Voice For Liberty

Tag: Chris Steineger

  • Kansas news digest

    News from alternative media around Kansas for January 25, 2010.

    Kansas Republicans and Democrats agree Massachusetts upset could benefit Kansans

    (Kansas Liberty) “Republican Senatorial candidate Scott Brown made history last night when he defeated Democratic candidate Martha Coakley in the election for Sen. Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts seat. Kansas Republicans are lining up to proclaim how this victory could signal a change in the tide for the Democratic Party and for the Democrats health care plans.”

    Rally members frustrated by mainstream media coverage

    (Kansas Liberty) “Last Friday, approximately 400 liberty-minded Kansans flocked to the Statehouse to support a Senate Concurrent Resolution that claims state sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment in the U.S. Constitution. The resolution serves notice to the federal government to cease and desist certain mandates, provides that certain federal legislation should be prohibited or repealed, and it directs distribution of the resolution to Congress and the President. … According to legislators and organization members who were present at the rally, the grassroots support for the amendment was substantial, but many of the mainstream media outlets painted a watered down picture of the outpouring of support. Several reports also focused in on the sole opponent who testified during the hearing, an educator at Wichita Collegiate School, which is a private K-12 school.”

    New coalition plotting to lobby legislators for tax increases

    (Kansas Liberty) “Roughly a dozen tax-increase advocacy groups have banned together to form the Kansans for Quality Communities Coalition. According to its mission statement the organization’s key goal is to ‘ensure the prosperity of Kansas communities through the responsible investment of taxpayer dollars.’ To achieve this goal the group is heavily lobbying for tax increases, an action already sanctioned by Democratic leaders, including Gov. Mark Parkinson.”

    AG Six requests Kansas Supreme Court to refrain from reopening Montoy case

    (Kansas Liberty) “Attorney General Steve Six has asked the Kansas Supreme Court to deny the Schools for Fair Funding coalition’s request to reopen the Montoy v. State of Kansas lawsuit. “The Court in 2006 issued its mandate directing the district court to dismiss the case, and on the stipulation of all parties, the district court did so,’ Six said in a statement issued to the Kansas Supreme Court yesterday. ‘This case is over.’ Six referred to the request as ‘unprecedented’ and said that it ‘achieves no efficiencies, and is merely an attempt to circumvent the procedures for initiating new cases.’”

    Kansas Senator Chris Steiniger on County Consolidation and His New Campaign

    (State of the State KS) “Kansas Senator Chris Steiniger (D) talks about county consolidation and his recent announcement to run for Secretary of State.”

    Legislators Speak at Energy Conference in Wichita

    (State of the State KS) “House Assistant Minority Leader Jim Ward (D) and Kansas Senator Carolyn McGinn (R) spoke at an energy panel hosted by City of Wichita’s Dale Goter.” Full video of the conference is at Wichita Energy Conference Legislative Panel .

    ProPublica predicts insolvency for Kansas’ unemployment insurance fund

    (Kansas Watchdog) “Propublica, a national independent non-profit investigative journalism organization, on Wednesday reported that two dozen states have unemployment funds in the red, with nine more to be in the red within six months.”

    U.S. Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance won’t affect Kansas much

    (Kansas Watchdog) “The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that businesses and unions may spend freely on political campaigns, but this ruling only affects federal races in Kansas. ‘It won’t affect us at all’ was the response from Carol Williams, the executive director of the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission. Williams said that 24 states had corporate and union contribution bans but Kansas did not.”

    Wichita Chamber Will Lobby Against Income Tax

    (Kansas Watchdog) “The Wichita Business Journal reported in today’s edition that the Wichita Chamber of Commerce is beginning what will likely be a multi-year effort to repeal the personal and business income taxes in Kansas.”

    Furlough idea for legislators is dropped

    (Kansas Reporter) “TOPEKA, Kan. – Furloughs for the Kansas Legislature are off the table until late in the legislative session, at the earliest, state Senate President Stephen Morris said.”

    More budget cuts would hurt Kansas for years, tax backers say

    (Kansas Reporter) “TOPEKA, Kan. – Kansas school children, the state’s elderly and its most fragile citizens simply cannot afford any more state budget cuts, proponents of a proposed one-percent sales tax increase told a Kansas House tax policy committee Thursday.”

    School’s reserves total at least $1.4 billion

    (Kansas Reporter) “TOPEKA, Kan. – In the fight over school funding, both sides agree that school districts in Kansas are sitting on at least $1.4 billion in cash reserves. The battle over whether that money is available to spend played out during two competing presentations Thursday morning in front of the House Appropriations Committee.”

