Tag: Government spending

  • Kansas sales tax increase starts today

    Today Kansans will face an added tax burden on retail purchases, as the statewide sales tax rate goes up by one cent per dollar. Touted by its backers like Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson as a “one percent” increase in the tax, it is actually an increase of (6.3 – 5.3) / 5.3 = 18.9 percent.

    In some parts of the state, the combined rate will soar to over ten percent. The City of Lawrence is considering whether to require businesses to post signs advising — or warning– shoppers of the sales tax they’ll pay in stores.

    The debate over the sales tax and the harm it causes was fueled by two studies that were often viewed as competing with each other, but really didn’t. One looked at the harmful effects of the tax for just one year and concluded that while the sales tax would destroy private sector jobs, a reduction in state spending would cause even more harm. Naturally, tax and spending advocates latched on to this study.

    The other looked at a longer period of time and considered actual consumer response to increased taxes. It, not surprisingly, found that the sales tax would be very harmful.

    The first study, besides looking at just one year, also shows evidence of faulty thinking. This study, produced by Wichita State University professor John D. Wong, contains this paragraph in its conclusion:

    Second, the revenue enhancement scenario spreads the negative effects throughout the state, both geographically and across all 2.8 million residents. The effect on any individual and on any business is minor. In contrast, the spending reduction scenario severely affects a small number of state residents and businesses — state employees and those private-sector businesses that serve state employees and state government directly. The likelihood of a business failing under this scenario is much greater than in the tax increase scenario. A business failure will have a ripple effect across the economy.

    In this paragraph we can find several examples of faulty economic thinking.

    For example, as Kansas consumers will now have less discretionary income and may dine at restaurants less often, it’s possible that restaurants might close. More likely, however, the restaurant manager will find he doesn’t need as many employees to serve the diminished customer base, so a waiter loses his job.

    These job losses, affecting just one or two people at a time and spread across the state, won’t create a business failure, as Wong mentions. There won’t be newspaper or television stories. But for the people directly harmed, I’m sure they won’t view the effect as “minor,” as Wong writes.

    And Wong may have forgotten that each lost job produces a little ripple of its own.

    Furthermore, when these job losses are aggregated over the state, there will be an impact. How much? Well, the sales tax is estimated by Wong to bring in $350 million, so we can use that as an estimate of the amount of money Kansans don’t have to spend at their own direction and discretion anymore.

    (Wong notes that some of the sales tax will be paid by visitors to our state. Welcome to Kansas!)

    We also see in the paragraph one of the primary problems with government taxation and spending. John Stossel explains:

    The Public Choice school of economics calls this the problem of concentrated benefits and dispersed costs. Individual members of relatively small interest groups stand to gain huge rewards when they lobby for government favors, but each taxpayer will pay only a tiny portion of the cost of any particular program, making opposition pointless.

    In this case the special interest groups include school spending advocates and state government employees. They believed they were fighting for their jobs. School spending advocates believed they were fighting for the children, too. But we ought to step back and consider the value of some of these jobs, and whether the services provided — education, for example — couldn’t be better provided in the marketplace rather than by government.

    Also, we should note that school teachers and state government employees are represented by unions that spend millions advocating for their members each year. Waiters and others who will lose their jobs one at a time don’t have such representation.

    So we had the powerfully-motivated special interests on one side. Then we had Governor Parkinson telling us not to worry, that in Wichita people didn’t even notice the one cent per dollar sales tax used to pay for the Intrust Bank Arena.

    When you add in newspaper editorial writers like the Wichita Eagle’s Rhonda Holman, who today wrote that “No one relished raising sales taxes right now” and praised the arena sales tax, there you have the entire argument made.

    Despite Holman’s claim, many people salivated at the idea of an increased sales tax, or any other tax. The governor viewed the tax increase as his legacy.

    We also need to dismiss the claims of massive cuts to the Kansas budget. Recently Kansas Senate President Stephen Morris mentioned these, writing “… very difficult decisions were made to cut or reduce the $6 billion state budget by roughly $1.5 billion …”

    For most people, a cut of $1.5 billion from a $6 billion budget means the state will spend $4.5 billion. But the spending bill passed by the legislature calls for spending $5.6 billion in fiscal year 2011, which starts on July 1, 2010.

    Today the Eagle’s Holman makes a similar claim, mentioning “$1 billion in recent cuts to state services.”

