Our Legislature will return and with it, the malaise. The
Republican majorities this year crafted tax increases to collect
a bit more than $300 million, predicting an ending state
budget balance of $30 million. They then fled the Capitol,
leaving their governor to make about $50 million in additional
budget cuts to boost the state’s ending balance to around $80
million.
Guesswork and moonshine. Nothing in the legislation prevents
further deficits, more red ink. Tax cuts have not stimulated
the state economy, nor have they created a flood of new
jobs or generated a storm of economic growth.
Consider: Private-sector job growth and personal income
growth in Kansas have lagged behind the national average,
according to national labor reports. From January 2012
through May 2015, private-sector jobs in Kansas grew only
4.7 percent, compared with the national rate of 7.4 percent.
Personal income in Kansas has grown only about 7.7 percent
since the first quarter of 2012, compared with the national
growth rate of 9.6 percent.
The tax cuts opened a two-year budget deficit of more than
$800 million, brought a downgraded bond rating, and throttled
all measure of significant economic life in this state.
Expect the same or worse next year. The deficit’s other $400
million half waits and with it our down-graded bond rating,
festering in the dust-blown ledgers of the supply-siders. There
will be new lies, new excuses, more blame.
The Republicans’ emotional climate – somewhere between
the squawk of a three year-old and the whine of pubescence –
will be no more than a matter of morbid or humorous interest
to others.
Thus the governor’s grand, smoldering “experiment:” a
state with no government and a population with nowhere to
turn.
