Legislature Adjourns, Passes Budget in Final Days
The Kansas Legislature has now reached final adjournment for the year. Many of you will be receiving a summary of legislative highlights from me in the mail very soon. The most significant action of the 2010 Legislature was passage of the Fiscal Year 2011 budget. I sent a column regarding the budget to the county newspapers for publication last week. However not all of them had room to include it, so I am reprinting it here:
The Kansas Legislature reached adjournment last week on the eighty-ninth day of the 2010 session. When I was first elected to the Kansas House two years ago, I promised to be a strong voice for Western Kansas interests and concerns. That pledge led me to a very difficult vote… a vote for a budget and tax package that will temporarily raise the state sales tax rate by 1%. This broad-based tax will raise approximately $314 million next year. The good and bad news is that everyone pays. Rich, poor, immigrant, renter, homeowner, everybody.
I certainly did not seek office to increase taxes. My values tend toward frugality—especially when it comes to public money. Why, then, would I vote for a modest tax increase? My reasons were several:
1. All proposals before the legislature this year, even the so-called no-tax option, involved some kind of tax increase. If the state did not increase tax revenue, the counties and school boards in my district would have had to increase property taxes even further. That is an option that I simply could not support.
2. One billion dollars has already been cut out of the state budget in the past year and a half. Many of you in the 118th District agreed with me that further cuts to the budget would mean the loss of essential governmental services and an abdication of the state’s responsibility and duty to its citizens. Not passing the tax increase would have meant more cuts to schools, possible extension of the 10% cut in Medicaid payments, loss of nutrition services to senior citizens, early release of prisoners due to overcrowded prisons, and even longer waits for those on physical disability and developmental disability waiting lists. As distasteful as a tax increase may be, the alternative would have been worse.
3. The so-called “no tax” budget would have depended on a number of unproven and uncertain revenue sources to make the budget balance. That is neither a responsible nor a conservative solution.
The budget we adopted is still a bare-bones, no-frills budget. Even with the sales tax increase, the state will spend approximately 16% fewer tax dollars in FY 2011 than was approved for FY 2009.
Right here where we live, further rollbacks in the Medicaid payments to support nursing care for the frail, elderly and disabled, state funding for public schools and state funding for highways puts our economic future at risk. The loss of Medicaid funds to our local nursing facilities has cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some would have closed their doors if nothing was done.
So I weighed the consequences and made the decision that seems best for all of Kansas and especially for the 118th District. Given the entire context, I can’t responsibly make a different choice. That is how this responsible, pragmatic, problem-solving fiscal conservative came to vote for the sales tax proposal.
Unemployment Rate Drops again in April
Websites of Interest
20 Most Stressed and Least Stressed U.S. Counties Although none of the counties in the 118th District are listed, several of our neighbors made the “Least Stressed” list. Life is good on the High Plains!
Doomsayers Beware An opinion piece by John Tierney in the New York Times, refuting the commonly held notion (among intellectuals that is) that society is in decline.
Cowboy Logic: It doesn't take a very big person to carry a grudge
Quote of the Week: An idea isn’t worth that much. It’s the execution of the idea that has value. – Joel Spolksy
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