2013: Watch Conservative Governance Harm Kansas in Real Time

Worth fighting for.

Although the 2012 elections were a victory for progressives in many ways, many state governors and legislatures are still in the grasp of the Tea Party, which has carried forward from its 2010 wave.  This is no more true than in my home state of Kansas, where, despite its red reputation, conservative Republicans will solidly control the Senate, House, and Governorship for the first time ever in 2013.

Republicans have long been dominant in the state, to be sure, but for decades moderate business-minded Republicans held control of the party.  The Republican governors of my youth - Mike Hayden and Bill Graves - were of this ilk.  There have been prominent Democratic politicians in Kansas history, too - most notably Kathleen Sebelius, a popular two-term governor whom Time ranked as one of the best in the country, before she left to be Obama's HHS secretary (we want you back, Kathleen).  The rise of movement conservatism since the early 90s, however, has bestowed Kansas with effectively three political parties.  The Democrats are relegated to permanent minority status and the real elections occur in the August primaries between moderate and conservative Republicans.  Former Governor Graves supported numerous moderates against conservative candidates in the 2012 primaries to no avail.  The conservatives won easily and now dominate the Legislature, with Tea Party favorite Governor Sam Brownback as their captain.  This political landscape is infinitely compounded by the fact that Koch Industries, the hundred-billion-dollar corporation hugely responsible for masquerading corporate lobbying as a grassroots political movement (i.e. the Tea Party) is headquartered in Wichita.

The Koch brothers scored a major victory in 2012 when Brownback and his legislative followers pushed through a massive tax cut deal that lowered income taxes and largely eliminated them for many businesses and farms (details here).  That may sound good on paper, but to partly offset the cost of the cuts, many tax credits utilized by the poor and middle classes were eliminated.  These include expenses for child care and food sales tax rebates - Kansas now joins Alabama and Mississippi as the only states with no food sales tax exemptions whatsoever.  Kansas' own Department of Revenue, not some liberal think tank, found that under the plan half a million filers who earn less than $25,000 would see an average tax increase of $156, while 21,000 filers making more than $250,000 would see an average cut of $5,200.  Those in between would receive a modest cut ($282).  It is Robin Hood in reverse, taking more money from the vast poor to reward the few rich.  And it is now the law of the land.

This is libertarian/conservative economic policy in practice in its rawest form.  The spin is that lowering the tax burden on "job creators" will usher in such a flurry of new economic activity that the lost tax revenues will be made up through a broader tax base.  It is the myth of supply-side, trickle-down economics.  In reality there has never been any conclusive proof that this works, and studies show that tax cuts that benefit middle and lower classes are actually better economic generators.  As I've said before, you have to stimulate demand by putting money in the pockets of people who are actually going to spend it. 

To the surprise of no one outside the conservative thought bubble, it doesn't appear to be set to work for Kansas either.  As state legislators prepare to craft the fiscal year 2014 budget, which takes effect July 1, last year's tax cuts have left a projected $700 million hole to be filled.  This was, of course, predicted by everyone who said the tax cuts were a bad idea.  But Kansas must pass a balanced budget, so those bucks have gotta come from somewhere.  (To provide a counterexample, here in New Mexico the state government is contemplating how to best spend a bit of new money for the first time in years.)

"Cut spending, cut spending!" cry the conservatives.  This is, shall we say, problematic.  Huge entitlement programs are largely federally funded, and reducing state funding for some programs can actually reduce the amount of federal dollars received - counterproductive to say the least.  State government operations could perhaps be trimmed a little, but they've already taken a hit and their budgets are small compared to other spending areas.  That leaves school funding and other aid to local governments, a huge portion of the budget.  It's really unlikely that Kansas schools will come out of this morass unscathed, and that is sad.  Worst of all, Brownback obviously saw it coming.  In one of the most blatant political shams I've seen recently, last year he appointed a task force to examine how Kansas schools can operate more efficiently, i.e. with less money.  There was not a single educator on it.

The cuts are coming, have no doubt.  Quality of education will suffer.  Teachers and other school personnel could be laid off.  And how is that supposed to help the economy?  Moreover, last week a district court ruled that the Legislature has been breaking its constitutional obligations since 2008 by underfunding schools.  While that case winds its way to the Kansas Supreme Court, any hope of rectifying the situation is slim at best in the face of the Koch juggernaut.

It's obvious that Republicans will support hardly anything on the revenue side of things (and what Democrats support doesn't matter in the Kansas of 2013).  The one tax option they have said they will consider is making a temporary increase to the state sales tax permanent.  Because everyone pays the exact same sales tax rate, this tax takes a higher percentage of income from those who earn less.  In other words, they picked the most regressive tax out there, the one that proportionally hurts poor people the most, and said "yeah, we can live with that.  And yes, you still have to pay it on food."  Can there be any doubt about who the Kansas ruling conservatives are really looking out for?  For those who think progressives like me just love taxes, let me state this clearly: Sales taxes are bad.  They should be as low as possible.  And yet Bobby Jindal in Louisiana has proposed eliminating his state's income tax and replacing it with a sales tax increase, thereby balancing the budget on the backs of the poor.  I think that's wrong.  If that makes me a tax-and-spend liberal, so be it.

Fellow Kansans, please pay attention to what's going on in Topeka.  Ask yourself if the political leaders there are using flowery language and freedom-loving rhetoric to persuade you to vote against your own economic interests.  Thanks to Brownback and his allies, half a million Kansans are now paying higher taxes and will be hurt the most by the inevitable forthcoming cuts to government services.  Those in the middle who received a small cut have to consider whether it was worth Kansas schools continuing to be underfunded.  Brownback et al. are up for election in 2014.  The votes of 21,000 rich people won't win elections.  But the noise generated by millions of Koch dollars could.  It's up to you to be well-informed and weigh your options carefully.  As a proud Kansan, the Prairie Progressive will be here to offer explanations as best I can.  Kansas is a great state; let's take it back from the narrow interests who have seized it for themselves.