Voice For Liberty

Tag: Sam Brownback

  • Sales tax increase isn’t necessary

    By Dave Trabert, Kansas Policy Institute.

    Tax

    What a difference a year makes. Last May, Governor Brownback signed historic tax reform legislation that would reduce state income taxes by roughly $800 million in its first full year. As the legislature returns this week, the debate is about how much of the last year’s tax reform will be wiped out. Instead of reducing the cost of government to implement tax reform this year, Governor Brownback and the Senate want to make the 6.3 percent sales tax permanent and eliminate the income tax deduction for home mortgage interest; they also propose 0.5 percent reduction in the income tax on the first $15,000 of taxable income in 2014 and a reduction in all marginal rates beginning in 2017 (after a billion dollar increase in sales taxes) with revenue growth above 4 percent being used to reduce rates thereafter and eventually eliminate income taxes.

    The House plan isn’t perfect but it’s better. It allows the sales tax rate to drop to 5.7 percent as promised, proportionally reduces income tax deductions, has more spending reductions and a formula that gradually eliminates the income tax altogether, using annual revenue growth above 2 percent to buy down rates.

    The goal of tax reform is to reduce the overall tax burden, not shift it. Consumption taxes are better than income taxes, but taxes will still be too high (and economic growth impaired) until we deal with the real problem of excess spending. But even some self-identified fiscal conservatives don’t want to reduce spending.

    Part of their resistance is that many people equate spending less with service cuts, but that doesn’t have to be the case. Per-resident spending varies greatly across all fifty states. Yet, every state has schools, highways, social programs, etc.; some simply do so more efficiently. States with an income tax spend 44 percent more per-resident than those without an income tax. States that spend less, tax less (and grow more). Done well, states can spend less and actually deliver the same or better services.

    In fact, Kansas would have spent $2.9 billion less last year if spending were at the same level as the average state without an income tax.

    Our “Legislator’s Guide to Delivering Better Service at a Better Price” shows legislators how to use existing cash reserves to ‘buy time’ and implement thoughtful efficiency measures to reduce costs over time. It can be done and it can be done now.

    The problem with implementing income tax reductions is one of politics, not economics. As Thomas Sowell says, “The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”

    Here’s hoping legislators make taxpayer-focused decisions based on sound economics when they return to Topeka this week.

    A version of this appeared in the Wichita Eagle.

    photo credit: 401(K) 2013 via photopin cc

  • Kansas editorial writers aren’t helping

    Recently it has become fashionable for newspapers to carry editorials bemoaning the current state of affairs in Kansas, contrasting the current regime to a tradition of moderation in Kansas governance. In particular, Governor Sam Brownback is singled out for criticism.

    Examples of such columns are Kansas 1861-2013 in the Hutchinson News, Kansas slipping away from its people in the Topeka Capital-Journal, and Which Kansas is that? in the Wichita Eagle.

    The common thread in these articles is willing ignorance of the facts. I say willing ignorance because these writers ought to know facts. If they don’t know facts about the Kansas economy and schools, we have to wonder why they are writing editorials that will be read by thousands of Kansans?

    Here’s a brief rundown of the state of Kansas:

    Kansas population has been growing at a slower rate than the country. A chart is here.

    Kansas has been growing jobs at a slower rate than many other states. Here’s a link to an interactive visualization of job growth in the states. You can compare Kansas to any other state or combination of states. Should we be satisfied with the performance of Kansas compared to other states over the past few decades? No, we shouldn’t be satisfied with our record during the period that these editorialists write about.

    Kansas has been growing its private-sector gross domestic product at a rate slower than most states. An interactive visualization is here.

    Kansas has lost ground in interstate migrants. Many more people leave Kansas for other states than move to Kansas, as can be seen here. In the 2012 United Van Lines migration study, Kansas is seen as “balanced.” But Atlas has more outbound shipments than inbound.

    While Kansas newspaper editorial writers like to boast of outstanding public schools, a proper examination of NAEP scores finds that Kansas can’t do better than Texas, a state that we often compare with ourselves in a negative way. Comparing Kansas to national averages, Kansas performs well compared to other states in math and reading in grades four and eight, scoring better than the national average in all these cases. But if we look at the data separated by racial/ethnic subgroups, something different becomes apparent: Kansas lags behind the national average in some of these areas. A table of these figures is here.

