Voice For Liberty

Category: Kansas state government

  • Kansas Giveaways to Wealthy Homeowners

    A Wichita Eagle news story (Help with historic houses, July 4, 2008) describes two apparently wealthy College Hill homeowners who plan to benefit from Kansas tax credits. These credits are given to people who own homes that have a historic designation.

    If you own such a historic house and plan to, for example, replace the windows or the roof, the State of Kansas will give you a tax credit of up to 25%.

    Sounds like a good program, doesn’t it? Tax credits — do they cost the state anything when given? Tax credits mean that your taxes are reduced. Suppose you spent $5,000 replacing windows. 25% of that is $1,250, so with a tax credit, your Kansas income tax would be reduced by $1,250. If your taxes were going to be $4,000, after the tax credit you’ll pay only $2,750.

    (This is much better than a tax deduction, which reduces your taxable income and taxes, but by a much smaller amount. The highest Kansas personal tax rate is 6.45%, so reducing your income by the $5,000 spent on windows means a tax savings of $322.50. Not nearly as good for the homeowner as a credit of $1,250.)

    The problem with all this is that unless the state reduces its spending by the amount of the tax credits, someone else has to make up the difference.

    So, average hard-working Kansans of all income levels will pay more taxes so that gifts — wait, I mean tax credits — can be given to wealthy homeowners living in historic homes.

    Now does this seem like a good program? The irony is that liberals (or “social progressives”) are usually in favor of historic preservation laws, while at the same time decrying tax giveaways to the rich, who do not pay their fair share, they say. Go figure.

  • Kansas Governor Joan Finney

    Kansas Liberty, which has become a very fine place to read news and opinion about Kansas and its politics, recently posted the excellent article Kansas’ Left Conservatives. This article, written by Caleb Stegall, provides a look at the politics of former Kansas governor Joan Finney.

    I highly recommend this article to learn more about “the most conservative governor our state has had in at least the last fifty years.”

  • Earthjustice in Kansas: The Press Release

    I’ve recently learned that the radical environmentalist group Earthjustice played a role in the rejection of a coal-fired power plant in Kansas. I didn’t learn that from any Kansas news source, but only from Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, and only then long after the permit for the plant was denied. See Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius at Earthjustice.

    Now I see Earthjustice’s press release Kansas Rejects Massive Sunflower Coal-Fired Power Plant.

    What did Earthjustice do in Kansas, and how did they do it? These are things Kansans need to know. To that end, I’ve filed a request under the Kansas Open Records Act asking for records of the correspondence between the governor’s office and Earthjustice. Hopefully the governor’s office will respond to this request in a way that will let Kansans have access to information they have the right to know.

  • Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius at Earthjustice

    On June 26, 2008, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius spoke at an event hosted by Earthjustice (motto: “Because the earth needs a good lawyer”). By the next day, Earthjustice already had a self-congratulatory professionally-produced video available at Earthjustice & Kansas Governor Talk Clean Energy.

    Evidently, Earthjustice, previously known as the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, was involved in the events leading up to the denial of the permit for Sunflower Electric Power Corporation’s Holcomb Station coal-fired electricity generating plant expansion.

    Now, I read the Wichita Eagle, Topeka Capital-Journal, and Lawrence Journal-World regularly, and until last week, I had never heard mention of this group being active in Kansas. A Google search showed no news media coverage, either. It appears, then, that there was a lot of behind-the-scenes maneuvering before the denial of the permit for Holcomb Station, and not covered by Kansas news media.

    But now that the permit has been denied and the Kansas Legislature failed to produce legislation that would survive the Governor’s veto, the activity of Earthjustice in Kansas, clearly a group with a radical environmentalist agenda, can be admitted.

    I received a copy of the Governor’s prepared remarks to Earthjustice, and in them she thanks the group for their involvement. How did they help Kansas? According to the Governor, Earthjustice “Provided litigation and public support, helped shape the media messaging and outreach, and rallied supporters and engaged the public to get involved.” Somehow this group did this without being noticed by Kansas news media.

  • Socialism And Big Government Expand In Kansas

    By Karl Peterjohn, Kansas Taxpayers Network

    State owned and operated casinos are constitutional and permissible in Kansas. The extremely activist and left-wing Kansas Supreme Court unanimously ruled June 27 that state owned and operated casinos were legal in Kansas. For many statehouse observers this wasn’t a surprise.

