Kansas' Governor Brownback Finally Gets At Least One Thing Right

I can't think of one thing--not one--Kansas Governor Sam Brownback or his Republican cohorts have gotten right in that state in the last several years.

They infamously pulled the tired, old, failed "trickle down economics" wherein taxes for the wealthy and corporations are slashed so "jobs will be created."

Brownback cuts higher ed funding

Kansas slashes annual tax revenue 

estimate $159 million

Governor Sam Brownback's tax reforms 

cast as 'failure'

Only it never took place, as we warned, as we predicted and as is now shown by the states drained coffers. The same Republicans are taking money from children and schools and school budgets and the states pensioners, all because they went down this ignorant road.

I was sure the Guv could not and would not get anything right.

Fortunately for Kansans and now, even Missourians, he finally, finally got and did something good:

Brownback proposes truce in development border war

A bit from the article:

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback made a proposal Thursday to end the economic development border war with Missouri.

Brownback’s plan calls for both states to agree not to actively recruit companies in Wyandotte, Johnson, Leavenworth and Douglas counties in Kansas and Jackson, Clay, Platte, Cass and Ray counties in Missouri.

And thank goodness. This should have taken place years ago. It slashes budgets from schools and all kinds of very necessary government programs. It puts more burden for taxation on the middle and lower and working classes. And finally, it puts the companies in a kind of "catbird seat" where all they have to do is threaten to go across the state line. Then these cities and counties, as well as the state, throw themselves at their mercy and give up money they desperately need just to function.

Hopefully this goes through this time. A year and two ago, Missouri offered this but Kansas didn't take them up on it. Hopefully Missouri will now wisely reach out to this olive branch, of sorts, and stop giving away needed tax money.

Cross your fingers.

Notes on the St. Louis Rams

You likely saw the breaking news on the St. Louis Rams NFL team:

Rams relocating to Los Angeles

First, this is certainly, absolutely no time to gloat, as a Kansas Citian.

Sure, we're happy to have our team but no way do we want to put down St. Louis for losing theirs. No way. That's just ugly.

Second, it's got to hurt. And in so many ways.

--It's the 2nd NFL team the city has lost.

--It hurts tax revenues.

--It hurts the city's image both internally and externally--how they see themselves and how the nation might.

--It's got to hurt their downtown and business and businesses and hotels and restaurants, you name it.

That said, I have to admit, I was hoping they could keep the team. I just wasn't for a new stadium for them.

Sure, if they wanted to pay for it themselves, have at it. I wasn't for them keeping their team at any price. I specifically wasn't for Missourians, statewide, having to pay any state taxes just so wealthy people could have a new stadium.

But all of us pay for it?

No way.

So now this is settled. For them. Now. And it hurts and it's ugly but so be it.

What occurs to me now, however, is that, next time the owners of either our Royals or Chiefs want us all, again, to cough up hundreds of millions of dollars for stadium renovations?

Oh, hell no.

My position remains the same for us, as well.

If the wealthy want a new stadium or stadium upgrades...   they can darned well pay for it themselves.

How Much More Can----and Will---Kansans Take?

Everything Republican Governor Sam Brownback and his political party cohorts have touched, fiscally, financially and dealing with taxes, it seems, have turned to debt and red ink.

We've all been following them for these few years now and watched the debt rating be downgraded and debts rise and budgets be slashed, sure. But the latest budget cuts, now to the schools, are being the unkindest and even worst, the most painful and even hopeless, of all.

I saw this last evening:

Wichita schools would lose $22 million on possible state spending cut

And that, I thought, was horrible, for one not-that-large a school district.

But then I saw this:

Schools could lose $197 million under spending 

cut scenario

Truly horrible.

Just short of 200 million dollars, nearly one quarter of a billion dollars, to be cut from the school budgets across the state.

How do you have hope for your children, for the future, for your state, if you don't--hell, can't--invest in the next generations?

Kansas' Money Solution?

It's well known now that Kansas Republican Governor Sam Brownback and all his political party cohorts over in Topeka at the state capitol screwed up their state's budget with "trickle down economics" ideas--that is, slashing tax rates and then waiting for tax coffers to fill, instead, because business would (somehow) rather magically appear and, they said, even increase.