    Regarding Texas again: Editorial writers say that because Texas has no income tax, its property and sales taxes are higher. Perhaps. But overall, Texas collects less taxes from its citizens. In 2011 Kansas state government collected $2,378 in taxes for each person. Texas collected $1,682. Texas may have higher sales or property taxes than Kansas, but the total tax burden in Texas is lower.

    Spending follows the same pattern. In 2011 Kansas state government spent $5,115 per person in total, with $1,974 in general fund spending and $130 in bond spending. For Texas the total was $3,718 spent per person in total, with $1,654 in general fund spending and $50 in bond spending. The lower level of spending means Texas has a less burdensome state government, which allows more money to remain in the productive private sector. In Kansas, we spend more on government.

    The “sea of oil” and bountiful severance tax revenue that newspaper editorial writers say benefits Texas but not Kansas: In 2011 Kansas, which has a severance tax of its own, collected $42.54 in this form of tax for each person. Texas collected $104.29 per person in its severance tax. The difference between the two — $61.75 per person per year — is only a small portion of the difference between Kansas and Texas taxation.

    I could go on. But the more facts one states, the more criticism one receives.

    It’s not that what our governor is doing is perfect. It wasn’t the best course to single out certain forms of business organization to receive tax cuts. Everyone should have their taxes cut the same way.

    Governor Brownback still meddles in the economy, supporting harmful policies like the renewable portfolio standard for electricity generation. The Hutchinson News editorial wrote of how “Kansas proved to be a state teeming with inventiveness, ingenuity, determination and a savvy sense of business” and mentioned iconic Kansas-founded companies like Cessna, Beech, Stearman, Coleman, Pizza Hut, and White Castle. But today our state is strangling entrepreneurs, expanding control over economic development under the Brownback regime. Kansas has expanded the realm of public-private partnerships to the detriment of entrepreneurship. Cities like Wichita implement new regulations over industries like parking lot striping, taxicab driving, and haunted house attractions.

    Instead of moving to a modern pension system for state employees, we’re considering borrowing money to cover up the mistakes of the past, with no reform forthcoming and few lessons learned.

    Most inexplicably, Governor Brownback was absent in this year’s debate over important school reform measures like charter schools and school choice. These are initiatives that are working in other states, but not in Kansas.

    It isn’t supportive of our state (or county, city, or school district) to overlook facts in order to create a false impression of a prosperous state with successful schools. Yet that’s exactly what these newspaper editorials want us to do.

    If we don’t learn the facts and if we don’t accept the facts, we don’t have a common base of understanding and a common starting point for debate. Even if the facts are uncomfortable — especially then — we must recognize where we’ve been and what is the actual condition of our state.

    Hoping that Kansans won’t notice might be politically expedient. Both parties can be guilty of valuing political gain more than the health of Kansas. But it’s a severe loss to Kansas that these newspaper editorial writers will not recognize facts, and a shame that they prefer political attacks to reality.

  • Kansas Governor delivers weekly address

    Kansas CapitolToday Governor Sam Brownback delivered the Republican weekly address. His remarks follow, and video is below.

    Hi I’m Kansas Governor Sam Brownback.

    A week ago nearly a third of the world’s population celebrated Easter, the resurrection of Jesus. New life. Well, we need new life in our nation and economy.

    Washington is broke. Big spending programs are running out of money and change is coming. The ideas on how to fix the federal government are now percolating in the states, 30 of which are led by Republican governors.

    You see, you don’t change America by changing Washington — you change America by changing the states. And that’s exactly what Republican governors are doing across the country — taking a different approach to grow their states’ economies and fix their governments with ideas that work.

    They involve a more focused government that costs less. A taxing structure that encourages growth. An education system that produces measurable results. And a renewed focus on the incredible dignity of each and every person, no matter who they are.

    Now, take my state, Kansas, as an example.

    The year I became governor, the state began the fiscal year with just $876.05 in the bank — less than $1,000 and it projected a $500 million deficit. Two years later we had a $500 million ending balance — and did it without tax increases.