    These “budget cut” numbers make sense only when you look at planned spending, not actual spending. Even then you have to add up these phantom cuts over a period of years to get to the claims of Parkinson, Morris, Holman and other big-government spending advocates.

    As the chart shows, actual spending has declined slightly, but is projected to rise during the fiscal year that starts today.

    Kansas general fund spending

    Over the years, we see that state spending in Kansas has risen rapidly, while at the same time our population in Kansas grows very slowly.

    For the sales tax and spending increases to make economic sense, you have to believe that state government can spend money more wisely than its people can. Given the special interest group fingerprints all over this budget, that’s not going to happen.

    What is the future of this sales tax? It’s scheduled to decline by 0.6 cents per dollar in three years, the remaining 0.4 cents per dollar to be used for transportation. But these taxes have a habit of failing to disappear on schedule. The supplemental note for the bill that last increased Kansas sales tax contains this: “The state sales and compensating (use) tax rate would be increased from 4.9 to 5.3 percent, effective June 1, 2002. The rates would then be reduced to 5.2 percent on June 1, 2004; and to 5.0 percent on June 1, 2005.”

    As of yesterday the sales tax was was still 5.3 percent. The two scheduled reductions never took place. Sometimes promises from the Legislature don’t mean very much.

  • Earmarks and Kansas elections

    The topic of earmarks is playing a role in contest for the Republican Party nomination for United States Senate from Kansas between Todd Tiahrt and Jerry Moran.

    The United States Office of Management and Budget provides one definition of earmarks: “Earmarks are funds provided by the Congress for projects, programs, or grants where the purported congressional direction (whether in statutory text, report language, or other communication) circumvents otherwise applicable merit-based or competitive allocation processes, or specifies the location or recipient, or otherwise curtails the ability of the executive branch to manage its statutory and constitutional responsibilities pertaining to the funds allocation process.”

    What is the difference between earmark spending and “regular” government spending? Speaking on the floor of the House in March 2009, Ron Paul, the libertarian member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas and Republican presidential candidate in 2008, made these remarks:

    In reality what we need are more earmarks. Just think of the 350 billion dollars that we recently appropriated and gave to the Treasury Department. Now everybody is running around and saying, “We don’t know where the money went, we just gave it to them in a lump sum.” We should have earmarked everything. It should have been designated where the money is going. So instead of too many earmarks we don’t have enough earmarks. Transparency is the only way we can get to the bottom of this and if you make everything earmarked it would be much better.

    This is a key distinguishing characteristic of earmark spending: legislators, rather than agencies like the Treasury Department, decide how and where the money is spent.

    According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, earmarks are estimated to cost $11 billion in the current fiscal year (2010), which is down from $15 billion the year before. The Washington newspaper The Hill warns, however, that some of this decrease is due to a change in classification of some spending.

    While some view earmarks and their elimination as a defining issue, we must remember that the level of earmark spending is relatively small compared to the entire federal budget. The 2010 budget calls for spending $3.55 trillion, so earmarks account for 0.3 percent of this amount. Considering discretionary spending only — and earmarks are discretionary — earmarks are 0.8 percent of $1.368 trillion planned discretionary spending.

    This is not to say that this spending is not harmful and should not be eliminated.

    Paul — accurately self-described as “America’s leading voice for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies” — defends his insertion of earmarks into appropriations bills. In an article titled Earmarks Don’t Add Up, Paul explained why:

    The total level of spending is determined by the Congressional leadership and the appropriators before any Member has a chance to offer any amendments. Members’ requests are simply recommendations to allocate parts of that spending for certain items in that members’ district or state. If funds are not designated, they revert to non-designated spending controlled by bureaucrats in the executive branch. In other words, when a designation request makes it into the budget, it subtracts funds out of what is available to the executive branch and bureaucrats in various departments, and targets it for projects that the people and their representatives request in their districts. If a congressman does not submit funding requests for his district the money is simply spent elsewhere. To eliminate all earmarks would be to further consolidate power in the already dominant executive branch and not save a penny.

    A spokesman for House Appropriations Chairman David Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat, was quoted in The Hill article as saying “Earmarks represent less than 1 percent of the federal budget, and they don’t add a dime to it — they are simply a way for Congress to direct funding that would otherwise be directed by administration officials.”

    So here we have both liberal and conservative legislators defending the system.