    Kansans speculate on future of federal health reform

    (Kansas Health Institute News Service) “TOPEKA – The shockwaves emanating from Republican Scott Brown’s U.S. Senate victory in Massachusetts on Tuesday are being felt beyond the Bay state and Washington, D.C. They’re registering in state capitals across the country, including Topeka.”

    Senate GOP leaders say some tax increases will be necessary

    (Kansas Health Institute News Service) “TOPEKA – Senate leaders today said a combination of tax increases and spending cuts would be the best way to balance the state budget. Senate President Steve Morris, R-Hugoton, said he thought a plan to close sales tax exemptions and increase the tobacco tax could win legislative approval as lawmakers try to close a projected $400 million budget gap. Senate Vice President John Vratil, R-Leawood, said balancing the budget solely with more spending cuts would be ‘catastrophic.’”

  • Kansas economy debated in Wichita

    Last Thursday at a meeting of the City Clerks and Municipal Finance Officers Association of Kansas, the effectiveness of the federal economic stimulus and the Kansas economy were discussed. Americans For Prosperity National Director of State Operations Alan Cobb and Kansas Secretary of Revenue Joan Wagnon were the participants, with Dale Goter, Wichita Governmental Relations Manager, as moderator.

    Wagnon started the debate by reciting the distress that the economy has experienced over the past year. She said that these conditions said to the new president “You need to do something.” She said that about 10,000 jobs were picked up in Kansas by the federal stimulus plan. The stimulus worked, she said.

    Cobb said that to conclude that the stimulus has worked is premature. He said that in Kansas 6,500 jobs were created at a cost of $500 million, a cost of about $75,000 per job created. There’s a fundamental problem in politics, he said, in that politicians look at the short-term, not the long term. In the long term, there is no question that the stimulus spending will result in lower growth, as the borrowed money must be repaid. It’s the “seen” versus “unseen” problem.

    Goter asked: “What if nothing had been done?”

    Cobb replied that the President Obama’s team had said that without the stimulus, unemployment would rise to 7.5%, noting that today the rate is 10.2%. Wagnon relied that without intervention, more Kansas banks would have failed, and that the flow of credit would have shut down more than it has. Kansas would have run out of unemployment compensation funds, too, requiring the state to ask employers to make larger contributions at the same time they were laying off employees, resulting in a downwards spiral. She recited a list of construction projects and counties that received stimulus money.

    Wagnon referred to lessons learned during the Great Depression, that the power of the federal government was used to save the economy. Cobb replied that the lesson to be learned is the opposite. It took ten years to recover. Massive government intervention and higher taxes prolonged the Great Depression, he said.

    Goter asked: “Where do we go from here?”

    Wagnon explained that we spent a lot of our stimulus money on K-12 education. This helped the state get through fiscal years 2009 and 2010. For 2011 — the budget year that the Kansas legislature will begin working on in January — the stimulus money is no longer available. She said that we’re likely to see another round of cuts, not only in budget expenditures, but also in tax expenditures.

    There’s no appetite for raising taxes, she said. She noted that the 2010 Commission has recommended raising taxes instead of cutting spending.

    Cobb replied that the stimulus money is misnamed, as much of the spending is not stimulative. It simply replaced existing state spending and delayed some tough political decisions. Spending is the real problem, he said, noting that if spending had increased at just the rate of population growth plus inflation over the last six or seven years, Kansas would have perhaps $500 million in the bank now.

    Wagnon referred to the large number of governmental bodies in Kansas, saying that we may not be able to afford small school districts and the large number of county governments.

    Goter asked “Have we gone too far with tax exemptions?”

    Wagnon referred to these as tax expenditures. She said there’s a report on the Kansas Revenue Department website that details the cost of these. We should look at the cost of these expenditures, she said. The effectiveness of economic development tools should be looked at, and we’re giving away more than we need to in order to attract jobs.

    Wagnon said we’ve phased out the estate and franchise tax, and we need these revenues. She also mentioned the giveaways of employee withholding tax that Kansas has granted, where a company gets to use its employee tax contributions to repay economic development incentives. “What’s the value of a job, then, at that point?” People go after tax expenditures because they’re confidential and easier to get than going through the appropriations process, she said.