    Now to make that financial turnaround a reality, we didn’t cut state funding to schools, we didn’t cut state funding for our universities and colleges, we didn’t cut state funding for our Medicaid system, we didn’t cut state funding for our prisons.

    We did consolidate agencies, cut overhead costs, offered a voluntary retirement buyout to state employees and eliminated outdated programs.

    We reformed our state’s Medicaid system to save a billion dollars over five years while at the same time, we expanded health care services for our neediest Kansans.

    We found ways to reduce the cost of running state government while increasing our investments in key areas like research in aviation, agriculture and medicine.

    We reduced the number of state employees and increased the number of students taking technical education courses which will help them prepare for a future with a better paying job.

    We reformed our court of appeals so that judges are selected more democratically.

    We took steps to safeguard our state’s water resources for future generations and gave Kansans more local control of their future water needs.

    And we passed the largest tax cut in state history — eliminating the income tax on small businesses altogether. This took us from being one of the highest tax states in the region to one of the lowest.

    My objective is to make Kansas the best place in America to raise a family and grow a business.

    Now, for those who come to our state because of lower taxes, opportunities abound.

    We had an all-time record of new businesses formed in Kansas last year.

    Kansas recently received an “A” for its friendly small business environment and we have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country at 5.5 percent.

    All signs of strong economic growth.

    Governors compete each and every day for citizens and for businesses, and unfortunately, Kansas hasn’t kept up with that competition the last 30 years, but working with the legislature, we’re back in the game.

    What I and other Republican governors around the country are doing is a lot like the Wichita State Wheat Shockers basketball team playing in the NCAA Final Four this weekend — unranked as a team, the pundits said “you can’t win” and the Shockers said, “watch us.”

    Republican governors have been told you can’t cut taxes, balance your budgets and invest in the future all at the same time, and we’ve said, “watch us” and done what we said we would do.

    Growing our economies, building strong family structures and making wise government investments produces winning results.

    Our Republican message is a belief in the power of the people more than the control of government. This unleashes the creativity of entrepreneurs and the strength of hope and dreams.

    Join us as we remake our country, not into a place that looks more and more like Europe. We don’t need to do that. We just need to become America again. And that is the rebirth we are doing.

    Thanks for listening. God bless you all.

  • Wichita Eagle editorial board on the truth

    Wichita Eagle Opinion: Brownback Numbers are Suspect

    A recent Wichita Eagle editorial penned by Rhonda Holman took Governor Sam Brownback to task for a mistake made in reporting Kansas spending numbers. (Eagle editorial: Brownback ’s numbers are suspect.)

    Specifically, Holman wrote:

    What’s going on here is clear: Brownback is embracing and repeating numbers that help promote his agenda, including what he sees as the need to push back against a court order for more state funding of public schools.

    But Kansans need to trust that what they hear from their governor, especially again and again, is rooted in truth, not cherry-picked, spun or flat wrong.

    So let’s look at the use of numbers by the Wichita Eagle editorial board. When discussing school spending, the editorialists refer to base state aid per pupil and treat that as though it was the totality of school spending.

    Base state aid per pupil is just part of school spending, and most schools spend much more than that. Specifically, base state aid per pupil for the last school year was $3,780. But the state spent an average of $6,983 per pupil that year, which is an additional $3,203 or 84.7 percent more than base state aid. Overall spending from all sources was $12,656 per pupil. Both of the latter numbers are higher than the previous year.

    Also, base state aid per pupil has declined in recent years. That’s a convenient fact for school spending boosters. They can use a statistic that contains a grain of truth in order to whip up concern among the uninformed over inadequate school spending. They can cite this as an argument for increasing spending, even though spending has been rising.

    (By the way, when citizens in Kansas and across the nation are asked questions about school spending, we learn they are totally uninformed. Even worse, several candidates for the Wichita school board are similarly uninformed. See Wichita school board candidates on spending.)

    Further, citing only base state aid reduces “sticker shock.” Most people are surprised to learn that our schools spend $12,656 per student. It’s much easier to tell taxpayers that only $3,780 was spent. But that’s not a complete picture. In fact, using base state aid as a measure of school spending defines “cherry-picked,” a practice of which Holman accuses the governor.