    It goes without saying that we need to reform this process. Currently, it allows members to say that since the money’s going to be spent somewhere, let’s spend it in my district. The motivation of members is that since their districts are taxed to send the money to Washington, they need to fight to get their districts’ fair share back — and some more, for good measure. This used to be one of the measures of success of a Congressman.

    But the rise of federal spending and indebtedness has been one of the primary motivating factors of the tea party movement, and earmarks are a favorite target of conservative ire and anger.

    So how do the two veteran Kansas Congressmen rank on earmarks and “pork” spending? The Club for Growth compiles a scorecard called the RePORK Card. This measures votes on “68 anti-pork amendments” in the 2009 Congress. Club Executive Director David Keating writes “The RePORK Card will help taxpayers measure the dedication of their representatives to changing the culture of corruption that surrounds pork-barrel spending.”

    For 2009, Moran scored 96 percent, voting against 65 of the 68 measures. Tiahrt scored 29 percent, voting against 20 of the 68.

    In the previous year for this project (2007), the two representatives’ scores were much closer: Moran scored four percent, while Tiahrt scored zero percent.

    According to analysis by Taxpayers for Common Sense, Tiahrt was responsible for 13 “solo” earmarks in the 2010 budget, totaling $5,550,000 in spending. Moran was close behind with eight earmarks with a total value of $5,150,000. Solo earmarks are defined as “The total of earmarks on which only that member’s name appears.”

    Considering solo earmarks and earmarks with other members, Tiahrt notched spending of $63,400,000, with Moran at $18,600,000. These earmarks are defined as “The total of earmarks on which that member’s name appears, either by itself or with other members. TCS does not split an earmark.”

    In a recent forum of candidates for the Republican Party nomination for United States Congress from the fourth district of Kansas sponsored by the Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce, candidates were asked about earmarks.

    (The candidates and their campaign websites are Wichita businessman Jim Anderson, Wichita businessman Wink Hartman, Wichita businessman Mike Pompeo, Latham engineer Paij Rutschman, and Kansas Senator Jean Schodorf.)

    Rutschman said representatives want to do things that are in the interest of their states, but we should not pass earmarks that are detrimental to the nation.

    Schodorf said that the appropriation process should be transparent, but that we need to cut spending today.

    Anderson said that he is against earmarks, saying that the process provides for corruption of the political process. He would support legislation outlawing the process.

    Hartman said he is totally against earmarks, noting that many people think that earmarks are good when they “make your grass turn green,” but a “bridge to nowhere” is different. He seconded Anderson’s concern about corruption.

    Pompeo said he is against earmarks, saying that if “safe roads make good sense, we in Kansas can figure out how to fund them.” He agreed with concerns about corruption.

  • Greenspan: U.S. must cut spending

    Friday’s Wall Street Journal carried a piece by former chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan that is informative of the current state of the United States policy towards borrowing and spending.

    Greenspan has been criticized for the loose money policies he championed as chair of the Fed, as many feel these policies led to the housing bubble and the present financial crisis. Greenspan denies this.

    The Journal article includes some technical discussion of “swap rates” to illustrate the ability of the United States Treasury to borrow. It’s later in the article that Greenspan nails the current problem: “The current federal debt explosion is being driven by an inability to stem new spending initiatives. Having appropriated hundreds of billions of dollars on new programs in the last year and a half, it is very difficult for Congress to deny an additional one or two billion dollars for programs that significant constituencies perceive as urgent.”

    Greenspan says the only way we can get out of our current unsustainable posture is cuts: “Only politically toxic cuts or rationing of medical care, a marked rise in the eligible age for health and retirement benefits, or significant inflation, can close the deficit. I rule out large tax increases that would sap economic growth (and the tax base) and accordingly achieve little added revenues.”

    U.S. Debt and the Greece Analogy

    Don’t be fooled by today’s low interest rates. The government could very quickly discover the limits of its borrowing capacity.

    An urgency to rein in budget deficits seems to be gaining some traction among American lawmakers. If so, it is none too soon. Perceptions of a large U.S. borrowing capacity are misleading.

    Despite the surge in federal debt to the public during the past 18 months — to $8.6 trillion from $5.5 trillion — inflation and long-term interest rates, the typical symptoms of fiscal excess, have remained remarkably subdued. This is regrettable, because it is fostering a sense of complacency that can have dire consequences.

    Continue reading at the Wall Street Journal.