    The Kansas Supreme Court is dominated by liberal Democrats with three of its seven members having been appointed by Governor Sebelius. Since there has never been any statewide votes by Kansans authorizing a change in the Kansas Constitution to authorize state owned casinos. The Kansas top court has ruled that under the provisions of the lottery amendment adopted in 1986 casino gambling in a limited number of places is constitutional! This is an outrageous act since the Kansas Constitution does not authorize casinos but does have provisions authorizing the state lottery as well as dog and horse race track gambling.

    Kansas is now the first state in the country where monopoly franchises in certain geographic sectors will be permissible under the state owned and operated provisions of the 2007 casino law. Some may argue that the businesses buying the casino permits to actually run the casinos will be operating in a non socialist manner but this is actually a growing way of doing business in Kansas.

    Let’s call these new state owned and operated casinos the 2008 private-public partnership in Kansas. Critics will probably call it a new state gambling monopoly.

    In some ways this is similar to Wichita’s city owned Hyatt Hotel. The Hyatt is attached to the Wichita Convention Center and regularly lost thousands of dollars a year under their initial ownership agreement until 2001 when the massive losses from the 9-11 atrocities forced a restructuring. More recently the city of Wichita was asked to provide millions in a very low interest loan to a private theater in downtown Wichita. The city council gave initial approval to this new business subsidy.

    State owned and operated normally means socialism. If it is under nominal private ownership but the state exercises control over critical operations, the normal political science definition is fascism or often also called state capitalism. In either of the latter two cases the same result occurs with big government politicizing economic decision making.

    This is just like Governor Sebelius and her bankrupt cabinet member Rod Bremby who suddenly decided to re-write Kansas pollution statutes by deciding that carbon dioxide was now a pollutant and suddenly applied it to the Sunflower power plant expansion in Holcomb. Sunflower is challenging this decision in the courts but the Kansas Supreme Court is Sebelius’ rubber stamp.

    In contrast with the Sunflower plant, Sebelius and Bremby were not nearly as fastidious about carbon dioxide pollution when the Sebelius administration gave approval for a new government power plant in Manhattan. This authorization was part of the bio-defense facility proposal. The key in Sebelius’ Kansas is: state owned and operated is good. Private sector is not.

    Socialism and the state control over key parts of this state’s economy is alive and well in Kansas. That is bad economic news for the average Kansan and a problem for the economic future of this state.

  • Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group: Good for Kansas?

    Yesterday’s Wichita Eagle editorial by Randy Scholfield (Climate group could help state) supports Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius and her hand-picked Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group (KEEP). Together with an earlier article in the same newspaper (Climate group to assist state on energy plan, June 22, 2008), Kansans have plenty to be worried about as our governor seeks to burnish her national reputation as a green governor as she makes plans for her post-gubernatorial career.

    The Wall Street Journal got it just right in a recent editorial The ‘No, Nothing’ Democrats: “Ms. Sebelius is a Democratic wunderkind and her name is circulating for a cabinet post in an Obama Administration, maybe even Vice President. She’s representative of the party’s ‘no, nothing’ wing, which knows only what energy it wants to ban or limit, not what it is going to offer in place.”

    Randy Scholfield does a good job inoculating Kansans against the concern they should justifiably have about the reputation of the Center for Climate Strategies, the group that will help KEEP formulate its plan. But I feel that the nature and track record of this advisory group may push a misguided energy policy on the people of Kansas.

    Kansans need to know more about KEEP, its members, and its processes as it develops its policies and recommendations. As I learn more, there will be future posts on the Voice for Liberty in Wichita that will present a comprehensive look at KEEP.

  • The Energy Policy Goals of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius

    The Kansas Meadowlark gets it just right in this quote from a recent article: “Unfortunately Sebelius’ energy policy is more about winning elections than solving long-term energy problems.”

    Most Kansans realize that Kathleen Sebelius’ national ambitions are more important to her than the good governance of the State of Kansas. Her policy switch on the desirability of coal-fired power plants in Kansas helps her nationally, but hurts us here in Kansas.

    The Meadowlark’s full story is here: GPACE PAC/Sebelius only want unreliable energy sources for Kansas?

  • Rod Bremby’s Action Drove Away the Refinery

    In The Wichita Eagle (Roderick L. Bremby: Neufeld Disregards Truth About Air Permits, May 17, 2008) the Secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment takes issue with Kansas House Speaker Melvin Neufeld, a Republican from Ingalls. The point of contention is that Neufeld claims that if not for Bremby, Kansas might have landed a large oil refinery. Bremby disagrees with Neufeld’s assertion that Bremby’s actions have created “regulatory uncertainty” in Kansas.