    Informed readers are left wondering whether the Eagle editorial board is ignorant of these facts, or does it have an agenda to push — just like they accuse Brownback.

    Here’s something else from Holman in the editorial:

    Plus, Brownback has said that “29 percent of Kansas fourth-graders can’t read at a basic level.” That’s a misuse of the results of the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress survey, in which Kansas actually ranked 10th best in the nation. The better measure is the state assessment, which found 10.1 percent of fourth-graders failed to meet the state standard in reading that year.

    The high ranking of Kansas on the NAEP can be explained by the demographic composition of Kansas students compared to other states. As I show in Kansas school test scores, in perspective, Kansas students score better than Texas students on the NAEP. This is a fact congruent with Holman’s citing of Kansas’ high ranking among the states.

    But it is also true that Texas white students score better than Kansas white students, Texas black students score better than Kansas black students, and Texas Hispanic students score better than or tie Kansas Hispanic students. The same pattern holds true for other ethnic subgroups. If we examine figures for low-income students, we see a similar pattern.

    How can this be? You have to look more closely at the figures than the Wichita Eagle editorial board is willing or able. But if you do this, you will understand more about Kansas schools.

    As far as relying on Kansas state assessments to gauge our schools’ performance, we need to be careful. When compared to other states, Kansas has low standards, and these standards have declined.

    The U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has analyzed state standards, and we can see that Kansas has standards that are below most states. The table of figures is available at Estimated NAEP scale equivalent scores for state proficiency standards, for reading and mathematics in 2009, by grade and state. An analysis of these tables by the Kansas Policy Institute shows that few states have standards below the Kansas standards.

    The editorial board might also wonder why scores on the Kansas assessments — the ones under control of Kansas education officials — are rising, while NAEP scores are not.

    A reader sent in this comment, which I believe is apt:

    To paraphrase a trusted source:

    “[The Eagle’s] numbers matter because they’re being used by [Democrats] and [government employees’ unions] to guide and justify state spending policy decisions, especially in education. The [Eagle] has used [misleading statistics] to drum up public support for plans to [raise] income taxes and to [support] a recent court decision that found the state isn’t meeting its constitutional mandate to provide adequate funding for schools.”

    I don’t expect a correction anytime soon.

    Wichita Eagle editorial board: When writing that “Kansans need to trust that what they hear from their governor, especially again and again, is rooted in truth, not cherry-picked, spun or flat wrong” please apply this standard to yourself.

  • In Kansas, arguing about the wrong school issues

    School blackboardSunday’s Wichita Eagle makes a state-wide issue (literally) out of something that could self-regulate, if only we would let it.

    The issue is what proportion of Kansas school spending finds its way “into the classroom” — whatever that means — and Kansas Governor Sam Brownback’s use of this statistic.

    The front page Sunday article (Governor’s numbers come under question) spent over 1,000 words on the topic. It covers where Brownback got the number he uses, the controversy over how to classify spending as “classroom” or other, and troubles surrounding an advocacy group that pushed for more spending going to the classroom.

    Why is this issue important? In Kansas, most children attend government schools that are funded and regulated by government. This means that how schools spend money is a political issue. There will be arguments.

    In the private sector, however, we don’t see these types of arguments. Do we argue in public about how much the grocery store spends on administrative overhead compared to other spending? Of course not. The managers and owners of the grocery store are intensely interested in this issue. The public is too, but only in how the management of the grocery store affects their shopping experience.

    If shoppers don’t like the way a store is managed, they shop somewhere else. Management may notice this and make changes that customers appreciate. If management doesn’t adapt, the store will likely close and be replaced by other stores that do a better job delivering what customers want.

    Or, some shoppers may like a high level of management in a grocery store — one with more personal service. Some like a bare-bones store where you sack the groceries yourself. This variation in customer tastes and needs leads to what we observe: diversity in the types of grocery stores shoppers can choose from.

    The point is that in the private sector, people get to choose what they like. They choose what’s best for them. But with our system of public schools funded and regulated by government, there is no choice. (Yes, you can escape the public schools and use others, but you still must pay for the government schools.)

    There’s a factor that leads to this diversity of grocery stores and self-regulation focused on meeting consumers’ needs. It’s market competition.