    Cobb said he agrees with some of the problems with these exemptions, although they’re not really expenditures, as the money belongs to the people to begin with. A better policy is lower tax rates for everyone with fewer exemptions. Corporate welfare does not grow a state’s economy, he added. Government is not equipped to pick winners and losers in the economy. Companies make location decisions based on labor force, tax rates, and markets, with incentives viewed simply as gravy.

    Analysis

    One of the most important lessons to take from this debate is to realize that the attitude commonly held by government officials such as Joan Wagnon is that taxes belong to the government first. Government, according to many officials, has a legitimate claim on the income and property of citizens, and if a reduction is given, it’s considered a cost to government. This is why Wagnon called them “tax expenditures.” This is the attitude of our former governor. The Kansas school spending lobby feels the same way, too.

    To learn more about the “seen and unseen” that Cobb referred to, read this excerpt from Economics in One Lesson, in which Hazlitt explains the fallacy of the broken window.

    Kansas Senator Chris Steineger has introduced legislation to reduce the number of counties in Kansas, as reported in Steineger introduces Kansas county consolidation bill.

    A report by the Kansas Division of Legislative Post Audit on the effectiveness of $1.3 billion spent by Kansas on economic development incentives is at Determining the Amounts the State Has Spent on Economic Development Programs and the Economic Impacts on Kansas Counties. Reporting from the Lawrence Journal-World is at Effect of economic spending in doubt. Readers of this site know that the effectiveness of economic development efforts by government is one of the issues I feel most strongly about. My recent testimony on this matter to the Wichita City Council is at Wichita universal tax exemption could propel growth.

  • Steineger responds to critics. They’re not persuaded.

    Kansas State Senator Chris Steineger, a Democrat from Kansas City, has reached out to the “other side” several times this year. He spoke at Americans For Prosperity’s Defending the American Dream Summit in Wichita in January (see Kansas Senator Chris Steineger on Redesigning Kansas Government.). On April 15, he spoke at the tea party protest in Overland Park.

    Kansas blogger Jason Croucher in his Kansas Jackass post KS-Gov: Chris Steineger Takes in a Tea Party, mildly criticized Steineger for his tea party appearance. The comments left to this post, however, were vicious.

    Today Croucher publishes a message from Steineger in the post Steineger Addresses Concerns Over Tea Part [sic] Attendance. The senator might as well stop trying to reason with the rabid leftists who leave most of the comments on the Kansas Jackass blog. They weren’t persuaded.

    Here’s a comment that provides a sampling of the sentiment: “My understanding is he spends most of the time going after government spending, particularly the Statehouse renovations. I’m not sure how that builds the Democratic party.” At least this person is honest in recognizing the role that government spending plays for Democrats.

    As it happened, Senator Steineger had invited me to breakfast last Friday. He’s a reasonable person, I found, and we had agreement on some issues. I appreciate his efforts to reform Kansas government by reducing the number of counties and legislators, which I had written about in the posts Kansas Senator Chris Steineger on Redesigning Kansas Government and Redesigning Kansas County Government: Follow-up.

    Steineger has publicly expressed his interest in being appointed lieutenant governor. Mark Parkinson would do Kansas a favor by selecting him.

  • Steineger introduces Kansas county consolidation bill

    Kansas Senator Chris Steineger, Democrat from Kansas City, has introduced a bill whose aim is to reduce the number of counties in Kansas. The bill is Senate Bill 198. It’s pretty short to read at just two pages, part of that being the list of counties to be merged.

    I’ve covered this idea in earlier posts based on listening to Sen. Steinger speak in public, and in private. See Kansas Senator Chris Steineger on Redesigning Kansas Government and Redesigning Kansas County Government: Follow-up.

    Sen. Steineger also had an op-ed piece in the Wichita Eagle at Sen. Chris Steineger: Modernize Government. The Lawrence Journal-World has an Associated Press piece at Kansas legislator wants to consider drastically reducing number of counties. The Hutchinson News reports on this and has reader comments in Kansas too bountiful in number of counties?

    When I heard Sen. Steineger talk about this, my thinking went along the line that two counties would merge into one. But it turns my thinking was too constrained. Steineger’s bill proposes merging 105 Kansas counties into 13. For example, Sedgwick, Butler, Sumner, and Cowley counties would be merged into one new county. (The list of counties to merge is in the text of the bill.)

    Reporting in the Pittsburg Morning Sun reveals that southeast Kansas legislators are not keen on the idea of county consolidation, or on the reduction of their numbers (a related concern of Steineger’s). See
    Legislators sound off on idea to consolidate    .

    Comments left at the Journal-World article show mixed support and ridicule of the idea. But some of the detractors, I believe, are not thinking of the dynamic changes that would take place.