  • Some Kansas House Members voted for spending, but not the taxes

    This year both the Kansas House of Representatives and Senate voted for increased spending and increased taxes. The taxes are primarily in the form of a one cent per dollar increase in the statewide sales tax, scheduled to take effect July 1.

    When the budget and taxes were debated in the Senate, several senators made the point that if a member voted in favor of increased spending, they should also vote for the tax increase. In the Senate, all members who voted for increased spending also voted for the tax increase.

    But in the House, that wasn’t always the case. Several members voted for increased spending, but not the accompanying tax increase. These members are:

    Deena Horst, a Republican from Salina
    Melanie Meier, a Democrat from Leavenworth
    Shirley Palmer, a Democrat from Fort Scott
    Willie Prescott, a Republican from Osage City
    Gene Rardin, a Democrat from Overland Park
    Don Schroeder, a Republican from Hesston
    Clark Shultz, a Republican from Lindsborg
    Lee Tafanelli, a Republican from Ozawkie
    Milack Talia, a Democrat from Shawnee

    I’m in the process of contacting these representatives to let them explain their votes. I’ve received a few responses.

    I’ll give readers one hint, though: several of these members have conservative challengers in the upcoming elections.

  • The fight for Kansas jobs

    The following is by Interim President and CEO of the Kansas Chamber of Commerce Kent Beisner.

    The Kansas Chamber is the leading business advocacy organization, representing small and large businesses alike employing more than 100,000 Kansans across our state. Our board of directors passed a data-driven, unified agenda in support of streamlining government and reducing the cost of doing business in Kansas.

    When seeking to bring additional businesses to Kansas, no one champions higher taxes as an additional benefit. The Chamber will always defend Kansas entrepreneurs and taxpayers against policies which inhibit their ability to increase capital investment, grow private-sector jobs and reduce the burden on government services. Responsible government and a friendly business climate can and should co-exist.

    We at the Chamber welcome the recent criticism by those who believe Washington-style tax-and-spend policies are acceptable here in the heartland. These individuals have supported the growth of our state budget by more than $200 million and the passage of the largest sales tax increase in our state’s history in the midst of a record-breaking recession.

    Continue reading at Kansas Liberty.

  • Europeans fear crisis threatens liberal benefits

    As the United States moves to a social welfare state emulating many European countries, this cautionary article from the New York Times ought to be read.

    PARIS – Across Western Europe, the “lifestyle superpower,” the assumptions and gains of a lifetime are suddenly in doubt. The deficit crisis that threatens the euro has also undermined the sustainability of the European standard of social welfare, built by left-leaning governments since the end of World War II.

    Europeans have boasted about their social model, with its generous vacations and early retirements, its national health care systems and extensive welfare benefits, contrasting it with the comparative harshness of American capitalism.

    Continue reading at the New York Times.

  • Kansas News Digest

    News from alternative media around Kansas for May 21, 2010.

    Light withdraws bid for re-election: Will others follow?

    (Kansas Republican Assembly) “State Representative Bill Light withdrew his candidacy for re-election to the Kansas House May 12. Light was facing a strong conservative challenge in the August primary by Dan Widder of Ulysses.”

    Historic sales tax increase and nanny-state laws mark the 2010 session in Kansas

    (Kansas Liberty) “So far Gov. Mark Parkinson has signed into law a total of 149 bills, and Parkinson now has until May 28 to take action on any remaining bills that were passed by the Legislature during the veto session. Parkinson has not allowed any bill to become law without his signature at this time and has vetoed two bills. Conservative Republicans in both chambers were largely overpowered yet again in the 2010 legislative session by a coalition of left-wing Republicans and Democrats which has managed to retain the majority in both the House and Senate.”

    Kansans exposed to tax hike starting July 1

    (Kansas Liberty) “Starting July 1, Kansas residents can expect to start paying 19 percent more in sales tax so that the state government can continue to spend at the level deemed appropriate by Governor Mark Parkinson, left-wing Republicans and Democrats in the Kansas Legislature. Small-business advocates said the coalition of ‘tax and spend’ legislators ‘did not want to believe there was an alternative’ to a tax hike.’”

    Kansas survey: 10,000 new ‘green’ jobs by 2012

    (Kansas Reporter) “TOPEKA, Kan. – The environmentally conscious ‘green’ movement has the potential to create 10,000 new jobs in Kansas by 2012, according to a new state survey released Tuesday.”

