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Kansas Legislative Session Wrap-Up

6/13/2015

4 Comments

 
The 2015 Kansas legislative session is finally over and legislators have gone home. What a spectacle it has been. For better or worse, there appears to be a funding strategy that meets our constitutional requirement that there is money available to pay the bills authorized. That is the good news, I guess. What I find ironic is that this Legislature passed the largest tax increase in Kansas history to protect the elimination of income tax for some 330,000 LLC owners that they passed three years ago. What I find heartbreaking is that our state of Kansas now has what I consider an unfair tax structure that puts a disproportionate burden on everyone else. What I fear is that in their struggles, the Legislature has just kicked the can down the road. They will likely be back next year and in succeeding years with many of the same issues of revenue and budgeting on the agenda with similar debates to follow.

One thing for sure that is needed now is for the public to more aggressively get involved in a discussion of the issues, the impacts, and most importantly, how they would like to see things done in the future. It is the obvious time to weigh in, both from the point of view of the time available now before next January and the next session and also before the 2016 elections. That election could be a really important one for setting the direction on public policy for years to come. You have the results of recent major changes versus an earlier time of significant contrast for the state to choose which direction to go.

What would be a really nice change is if our citizens, in learning, thinking, and talking about the issues, had impact on candidates and election results instead of millions of dollars, twisted messages, and downright lies in the closing two weeks of a campaign deciding our future. The answer will be in how we the people respond.
4 Comments
Becky Anderson
6/13/2015 02:18:32 am

I have been reading your insights these last few months and so appreciate the thoughts of someone who "has been there". I think for most Kansans we are quite naive when it comes to politics and believe what is told to us. This session has hopefully opened some eyes to the untruths that have been spread by the governor and his friends. Trying to organize this assorted group of folks who call themselves moderates seems to be a huge challenge, but one that needs to begin now. Thanks again for your continued care for our state.

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Jim
6/14/2015 12:37:20 am

If the current news on legislators' lack of will to help out Kansas isn't sufficient to get people's attention, I don't think they will ever wake up.
The consumers are the one's driving the economy, not the businesses. Taxing consumers reduces their spending power. have been sitting on the side lines accumulating profits, not hiring more people, and not expanding their businesses.Business

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Larry
6/14/2015 05:25:57 am

Once folks see what has happened to them, I think the current leadership will learn they have, in the words of Admiral Yamamoto, awakened a sleeping giant

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Joe
6/14/2015 08:52:37 am

I agree that voter involvement is going to be the key down the road. After all, Brownback was elected by little more that 25% of registered voters as 50% of the electorate stayed home. The small businesses are not going to use their extra income to expand the state's coffers. They won't expand or hire more folks. Most of those businesses don't need or want to do so. I was a small business owner for years, and the reason it was small is that is the way I wanted it. Brownback's trickle down "Voodoo" economics will never work. That has been proven time and again. Many states around the nation are holding up Kansas as an example of what NOT to do. Our only hope for returning to some sort of sanity is to root out the idealogs who have caused this and replace them with reasonable well informed representatives. Elections can't get here soon enough for me.

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    John W. Carlin​—​61st Speaker of the Kansas House, 40th Governor of Kansas, 8th Archivist of the United States, and student of leadership

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