By Derrick Sontag.

What’s the difference between Kansas and New Jersey? One answer that comes to mind: unlike the comparison to our neighboring states, Kansas has a more limited, fiscally conservative government than the Garden State. Or so we thought.

Let’s look at the actions of the two states over the last few weeks. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, in response to a budget deficit approaching $11 billion, has proposed a 5 percent reduction in state spending. This is a result of his campaign promise to force government to live within its means, a pledge that led him to defeat an incumbent governor. This and voters being fed up with an excessive tax burden.

There are some pressuring Gov. Christie to raise taxes but he has said that to accede to tax increases would “kill a job market already on life support.” He went on to say, “Mark my words today: if a tax increase is sent to my desk, I’ll veto it.”

How do Christie’s actions compare to what’s happened in Kansas? In response to a budget gap of more than $500 million, Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson threatened to veto any budget that hit his desk that didn’t rely on a tax increase. Two weeks later a coalition of Democrats and liberal Republicans complied with his demands by passing the second largest tax increase in the history of our state, a sales tax increase designed to fund a spending increase of more than $200 million.

There have been claims the tax increase will create economic growth and job creation, despite a well-respected economist’s study indicating quite the contrary. It’s as if legislators are echoing the economic growth pledges heard in Washington D.C. when the stimulus plan passed. Instead, that D.C. plan has led to 10 percent unemployment and, according to initial projections, will result in our GDP being lower ten years from now than if Congress had done nothing at all.

Apparently Gov. Christie and a majority of the voters in New Jersey understand the economic truism of “the more you tax something the less of it you’re going to get.” They can point to years of fiscally liberal practices and an unbearable tax burden.

So what’s the difference between the two states? We’ll always have a beautiful landscape and friendly people. But let’s hope New Jersey doesn’t end up being the state with a better road to prosperity.

Derrick Sontag is the Kansas state director of Americans for Prosperity. He lives in Topeka.

A legislative panel at yesterday’s AFP Kansas Defending the American Dream Summit 2010 featured members of the Kansas House of Representatives Leadership presenting the case that the budget can be balanced without increasing taxes on Kansans.

Speaking first, Representative Kevin Yoder, an Overland Park Republican who is chair of the House Appropriations Committee, said the legislature is trying to balance the Kansas state budget without a tax increase.

Yoder spoke of the momentum behind increasing government spending, noting that it used to be that if you didn’t get a five percent increase, it was called a budget cut. Arguments were over whether an agency would receive a seven, eight, or nine percent increase in funding. “There are some who always want to spend more, and there are some for who it’s never enough.”

Yoder said that despite what Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson wants for his legacy, we must pass a budget without raising taxes.

Yoder said that when times get tough, government has to cut back spending just like businesses and families have had to do. Despite the talk of “bone-cutting,” he said that spending continues.

He said that in the last year, Kansas lost about 50,000 private sector jobs. But at the same time, public sector jobs grew. “That doesn’t sound like cutting to the bone to me,” he told the audience. There is more waste to be eliminated and greater efficiencies to be found.

Yoder said that SB 572 is the budget bill that passed out of the House Appropriations committee last week. He said it adds funding for public safety and the physically and mentally disabled. It does not devastate services, he added.

Speaking next, Olathe Republican Arlen Siegfreid, who is Speaker Pro Tem of the House, told the audience that Kansas has a “fundamentally flawed” budget system. He noted that it has been said from the beginning that the budget can’t be balance without raising taxes can’t be done. But Yoder and House Majority Leader Ray Merrick have shown that this can be done.

Siegfreid said that it is apparent that the administration’s position is to raise taxes, and it is their only position. Sales taxes, cigarette and tobacco taxes, alcohol taxes, elimination of sales tax exemptions, raising taxes on utilities, and now an income tax increase have been in the mix.

He reminded the audience that these taxes would be on top of a large increase in unemployment insurance taxes caused by a mistake made by the Kansas Department of Labor.

The Kansas House Leadership has attempted to help the people of Kansas, Siegfreid said. He listed a number of proposed measures that have not passed, including health care savings accounts, a simplified tax structure, requiring the Department of Revenue to pay a penalty if they delay tax refunds, a property tax bill that did not allow for automatic increases, and the PEAK bill, an economic development bill for very small companies, which was vetoed by the governor.

The House has led the way over the last several years in creating a good environment for capital in the state of Kansas, Siegfreid told the audience, adding that “We have to have capital investment if we are to create jobs, and what Kansas needs is jobs. … In any real sense, government increases revenue only when business and individuals prosper. We should not depend on tax increases. We should depend on prosperity to increase revenue.”