    There’s some uncertainty as to whether Kansas was really in the running for the oil refinery, or if we were just a fallback state.

    There’s also controversy over whether the denial of the permit for a coal-fired power plant creates regulatory uncertainty.

    But there can be no uncertainty over this: Secretary Bremby denied the Holcomb station permit because of its carbon dioxide emissions of 11 million tons per year. The oil refinery, according to Topeka Capital-Journal reporting based on its South Dakota application, will emit 17 million tons per year. (Hyperion refinery: possibility or politics? May 18, 2008)

    So if a permit was denied because a plant would emit 11 million tons of carbon dioxide, what chance would a plant emitting 17 million tons (55% more) have of obtaining a permit? I would say it is quite certain the permit would not be approved.

    But reporting from The Topeka Capital-Journal raises questions about Secretary Bremby and his actions that absolutely do contribute to regulatory uncertainty:

    Phillips wrote to Kansas commerce secretary David Kerr on Jan. 22 asking for a commitment to approve the air-quality permit if Hyperion applied in Kansas. Bremby replied Feb. 11, “Kansas remains open for business.”

    Bremby wrote he couldn’t commit to issuing the permit but said if Hyperion submitted the same application as they did in South Dakota, there “should not be a problem with issuance.”

    The South Dakota application mentions the 17 million tons of carbon dioxide, which, if we believe the Secretary, would not be an obstacle to obtaining a permit. If so, why couldn’t the Holcomb plant, with its lesser carbon dioxide emissions, be approved?

    Secretary Bremby has some explaining to do.

    Related: The Kansas Meadowlark sees things that everyone else overlooks: Will Gov. Sebelius call for removal of carbon dioxide pollutants from the Great Seal of the State of Kansas?

  • Kansas Senator Anthony Hensley: Please Stop This Nonsense

    On May 6, 2008, Kansas State Senator Anthony Hensley, Democrat from Topeka and Senate Minority Leader, introduced a resolution commemorating the 75th anniversary of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s new deal.

    Besides being misinformed about the true impact of Roosevelt and the new deal, Senator Hensley wastes the time and resources of the people of the State of Kansas with resolutions such as this. Sadly, not even one Kansas senator voted against this resolution.

    For a true look at Franklin D. Roosevelt and his presidency, I recommend reading Ralph Raico’s introduction to John T. Flynn’s book The Roosevelt Myth here: John T. Flynn and the Myth of FDR.

    Here’s the text of the resolution:

    SENATE RESOLUTION No. 1868
    A RESOLUTION commemorating the 75th anniversary of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal.

    WHEREAS, In the summer of 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Governor of New York, was nominated as the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party at a time the country was suffering from the Great Depression. In his acceptance speech, he told the American people, ‘‘I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.’’ And, Roosevelt won the presidency by a landslide; and

    WHEREAS, The New Deal was the title President Roosevelt gave to a sequence of programs he initiated between 1933 and 1938 with the goal of giving relief to the needy, reform of the country’s financial system, and recovery of the economy during the Great Depression; and

    WHEREAS, The New Deal Roosevelt had promised began to take shape immediately after his inauguration in March of 1933. The first days of Roosevelt’s administration was the ‘‘First New Deal’’ aimed at short-term recovery programs and saw the quick enactment by Congress of the Emergency Banking Act, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Rural Electrification Administration (REA) and Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA); and

    WHEREAS, Later the ‘‘Second New Deal’’ led to the enactment of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), also known as the Wagner Act, which established stronger collective bargaining rights for labor unions and the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which created hundreds of thousands of low-skilled blue collar jobs for unemployed men and women; and

    WHEREAS, The most important program of Roosevelt’s New Deal was the Social Security Act, which established a system of universal retirement pensions, unemployment insurance and welfare benefits for low income families; and WHEREAS, Several New Deal programs still exist under their original names, including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), while the largest programs still in existence today are the Social Security System and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC); and

    WHEREAS, The New Deal programs were a reflection of Franklin Roosevelt’s personal and political philosophy that government has an important role in helping people make ends meet and in earning money for the work performed which raises the morale of the working man and woman: Now, therefore,

    Be it resolved by the Senate of the State of Kansas: That we commemorate the 75th anniversary of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal; and

    Be it further resolved: That the Secretary of the Senate provide an enrolled copy of the resolution to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, c/o Cynthia M. Koch, Director, 4079 Albany Post Road, Hyde Park, New York 12538.

    On emergency motion of Senator Hensley SR 1868 was adopted unanimously.