    Tax package means go-head for giant Kansas freight hub

    (Kansas Reporter) “TOPEKA, Kan. – Legislation approving Kansas’ recently voted 1-cent sales tax increase will trigger construction this year of a controversial Johnson County intermodal rail freight hub, the Kansas Department of Transportation said Tuesday. KDOT and developers of the long-planned 1,000 acre rail-truck shipping center and logistic park complex along Interstate 35 in Edgerton said they reached an agreement in which the state will provide a $35 million grant to BNSF Railway in exchange for a pledge to begin work on the project this year.”

    Kansas lawmakers touch tax and budget records

    (Kansas Reporter) “A new analysis by the Kansas Legislative Research Department of the final budget lawmakers sent to the governor calculates that state general fund spending will increase 3.8 percent, or about $204.5 million, to $5.6 billion in the fiscal year beginning July 1. That total is the second largest in recent record, topped only by $6.06 billion of state general funds spent in fiscal 2009. All-funds spending, which includes federal and special revenue funds as well as state general fund money, is projected to decrease in 2011 to $13.7 billion, a more than 5 percent reduction from the recent record $14.4 billion reached this year.”

    Planned Parenthood Urges Governor To Veto Huelskamp’s Ban of Federal Funding For Services

    (State of the State KS) “Planed Parenthood supporters came to the capital Wednesday to deliver petitions to Governor Parkinson, urging him to veto part of the state budget that would make Planed Parenthood ineligible for federal funding.”

    Governor Parkinson Says Budget Puts Kansas On The Right Path For Next Four Years

    (State of the State KS) “Governor Mark Parkinson (D) held a press conference Wednesday where he reflected on the 2010 legislative session. In his State of the State address in January, Parkinson called on the legislature to protect education, social services and public safety, to pass a comprehensive transportation plan and to bring improvements to nursing homes across the state. Parkinson said legislators stepped up, protecting 150 years of progress in Kansas an bringing jobs to the state.”

    Tiahrt and Moran Trade Shots on Earmarks and A New Poll Shows Increasing Support In Senate Race

    (State of the State KS) “The Tiahrt and Moran campaign sparred over earmarks last week with both agreeing that the original intent of bringing federal dollars for local needs was good, but Washington now needs earmark and spending reform.”

    Former National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane Speaks Out On Support for Mike Pompeo

    (State of the State KS) “Former White House National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane came out swinging for Mike Pompeo (R) this weekend, responding to a story in the Wichita Eagle. McFarlane is a leader on national security issues, working in the Ford and Reagan administrations. The Eagle article highlighted a Pompeo fundraiser hosted by McFarlane, calling him a ‘D.C. big name’ and cited fellow Congressional campaigners saying McFarlane’s support made Pompeo a Washington insider.”

    Kansas House passes ‘Lexie’s Law’

    (Kansas Watchdog) “After passing the 1% increase in sales tax very early Tuesday, the Kansas House at 2:15 AM addressed HB 2356, otherwise known as Lexie’s Law. The purpose of the bill was to improve inspections of child care facilities in Kansas after preventable deaths had occurred.”

    Watchdogs talk about Investigative Journalism

    (Kansas Watchdog) “On Saturday at the American Majority Post-Party Summit held in Kansas City, Missouri two of the sessions were about investigative journalism. These sessions were to encourage citizen journalists to get more involved in keeping government at all levels — federal, state, county, local — more accountable.”

    Senator Brownlee’s official protest of budget bill

    (Kansas Watchdog) “The true energizing power in an economy is the productivity and ingenuity of its people when they are freed from excessive government taxation and regulation to provide for their families. We have lost sight of the fact that there is not a public or government sector without a healthy private sector. Too many times this session we have heard a legislator postulate that government spending in some manner helps save our economy. If this were actually true, our economy should be overheating with all of the overspending by states and the federal government.”

    New report outlines Kansas consequences of health reform

    (Kansas Health Institute News Service) “TOPEKA – The likely consequences of federal health reform for Kansas are detailed in a new report scheduled for public release Tuesday during a meeting of the Kansas Health Policy Authority board.”

    Budget and taxes decided, Legislature leaves

    (Kansas Health Institute News Service) “TOPEKA — After four months of struggling with the issues of budgets and taxes, the Legislature finished its work today and concluded all but the ceremonial end of the 2010 session.”