    But Kansas has no market competition in schools, unless you want to escape the system entirely and still pay for it. We have a very weak charter school law, meaning there are very few charter schools in Kansas. We have no vouchers or tax credit scholarships.

    If we had these instruments of school choice in Kansas, government schools would face market competition. They would have to start being responsive to customers. We could allow schools to decide for themselves how much to spend on management and things other than the classroom. Market competition would guide schools in structuring their management and budgets to best meet the needs of schoolchildren and parents.

    If we had school choice in Kansas, we would have a more diverse slate of schools for parents to select from. We could rely on the nature of markets to self-regulate schools like we rely on markets to regulate grocery stores.

    We could quit arguing about things like how much is spent in the classroom, and we could actually focus on teaching children.

    But the Kansas school education establishment doesn’t want that. That establishment fights every attempt to introduce even small elements of choice into Kansas. We’ll see this soon as several bills facilitating school choice are introduced in the Kansas Legislature.

  • Well-intentioned policies do more harm than good

    By Derrick Sontag, Americans for Prosperity-Kansas. A version of this appeared in the Wichita Eagle.

    Medicaid.gov Keeping America Healthy

    Governor Brownback and legislators in Kansas must make an important decision this legislative session. Following the Supreme Court’s ruling in June 2012, Kansas must decide whether it will vastly expand its Medicaid rolls. Adding hundreds of thousands of Kansas residents to Medicaid is the exact wrong policy for our state.

    The desire to expand Medicaid is well-intentioned, but will do more harm than good. The plan ignores the realities of the Medicaid system.

    Medicaid is a broken, costly system traditionally serving low-income populations focusing on pregnant women, children and the disabled. Its expansion is a key component of the President’s health care law.

    Unfortunately, Medicaid is rife with problems. Medicaid’s unique structure–jointly managed by the state and the federal government — results in subpar outcomes for covered families. Medicaid combines countless restrictions and paperwork requirements for providers while at the same time paying half of other insurance plans. This results in a lose-lose for providers, forcing many out of the Medicaid market. A recent study found 32 percent of Kansas doctors won’t accept new Medicaid patients.

    These problems lead to even bigger problems for Medicaid patients and families. The health outcomes for Medicaid patients dramatically lag those on private insurance or Medicare. Study after study has confirmed these results.

    Adding hundreds of thousands of people to this system will only make these problems worse and does not qualify as real health reform.

    Even if Medicaid wasn’t a broken system, Kansas can’t afford to expand coverage.

    The federal government is making gigantic promises to encourage states to comply. According to the President’s health care law, the federal government will pay 100 percent of expenses for newly eligible individuals for the first three years stepping down to 90 percent by 2020.

    This seems like a great deal for Kansas. The state can leverage federal funding to provide for its residents. But not so fast.

    The federal government can’t afford these promises. The President himself has twice suggested the government cut its reimbursement to states due to the high costs imposed. Even if the government honors its generous promises, Kansas taxpayers will pay an additional $525 million in the next 10 years just for this expanded population.

    By refusing to create a health insurance exchange last year, Gov. Brownback admitted the health care law won’t result in better care or better outcomes for patients. Expanding Medicaid, while well-intentioned, is just another flawed health care idea coming from Washington.

    Instead of subject Kansas to a broken, costly system, Kansas’ leaders should refuse to expand the Medicaid rolls in the Sunflower State.

  • Kansas school efficiency task force report

    In an effort to spur greater efficiency in Kansas public schools, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback created a school efficiency task force. The task force has released its report, which may be viewed here.

    While some of the recommendations are very useful and should be implemented, some are minor in nature, and some — especially the ones that would reduce the power of the teachers union — will be very difficult to implement. There is also a list of mostly generic “best practices,” such as “Look for savings on utilities.” The task force also solicited anonymous suggestions from the public, and a representative sample is included.

    Two specific recommendations relate to the issue of the various funds schools use and their balances. This has been a contentious issue, with schools defending the need for large (and increasing) fund balances. See Kansas schools have used funds to increase spending for background.

    School districts have complained that the state has been late in making its payments. School districts use this as an argument for the need for high fund balances. So it’s not surprising to see this recommendation: “Place a priority emphasis on the timely transfer of state payments to school districts in June and January.”

