. These regulations, however, are bad public policy, and there’s no reason why we should base current decisions on the threat of bad regulations being passed in the future. In fact, to do so would be highly irresponsible.

    Reported as a counterbalance to the huge costs of complying with bad regulation is “But others argue that regulations will spur innovation, creating more jobs.” It’s true that a forced move to a “green” economy would necessitate the need for workers to do things. What’s really important, however, is whether these jobs would increase the wealth of our country. That depends partly on the validity of the threat that climate change presents, and that threat is disputed. If the threat is not real, or if the effect would be minor, then these “green” jobs have all the characteristics of “make-work” jobs. They put people to work, but produce nothing of value.

    Furthermore, we might find ourselves spending huge sums to reduce greenhouse gases when other countries are increasing their emissions rapidly. Melissa Cohlmia of Koch Industries got this exactly right when she mentioned countries that “will not participate in efforts to limit greenhouse gases.” I’ve written about this before in relation to efforts in Kansas to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. A little arithmetic tells us that anything we as Kansans do is just a drop in the ocean. In fact, as I report in KEEP’s Goal is Predetermined and Ineffectual, “even if Kansas stopped producing all carbon emissions, the effect would be overcome in about 16 months of just the growth in China’s emissions.”

    Rate increases in utility bills are burdensome to customers. When the local electric utility proposed raising monthly bills by $10 for the average consumer, ratepayers protested vigorously. When the City of Wichita proposed adding perhaps $3 or $4 to monthly residential water bills, council member Lavonta Williams expressed concern that this would be a hardship for many of the residents in her district. Whenever forecasts call for higher natural gas prices, we’re warned that some people will not be able to heat their homes.