  • Amtrak passenger service shown in Wichita

    The possible expansion of Amtrak passenger rail service in Kansas was the topic of a meeting held last night in Wichita.

    Expansion of rail service in Kansas is controversial, at least to some people, in that any form of rail service requires taxpayer involvement to pay for the service. First, taxpayer funding is required to pay for the start-up costs for the service. There are four alternatives being presented for rail service expansion in Kansas, and the start-up costs range from $156 million up to $479 million.

    After this, taxpayer subsidies will be required every year to pay for the ongoing operational costs of providing passenger rail service. The four alternatives would require an annual operating subsidy ranging from $2.1 million up to $6.1 million. Taking the operating subsidy and dividing by the estimated number of passengers for each alternative, the per-passenger subsidy ranges from $35 up to $97 for every passenger who uses the service.

    For three of the alternatives, the operating subsidy required is greater than the revenue the service is expected to generate. For the other alternative, the subsidy and revenue are equal.

    It would be one thing if tickets sales and other revenue sources such as sale of food and beverage paid for most of the cost of providing passenger rail service, and taxpayers were being asked to provide a little boost to get the service started and keep it running until it can sustain itself. But that’s not the case. Taxpayers are being asked to fully fund the start-up costs. Then, they’re expected to pay the majority of ongoing expenses, apparently forever.

    At the meeting, I calculated these per-passenger subsidy figures and presented them to officials from the Kansas Department of Transportation and Amtrak. They seemed to think that this was a novel way of looking at the cost of providing the service. I asked the Amtrak representative why can’t we just increase the price of a ticket by the amount of the per-passenger subsidy? The reply was that if the tickets are too expensive, people will not purchase them.

    Much of the argument of rail supporters boils down to this: since other forms of transportation receive government subsidy, why shouldn’t rail transportation receive a subsidy too?

    The proper response to this argument is first, let’s not expand government intervention in transportation by increasing or adding new forms of subsidy, even if it is to correct a perceived imbalance. Second, let’s get rid of the subsidy for all forms of transportation, so that each form may be evaluated on its total cost by consumers when they decide how to travel.

    The Amtrak representative disputed subsidy figures that I referred to, saying that the study that I found them in has been discredited. These figures show that the federal subsidy for highway passenger travel is negative, meaning that highway drivers are paying their own costs plus more. The subsidy per passenger rail service is much higher than for either commercial or general aviation. The Amtrak representative promised to send me different figures, and I will report on those if I receive them. It may be that when state and local spending on highways is included, the subsidy landscape might look different.

    These subsidy figures are based on the passenger-mile, not total dollars. Supporters of rail subsidies often use total dollars spent instead of spending per passenger-mile because rail receives much less subsidy than other forms of transportation. That’s because so few people travel on passenger rail.

    This year legislation authorizing the Kansas Department of Transportation to establish and implement a passenger rail service program passed both houses nearly unanimously and was signed enthusiastically by the governor. That was an easy vote for legislators, however, as the legislation spends no money. The supplemental note for the bill states “… because the bill does not propose a revenue mechanism for financing any of the activities the bill would authorize, the Kansas Department of Transportation indicates it would not initiate any such activities nor incur any additional expenses.”

    When legislators have to commit taxpayer funds for start-up costs and ongoing funds for passenger subsidies, I suspect the voting will be quite different.

    Reporting on this meeting from KWCH is at Wichitans Give Input on Amtrak Passenger Train Proposals and from KAKE at State Gets Feedback On Passenger Rail Proposal. Related stories on this site are Amtrak, taxpayer burden, should not be expanded in Kansas and Kansas makes unwise bet on passenger rail.

    Kansas Amtrak passenger rail costs

  • Kansas Governor, Wichita Eagle: why ‘pigs’ at the trough?

    When the Kansas Chamber of Commerce recently referred to the need to control Kansas government spending and taxes, a few politicians and newspaper editorial writers embellished what the Chamber actually said in order to make their own political points.

    Here’s what the Kansas Chamber said in its press release dated May 8:

    “As of today, the legislature has failed to address the needs and wishes of the business community. It has instead catered to the needs of those at the government trough. The Kansas legislature has turned a deaf ear to the hard-working businessmen and women who have made the decision to invest in Kansas and provide jobs for our citizens. Instead of responsibly funding state government without raising taxes, a coalition of liberal House and Senate members have instead chosen to slash crucial services and push for a historic tax hike on Kansas families,” said Kansas Chamber President Kent Beisner.

    Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson, an advocate for greater government spending and taxing, seized this opportunity for political gamesmanship. His press release on May 10 stated “It is heartbreaking to think that somebody would equate the disabled, the elderly, school children, veterans, law enforcement and the poor to pigs at a trough.”

    His message used the “pigs at a trough” symbolism several additional times.

    The Governor’s use of the word “pigs” — inflammatory imagry, to say the least — started making the rounds. It was picked up by editorialists and other writers, including the Wichita Eagle’s opinion editor Phillip Brownlee. In his editorial Kids, disabled aren’t pigs at a trough (Wichita Eagle, May 13) Brownlee wrote: “So schoolchildren and individuals with disabilities are akin to pigs at a trough?”

    Brownlee’s editorial starts by complaining that the Kansas Chamber used some “over-the-top rhetoric during the state budget debate.”

    Well, the Kansas Chamber didn’t use the word “pigs.” That was the governor’s language, then repeated by liberal editorial writers like Brownlee and the Winfield Daily Courier’s David Seaton when he editorialized: “Efforts by the president of the Kansas Chamber of Commerce to characterize educators, the elderly, the disabled and public safety employees as pigs at ‘the government trough’ did not succeed.”

    Since Governor Parkinson brought it up, we ought to think about it for a moment. Schoolchildren, of course, aren’t pigs at the trough, no matter what the governor and Wichita Eagle say. For one, children don’t make the decision to attend public (government) schools, as their parents make that decision for them. It is the schools themselves, specifically school spending advocates in the form of Kansas National Education Association (or KNEA, the teachers union) and the Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB) that are the pigs.

    If these school spending advocates were truly concerned about the education of Kansas schoolchildren, they would allow for government spending on education to be targeted at the child, to be spent wherever parents feel their children’s needs will best be met. But the school spending lobby in Kansas vigorously resists any challenge to their monopoly on public money for education, which reveals that they’re really more interested in spending on schools by any means, at any cost rather than on education.

    If we need any more evidence of the never-ending appetite of schools for money, consider a story told by Kansas House Speaker Pro Tem Arlen Siegfreid (R-Olathe) of a conversation he had with Mark Tallman, lobbyist for the Kansas Association of School Boards: “During our discussion I asked Mr. Tallman if we (the State) had the ability to give the schools everything he asked for would he still ask for even more money for schools. His answer was, ‘Of course, that’s my job.’”

    The Eagle editorial mentions a number of local chambers of commerce that have split away from the state chamber. We should recognize that in many cases, local chambers have become boosters for big government taxes and spending. An article titled Tax Chambers by the Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore explains the decline of local chambers of commerce: “The Chamber of Commerce, long a supporter of limited government and low taxes, was part of the coalition backing the Reagan revolution in the 1980s. On the national level, the organization still follows a pro-growth agenda — but thanks to an astonishing political transformation, many chambers of commerce on the state and local level have been abandoning these goals. They’re becoming, in effect, lobbyists for big government.”

    This was certainly the case with the Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce. Under its president Brian Derreberry, it had been in favor of increased government interventionism instead of free markets. An example was its support of proven fiscal conservative Karl Peterjohn’s opponent in the campaign for Sedgwick County Commissioner in 2008. In that campaign, the Wichita Chamber spent some $19,000 — 44% of all it spent on campaigns that year — on Peterjohn’s opponent, a small town mayor who had just increased taxes.

    Last year the Wichita Chamber hired former Kansas House Member Jason Watkins to be its lobbyist. The hiring of Watkins, a fiscal conservative, seemed to signal a possible shift in the Wichita Chamber’s direction. The fact that the Wichita Chamber did not break away from the Kansas Chamber’s opposition to tax increases validates that perception.

    We should also note that many of the goals of the Kansas Chamber, such as efficient government, reducing taxes, encouraging business investment and growth, and promoting economic growth in Kansas, are good for all Kansans, not just business. Even government employees — and the governor himself — must realize that government does not create wealth. Instead, it is business that creates wealth that provides for our standard of living. It is business that creates the economic activity that generates the tax revenue that makes government spending possible.

    The Eagle’s repetition of the governor’s attack on the Kansas Chamber fits right in with its pro-government, anti-economic freedom agenda.