    For example, one comment says “You would end up with the situation where in a ‘populous’ new county it would take days to get access to any service even as simple as a marriage license.” Evidently this comment-writer believes that staffing levels would not be adjusted to match the number of people in these new counties.

    Another writer says “I also have the feeling that many small towns would lose economically by having the county seat taken away from them.” Related to this is the comment “Sure it might cut taxes, but what happens to all of those county jobs?” I imagine that some present county seats would suffer some if they were no longer the seat. These losses might come in the form of reduced employment if county offices are no longer in the town. If you believe that local government is a jobs program, that is a loss. But government jobs come at a price — taxation. If there are fewer government employees, that leaves more money in the pockets of taxpayers, and they will be able to spend it on other, more productive, uses. This leads to other jobs being created. But they’re not government jobs, which is a bad thing to some people.

    Another comment: “You think people want to spend a whole day driving to the courthouse 100 miles away to go handle thier [sic] business?” If courthouses are farther away than they are now, people will need to adjust. That might be difficult for some. Just last week I was talking to someone who complained about having to go through security at Wichita city hall (not a county office, I realize) in order to pay their water bill. Someone else remarked that there are many ways to pay a water bill besides going to city hall — mail, Internet, drop-off boxes at the grocery store, etc. But this person said they didn’t trust the system, and they wanted a receipt. With the government office being potentially a two-hour drive, will people change their ways and do more business by mail, telephone, or Internet?

  • Redesigning Kansas County Government: Follow-up

    Last week I reported on a talk that Kansas Senator Kansas Senator Chris Steineger, Democrat from Kansas City, delivered to some 300 citizens at Americans For Prosperity‘s Defending the American Dream Summit in Wichita.

    One of the things Steineger believes is that Kansas has too many counties, a legacy from the days of travel to the county seat by horseback. So I got to thinking about the consolidation of two counties into one and some of the issues that would be involved.

    In a follow-up call with the senator, he mentioned that even ten to 12 counties could join together to form one new county. How would we decide how to form these new counties? Where would the county seat be? Steineger’s answer is to form new counties based around economic development engines.

    He also said that several factors are coming into play that make the redesign of the county map in Kansas more likely: First, the state is eliminating state revenue sharing with counties. Second, the state is eliminating legislative barriers to consolidation.

    There’s no central place in the legislature focused on county redesign in Kansas, Steineger added. If citizens are interested in seeing this idea proceed, they should talk to their house or senate member.

    As the senator said in his talk to the AFP summit, there is a window of time when the legislature and the people of Kansas are more receptive to these types of reform. That is during times of stress like we are experiencing now. Once times are better, people will be less responsive.

  • Kansas Senator Chris Steineger on Redesigning Kansas Government

    On January 10, 2009, Kansas Senator Chris Steineger, Democrat from Kansas City, spoke to some 300 citizens at Americans For Prosperity‘s Defending the American Dream Summit in Wichita.

    Steineger said that we should look at the current budget crisis in Kansas as an opportunity to redesign and reinvent Kansas government.

    He asked “why do we have 105 counties?” The answer is that made Kansas counties small enough that everyone could have a one-day horseback ride — the mode of travel in 1861 when Kansas was formed — to the county seat. But today, we have cars, highways, telephones, cell phones, airplanes — a lot of things have changed. But we still have the same administrative structure.

    Businesses change their products and management structure to adapt to the times, he said. Government should do the same thing.

    Based on his 13 years in the Kansas Senate, Steineger said he’s learned that government doesn’t change itself a whole lot. “We don’t change the underlying design structure, the underlying management structure, the underlying administrative structure. We still have 105 counties, and that was based on horseback riding.”

    Steineger told of how in his home county (Wyandotte County), the county and the city of Kansas City formed a unified government. It hasn’t saved much money, he said, but government has become much more effective. Consolidation can work.

    He went on to say that we could also downsize the Kansas legislature. Kansas has 40 senators and 125 representatives. “We really don’t need that many people to make decisions in Topeka.”

    Summing up, he said that we should consider reducing the number of counties and downsize the legislature. There is a window of opportunity of about two years to make these changes. After this, revenue will probably start flowing in again, and people won’t want to change.

  • Americans for Prosperity — Kansas to hold second Defending the American Dream Summit

    Event to kick off 2009 Kansas Legislative Session

    TOPEKA — The free-market grassroots group Americans for Prosperity-Kansas will hold its second statewide Defending the American Dream Summit in Wichita Saturday, January 10, 2009, just two days prior to the start of the 2009 Kansas Legislature.

    “This event will serve as a kick-off for the new legislative session,” said Americans for Prosperity-Kansas state director Derrick Sontag. “Going into the 2009 Legislature, we see an opportunity to help change the way elected officials seem to view their obligations to taxpayers, and how our state budgets its funds.”

    The event, held at the Beech Activity Center in Wichita, will focus on state spending, tax policy and grassroots activism. Confirmed speakers include National Review Online editor and “Liberal Fascism” author Jonah Goldberg; The Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore; author Dr. Gregory Schneider; incoming Kansas House Speaker Mike O’Neal and others, including state senators Susan Wagle (R-Wichita) and Chris Steineger (D-Kansas City). The group will also hear from other elected officials as well as local grassroots activists.

    “We hope to show legislators and elected officials that their constituents will be paying attention to what happens in Topeka during the next few months,” said Sontag. “And we certainly will encourage legislators to focus on reducing spending where appropriate, rather than asking Kansas taxpayers to carry the burden.”

    For more information, call Jen Rezac at 785-354-4237.

    To register to attend the summit, visit defendingthedream.org/KS/.

  • Wasteful Kansas statehousesSpending

    Wasteful Statehouse Spending
    By Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director, Kansas Taxpayers Network

    Wasteful spending at the Kansas statehouse is nothing new. What is new is the wasteful spending on the Kansas statehouse. This building still has the ugly look of a construction site with a soaring price tag. In 2007 a bipartisan group of legislative moderates are intent on continuing this unlimited statehouse spending spree.

    When the legislature enacted SB 660 in 2000 authorizing $40 million in bond funding for the statehouse remodel that did not seem too terribly out of line. That had followed six figure appropriations for remodeling the legislative chambers that had started the remodeling process at the statehouse. There are just over 317,000 square feet in the Kansas statehouse. That means the initial cost of $126 per square foot is not out of line with new commercial or residential construction costs.

    What a difference a few years make. The statehouse remains disheveled with parts of the building closed off, a few areas completed, other untouched, and a final price tag that is nowhere to be found. Supposedly, three of the five phases of this remodeling project have been finished but the final result is still at least four years away.

    The price tag for the three phases is currently estimated at $175 million (or about $550 per square foot with lots of feet remaining to be remodeled) and might even top $300 million. The age and condition of the building is the excuse for the growing cost overruns in the mainstream press reports.

    During the budget debate in the 2007 legislature Sen. Tim Huelskamp, R-Fowler, proposed an amendment requiring the Department of Administration to prepare a report on the costs of the capitol renovation project as part of the budget bill debate. This idea was rejected on a 17-19 vote with prominent “moderates” including the legislative leadership of both parties in the senate opposing this effort at fiscal accountability. In Kansas “moderates” are spelled “l-i-b-e-r-a-l”.

    Psst. That’s a statehouse secret you aren’t authorized to know.

    An unsuccessful effort to have legislative post audit examine state house spending was made by Rep. Peggy Mast, R-Hamilton, and Sen. Chris Steineger, D-Kansas City, during this session. A number of legislators are justifiably nervous over the soaring costs since there are a limited number of improvements that are visible in the few areas that are finished with an already soaring bill for taxpayers.

    Other states that have faced old statehouse buildings have made a number of changes. Missouri has been through six statehouses in its 186 years as a state. In Florida a brand new statehouse is located near the old, historic statehouse in Tallahassee. Arkansas also has two statehouses. Kansans are grossly overspending and will only have a single remodeled statehouse to show for spending that could easily top $300 million by the time the remodeling is completed sometime in the next decade. We could have had a brand new and larger building at a fraction of what this remodel is costing.

    The total cost is now rapidly approaching $1,000 per square foot and this figure should alarm Kansans. Sen. Tim Huelskamp, R-Fowler, said, “The cost for this project is soaring.” He also warned taxpayers, “You can’t go over budget if you have no budget.”

    When state’s General Fund budget is growing 10.4% next year and topping $6 billion for the first time next year, when an activist Kansas Supreme Court orders a complacent majority of legislators and a compliant governor into an $850 million school spending spree that started a couple of years ago, what’s the big deal over a few hundred million for the statehouse remodel?

    Would you spend close somewhere between $500 to a $1,000 per square foot in building your business or home? Hey, it’s only your tax dollars. And there are several other state office buildings across the street from the statehouse that are now being prepared for remodeling once the statehouse work gets finished.