Now, we see, yet again, how this idea is a terrible and non-working idea. Instead of bringing in more money, it actually does just the opposite. Kansas now needs approximately 280 million dollars for its budget because of this terribly failed Republican idea, imposed on Kansas and Kansans.

So, a possible solution?

Perhaps Kansas needs to look no further than next door, to Colorado:

Crime down and revenue up in Colorado since start of Marijuana Legalization

Crime in Colorado’s capital city, Denver, has dropped by more than a tenth, local law enforcement data reveals, and the state as a whole is expected to collect around $30 million in revenue this year as a result of weed taxes.

Economically speaking, rolling back the weed ban in Colorado has done wonders as well. The Associated Press reported this week that nearly $19 million in recreational marijuana was sold throughout the state in just the month of March, with $1.9 million of that going immediately to Denver to be divvied up by lawmakers to various state programs.

By the end of the year, weed taxes are expected to net Colorado around $30 million, which as of this week will be used on a plan that puts that money into mostly child drug use prevention and outreach, the AP reported, which means more school nurses and public education efforts funded by marijuana excises. The New York Times reported this week that those taxes have so far provided the state with around $12.6 million. According to Reuters, the latest year-end projection in total revenue generated is around $98 million—exceeding the state’s original estimate by 40 percent.

Would it be a total panacea for the Jayhawks? No, certainly not. Colorado is a much more populated state so the revenue wouldn't be as large. But could it help? Colorado's example seems to show it would, yes.

It would bring in more money for the state and it could free up the police to work on other, more important issues and problems, including a reduction in crime and crime rates.

At any rate, Kansas needs solutions to their money problems, again, thanks to Sam Brownback and all the Republicans in the Statehouse and all those who elected them into office. 

This could be a not-so-small part of that solution and get the side benefit of possibly lowering crime, too.

Kansas poor and their schools take another beating

Not just Kansas schools take a financial blow but the poorest of Kansas schools, at that:

Federal cuts announced for poorest Kansas schools

From the article:

School districts across the state received word Thursday of significant cuts to federal funding reserved for the highest-poverty schools.

What stuns me, besides the cuts in funding, is how this is even legal.

Forget that it's immoral and nearly unconscionable, how is this legal given that "separate but equal" was ruled patently unconstitutional, so many years ago?

In this case I'm not talking about schools for blacks vs. schools for whites, as the original Brown vs. the Topeka Board of Education court ruling came out, I'm talking about schools for wealthy vs. schools for the poor.  That's what this seems to be also, further setting up, just as the school vouchers would, if we implement them.

You can't have one set of schools well-funded and the others stripped of that same equal level of funding. That's not just immoral, it's obscene and it should absolutely be illegal.

It just keeps getting worse over there in Kansas. First the governor gives tax breaks to the corporations and wealthy, then he and too many Republicans in Topeka propose raising the sales tax to make up for lost revenue which would nothing but hurt the poor and middle class, now this.

No one's going to WANT to be in Kansas, Dorothy.

And in the meantime, Representatives are trying to add in money for golf tournaments for themselves but no new, additional money for schools, yes they are:

Bring home the bacon: Budget funds staff hikes, golf events

I'm trying to decide if it's ignorance, stupidity or greed that's the source here. Regardless, chutzpah is definitely involved.

Want smaller government?

You/we are most surely going to get it, one way or another.

Check this out: "Government methodology for reporting retail sales is based on sampling stores in existence. It does not factor in stores not in existence but recently were. Nor does it handle closed stores when the chain is still doing business. Government reporting of retail sales is fatally flawed."

Here's the deal--states and the Federal Government are reporting sales tax collections down and considerably so and, as you know, the states can't operate on deficits so they're all slashing budgets, programs and staff, etc.

But the reports from the feds in Washington are based on same-store sales from the previous year.

What it doesn't take into account is that so many stores have closed doors and/or gone bankrupt.

So sure, same store retail sales are up.

But tax revenues? The money they get in to spend on you and I?

Down. And big time.

So yeah, with the exception of Washington, DC, you and I are going to get smaller government, no doubt about it.

So if you're Conservative or Independent or Libertarian or just a Liberal like me who wants to see government shrink a bit, stay tuned. You're going to get what you wish for.

(You should maybe check out that link above, to see both how much less the States have in tax revenues and the rather long list of companies whose stores closed).

Let's have a great week.