Representative Ray Merrick, who is House Majority Leader, explained the political reality in the House. There are 76 Republican members of the House, but Merrick said that on the “very best day” there are 55 who will vote with him, meaning they are conservative Republicans. 63 votes are required to pass legislation in the House.

He recited the large annual increases in the budget in recent years as evidence that our problem in Kansas is spending, not lack of revenue. Noting that no members of the Senate Leadership are present at the AFP event, he said they are not “of like mind.” (Americans for Prosperity advocates for limited government and free markets.) Their game plan from the beginning, he said, was to not look for savings in the budget, but to increase taxes. Their interest is in growing government.

While the governor has said he will veto a budget that doesn’t include tax increases, Merrick said we should let him do just that. He added that perhaps the session could be finished by Friday May 7.

In answering a question, Merrick said that Missouri has a billion dollar budget deficit. Its Democratic governor said that Missouri will balance its budget without raising taxes. Missouri is also considering eliminating the corporate income tax, followed by elimination of the personal income tax.

Warning of the danger of temporary tax increase such as the Kansas Governor is proposing, Merrick reminded the audience that in 2002 Kansas passed what was to be a temporary increase in the sales tax, but that increase has not gone away.

Yesterday’s meeting of the South-central Kansas legislative delegation with citizens featured, in the words of one senator, a level of intensity not seen in previous meetings of this body. Senator Dick Kelsey made this observation, remarking that this is the first such meeting where the two parties have been mentioned. Following are a few notes and observations from this meeting.

Conservative groups and advocates often display a chart showing that Kansas spending increased very rapidly during much of the last decade. Representative Melody McCray-Miller reminded the audience that it is Republicans who have been in the majority of both the House of Representatives and the Senate during this time.

A suggestion by Representative Kasha Kelley that the state could sell some assets to help with the budget was met with disapproval from some members of the audience.

The audience, which was composed largely of advocates for school spending, union leaders and members representing Kansas state government employees, and people needing social services, cheered several times at mentions of raising the state’s sales tax. Suggestions involving cutting spending or other solutions were not met with approval.

Representative Marc Rhoades of Newton, a member of the House Appropriations Committee and vice chair of the Social Services Budget Committee, gave several examples of how some funding for social services has been restored. He said that the committee takes “a lot of pride in working together across party lines.” He added that there is an effort to increase the state’s investigation of fraud. He said that the former Inspector General of the Kansas Health Policy Authority quit. At the time the Wichita Eagle reported that Robin Kempf “said she resigned from the post because agency managers pressured her and interfered with her ability to do her job.”

Representative Jim Ward, however, disagreed with Rhoades’ characterization of bipartisanship, noting that not one Democrat voted for the budget passed out of the committee, and mentioning large across-the-board cuts.

Ward said there is “Fundamental disagreement on values on the state budget.” Some groups — he pointed to material provided by the Kansas Policy Institute — want to cut taxes and let the economy grow. But Ward said that at some point spending cuts will prevent state agencies from fulfilling their mission, mentioning Meals on Wheels and schools specifically.

Ward mentioned another type of spending the state does: “We spent over $12 billion in tax cuts the in the last ten years.”

Senator Les Donovan, who is chair of the Kansas Senate Assessment and Taxation Committee spoke about the tax increase proposals that were heard in that committee. His committee heard several days of testimony on raising various taxes such as the sales tax, alcohol tax, tobacco tax, and creating a new tax on sugar in soft drinks. Donovan “moderated” each of these taxes, proposing to implement them at a lower rate than what was introduced in the bill. But each tax bill failed to make it out of that committee. (See Kansas sugar tax testimony heard, bill doesn’t advance, Tax on beer, liquor subject of Kansas Senate committee hearing, and Kansas tax increases promoted, even by Republicans.)

In his remarks yesterday Donovan listed — from memory — tax cuts that have been made: A cut in income tax rates for single individuals, an increase in the personal tax exemption, elimination of the marriage penalty, removal of the sales tax on residential remodeling, a cut of 15 mills from property tax (both commercial and residential, with close to 80% of the property being residential), removal of income tax on military retirement pay, a reduction in the taxes on automobile registration, creation of an exemption of $20,000 of valuation on residential property taxes, an increase in the earned income tax credit (a program at both the federal and state levels that issues grants to low income families), an increase in the food sales tax rebate program, exemption of social security payments from Kansas taxation for many families, exemption of residential utilities from sales tax, and elimination of the Kansas inheritance tax.

Donovan said that these tax cuts are larger, by far, than the business tax cuts that spending advocates, including Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson, blame in part for the current budget deficit.