    There’s also this recommendation: “Legislatively eliminate, reduce, and consolidate the statutory cash reserve accounts and separate fund accounts that currently exist, thereby ending the ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ policy and allowing the funding contained in each fund category to be more broadly spent across the full variety of educational requirements. Accounts that remain, including the General Fund, should be allowed a modest amount of carryover from year to year.”

    The explanation tells us that the current system of accounts restricts school districts’ ability to effectively use funding. And obviously, “use-it-or-lose-it” is a bad policy.

    There is also the recommendation to form a definition of what counts as “instructional” spending, and whether the current target of 65 percent instruction spending is the best goal.

    In school bond issue campaigns, a popular selling point made to voters is that the state will pay for some of the bond payments. It’s pitched as free money, or at least as a way to get back the money the taxpayers have been sending to Topeka to pay for other school districts’ bonds. So another recommendation is to consider reevaluating this program.

    The issue of accounting and data management is addressed, with examples of the state requiring reports that are “cumbersome, inefficient, and time-consuming” to provide. The reports calls for data to be trackable down to the building level, and made more readily available to the public.

    There are also recommendations that are sure to be opposed by Kansas National Education Association (KNEA), our state’s teachers union. These include a review of teacher tenure, seen as limiting administrators’ ability to efficiently allocate resources. Instead of the strict salary schedule that is currently used, the report recommends a salary range, which could include factors like experience and area of expertise.

    There is also recommended a reduction in the matters that are subject to negotiation with the union, specifically mentioning “work hours, amount of work, insurance benefits, force reductions, professional evaluation procedures, etc.” as no longer subject to mandatory negotiation.

    Missing from the dialog

    Perhaps it was not included in the mandate given to this task force, but missing from the recommendations is using the power of markets to improve the education of Kansas schoolchildren.

    For example: Private sector firms don’t need to be told to “Look for savings on utilities.” The profit motive induces them to do things like this, either to earn a better return on investment, or in the case of non-profit institutions, to better serve more customers (students).

    While public education spending advocates insist that schools shouldn’t be subject to the same competitive market forces that rule the business world, competition works wonders in states where it is allowed to exist. Since Kansas has a very weak charter school law (and therefore very few charter schools) and no school choice through vouchers or tax credit scholarships, Kansas schoolchildren don’t benefit from the dynamism that we see in other states.

    We also don’t experience the cost savings that states with school choice see. The The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice has found — over and over — that school choice programs save money.

    Unfortunately, Governor Brownback has not expressed support for school choice programs, or even for charter schools.

    Schools are sure to oppose most of the recommendations, even those that are the hallmark of good government. An example is a KSN Television news story which reported that Newton school superintendent John Morton thinks it is “a real concern” when citizens have access to data about government spending. This is a common reaction by government bureaucrats and officials. They prefer to operate without citizen scrutiny.

    Finally, there is this irony: The Kansas school bureaucracy says that everything they do “is for the kids.” You might think that they would already be doing everything they can to increase school efficiency in order to benefit students. They have much of the power they need to do this. It’s time to see whether they’re actually willing to act in the best interests of Kansas schoolchildren, and for taxpayers, too.

    Kansas Governor’s School Efficiency Task Force Recommendations

  • Kansas Policy Institute on Kansas 2014 budget

    Kansas Policy Institute president Dave Trabert offered the following statement today regarding the release of fiscal year 2014 — 2015 budget proposal by Governor Sam Brownback:

    On taxes: “HB 2117 was a great step in the right direction on taxes and we should absolutely continue to lower taxes on all Kansans. We applaud Governor Brownback’s efforts to eliminate income taxes in Kansas, but increasing sales taxes in July is not the way to do it. Completely eliminating the income may require a sales tax increase, but the rate cannot be determined until government stops giving away taxpayer money in the name of economic development and gets spending under control.”

    On spending: “We can’t know how much government should spend until we actually look for ways to be more efficient. Spending less is not about cutting service, it’s about providing the same or better service at a better price. The Governor’s budget does so in some places but it should go further. 31 states are estimated to have spent less per-resident than Kansas in 2012 so we can certainly find ways to be more efficient — especially given that general fund spending has increased 32% since 2005.”

    “We often hear laughter when we ask people around the state if government operates efficiently and a recent public opinion poll we conducted with SurveyUSA backs this up. In fact, 83 percent of Kansans believe the state government could operate five to 10 percent more efficiently.”

    On K-12 Finance and Gannon implications: “The $654 increase in Base State Aid Per-Pupil called for in the Gannon court ruling, would bring total taxpayer aid to schools to $14,045 per-pupil this year. It costs a lot of money to operate our schools, but it’s how the money is spent that matters, not how much. No study has ever been conducted in Kansas to determine what it costs for students to achieve required outcomes and have schools organized and operating in a cost-effective manner. Legislators have an obligation to fund schools, but they also have an obligation to do so in a way that makes effective use of taxpayer money.”

    “The education focus should be on outcomes. Billions in increased aid to schools over the years have not improved student achievement on independent national exams. Even state assessments show that only 56 percent of 11th grade students read grade-appropriate material with full comprehension. More money isn’t the answer to raising student achievement. It’s time to start looking for real solutions..”

    On KPERS: “Gov. Brownback clearly recognizes that last year’s KPERS reform didn’t go as far as it needs to. So even though it isn’t formally in the budget a move to a 401(k) style plan for new hires and non-vested current employees stops the likely $15 billion KPERS hole from getting deeper and, if properly structured, starts filling it back in.

  • Reaction to Kansas State of the State Address, 2013

    Governor Sam Brownback delivered his State of the State Address on January 15, 2013. The as-prepared text of the address may be read here.

    Americans for Prosperity-Kansas:

    “Americans for Prosperity-Kansas continues to support the eventual elimination of the income tax in Kansas, and we applaud Gov. Brownback for making this a priority in 2013″” said AFP-Kansas state director Derrick Sontag. “We would support a trigger mechanism for future rate reductions in the proposal rather than legislators continuing to seek a reduction in the rate every year.

    “We have no doubt that continued reductions in the income tax rate will help create economic activity, expand the tax base and create jobs.

    “We’re coming off a years-long cycle in which excessive government spending stifled Kansas families and resulted in stagnant population growth, taxpayers migrating to other states, and the loss of tens of thousands of private sector jobs. The Governor said it best when he pointed out that some choose to grow spending rather than jobs.

    “We look forward to working with legislators and the Governor in the coming session on other important areas of reform such as judicial selection — giving citizens of Kansas more direct input in the judges who sit on the Kansas Supreme Court and Kansas Court of Appeals. Senate confirmation or elections of judges would certainly create a more transparent process that is accountable to the people.”

    Senate Democratic Leader Anthony Hensley and House Democratic Leader Paul Davis issued the following statement. Hensley is wrong about the school spending figures, as I report in Kansas Democrats wrong on school spending.

    “Governor Brownback’s $2.5 billion dollar self-inflicted budget shortfall, a result of his irresponsible tax policy, has brought Kansas to the edge of its own fiscal cliff. He has brought Washington, D.C. politics to Kansas, and they do not belong here,” said Hensley. “Four months into office, he signed the single largest cut to public education in Kansas history. In just three school years, statewide funding for K-12 education was cut nearly $442 million, or a cut of $620 per child. It is no surprise that a three-judge panel issued its ruling last Friday that the Legislature isn’t meeting its K-12 school funding duty under the Kansas Constitution. Members of the Legislature took an oath just yesterday swearing to uphold the Constitution of Kansas. What is our oath worth if we renege on our constitutional duty to adequately and fairly fund our schools?”

    The 2013 legislative session will likely be marked by three major issues: a budget deficit created by tax breaks for the wealthy and big corporations, a court order to restore funding to Kansas public schools and a fundamental debate over checks and balances in Kansas.

    “Democrats want to be part of the solution to this problem, but we cannot support proposals that make the gap between the rich and the middle class even wider. The most troubling part of the Brownback Agenda is the extent to which it brings Washington-style politics to Kansas. We need Kansas based solutions to our Kansas problems, which means funding for Kansas schools, lower property taxes, and proposals to create good paying jobs for middle class families,” said Davis.

    Some tweets:

    Someone doesn’t understand the difference between “deductible” and “refundable”: