Voice For Liberty

Tag: Kansas state government

Articles about Kansas, its government, and public policy in Kansas.

  • Whitewash

    Writing from Dallas, Texas

    Thank you to Karl Peterjohn for this excellent piece. You can read more about the Kansas Supreme Court at this link: Summary of Blogging on Judicial Ethics in Kansas

    Whitewash
    By Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director, Kansas Taxpayers Network

    There are laws and rules while there are lawyers and judges but there is truly one unique and privileged class where the rules do not apply in Kansas: The Kansas Supreme Court.

    Friday, August 18 the “ethics” panel that handles ethics complaints issued their weakest penalty of an “admonishment” for the egregious misbehavior of Kansas Supreme Court Justice Lawton Nuss in the school finance lawsuit.

    Nuss had been exposed discussing this pending case with several legislative leaders last March. Nuss had trampled on the judicial cannon of ethics like a tap dancer with a leg twitch (Canon’s 1, 2A, 3B(7)). For this extended transgression he received an “admonishment.” The dictionary definition for an admonishment is, “to warn,” or to “reprove mildly.”

    There were a number of penalties that could be imposed on Nuss, one of the two Republicans on the seven member Kansas Supreme Court. A more severe penalty would have been censure, “to blame, to condemn as wrong.” Most severe would have recommended Nuss removal from the court. Nuss’ transgressions are so severe that he should resign or face impeachment.

    Nuss’ contempt for the rule of law has a long history. As a lawyer in private practice in Salina, Nuss and his law firm had represented the Salina school district. When Governor Graves appointed his hometown neighbor onto the Kansas Supreme Court in 2002, it would have seemed obvious for Nuss to recuse himself from the Montoy school finance lawsuit that was already being litigated. The lead plaintiff named Montoy was a son of a Salina public school district principal. The Salina public schools were a lead plaintiff among the numerous public schools suing for tax money. Despite 2005 ethics complaints that were dismissed by the Supreme Court’s ethics commission, Nuss demonstrated his legal arrogance and continued on this case until his legislative ex parte meeting was exposed.

    Yet Nuss’ ex parte conversations are not the sole ethics problem for the Kansas Supreme Court. A leading critic of the judicial activism in Kansas, Andover attorney Richard Peckham, filed ethics complaints against the entire Kansas Supreme Court (www.kansasjudicialwatch.org). Peckham’s complaint extends Nuss’ improper behavior and communications to the entire Kansas Supreme Court relying upon Nuss’ own defense as the basis for this complaint (the entire court went outside their ethics rules in this case). As of August 22 Peckham’s complaint is still pending in front of the court’s ethic’s panel.

    Peckham criticized the Nuss ruling as “It is too light a penalty. …the other six (justices) are all culpable for the same ex parte communications.” Peckham pointed out that the court’s ethics panel was designed for transgressions from lawyers and lower court judges and is inadequate for examining the Supreme Court ethical lapses itself.

    Liberal editorial pages like the Wichita Eagle were quick to declare this issue resolved and were ready to move on, “That should be the end of the Nuss fuss. The inappropriate discussion of an ongoing case has been investigated,” The Wichita Eagle editorialized August 19. “No evidence has been revealed to suggest the conversation influenced either the court’s or the legislature’s action, or that it was one of many ex parte communications.” Sadly, it looks like the Eagle did not follow the spending spree performed in the name of judicial compliance by the 2006 legislature and Governor Sebelius, or even bothered to read Nuss’ response to the charges against him which were like the kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar saying, “all the other kids (judges) were eating them too.”

    Republican gubernatorial candidate state Senator Jim Barnett, R-Emporia, who deserves much of the credit for helping expose the legislative leaders who participated in these improper communications, has complained about the impact that Nuss’ misbehavior had on the Kansas senate. Barnett’s amendment limiting the public school spending growth to roughly $400 million failed on a 20-20 vote in the senate the day after this infamous luncheon was held. Legislators lunching with Nuss voted against Barnett. A few days later the four top senate leaders from both political parties issued their $660 million public school spending spree proposal that many legislators viewed as receiving a judicial “green light” from the court’s back channel communications.

    The judicial misbehavior in the school finance lawsuit is corrosive to the rule of law in this state as well as expanding the negative fiscal climate in Kansas. Judges should not be setting budgets. Kansans need truth and not a judicial whitewash.

  • High tax Kansas exposed again

    High Tax Kansas Exposed Again
    By Karl Peterjohn, Executive Director, Kansas Taxpayers Network

    Businesses and homeowners know that Kansas has high taxes. The appointed and occasionally elected officials setting this state’s fiscal policy are often contemptuous of the fiscal burden being imposed upon Kansans but this is a reality that should not continue to be ignored.

    USA Today reported July 28 that Kansans pay the 14th highest level of per capita property taxes among all 50 states. This was 2004 Census Department data. The high property tax in Kansas means that Kansans pay well above the U.S. average property tax too. This is a bigger problem for Kansans because income in Kansas is only 93 percent of the U.S. average. The number one and two states having the highest property taxes in this survey, New Jersey and Connecticut, both have higher than average income levels.

    The high Kansas property tax creates several surprises that are being ignored by public officials. This includes residential and farm property tax hike advocates like Governor Sebelius. Since there are high taxes on property in Kansas there is a relative decline in housing prices. When relatively hidden property taxes, like special assessments, are included on newer housing, the property tax burden is actually higher since most other states do not impose this extra property tax burden.

    So national surveys look at affordability in housing and Kansas scores well. There is a lot of reasonably priced housing that has large property tax bills on it in this state.

    Since capital goes where it is appreciated, there is a relative decline in business here so commuting times are low. When business leaves, so go the jobs. Kansas employment growth lags behind the U.S. average. According to the governor’s most recent Economic and Demographic Report for the 2007 state budget, show Kansas job growth and income levels both lagging behind national and regional growth. So, it should not be a surprise that public school enrollment continues to decline too. Job seekers take their children with them.

    When Kansas students graduate and enter the job market they often discover that economic opportunity is not in Kansas and they move to more economically vibrant and competitive areas. Even former Governor Graves joined this exodus and left Kansas. Often these folk become “Kansas tourists” who return to see family at Christmas, Thanksgiving, or maybe for a week in summer.

    Affluent Kansans have a tendency to move to states without income taxes as well as states where there are limits on government growth like Colorado with their Taxpayers Bill Of Rights. Colorado scored 23rd on per capita property taxes but far exceeded national income averages.

    Oklahoma, which requires super-majorities for some tax hikes and voter approval before state taxes are raised, had the lowest property taxes in this region scoring 47th nationally. Arkansas scored 49th while Alabama was 50th. Missouri was 37th. It is interesting to note that only Nebraska has a lower percentage growth in population than Kansas according to Census figures. Nebraska’s average property taxes were only a couple of notches lower than Kansas at 16th.

    This per capita rating does not adjust for the wide variance in property taxes within or between states. Utility property is the highest taxed in Kansas with a 33 percent assessment that is almost three times higher than the 11.5 percent assessed on residential property. Small businesses in Wichita pay a much higher proportion of property tax on $100,000 of commercial property than Boeing or Cessna who enjoy their 100 percent property tax abatements. The details in taxation matter a lot.

    The average Kansan may not know the tax details but they do know that when all else fails, they can still vote with their feet. The fact that neighboring Arkansas has now passed Kansas in population is a wake up call that is being ignored by Kansas public officials. High Kansas property taxes in particular and high Kansas taxes in general are both reasons for Kansas’ decline.

  • School lawsuit likely to resume after election

    School Lawsuit Likely to Resume After Election
    By Karl Peterjohn, Kansas Taxpayers Network

    School finance lawsuits have been a driving force behind state spending policy for almost two decades in Kansas. The July 28 Kansas Supreme Court ruling only ends the latest and most expensive school finance lawsuit. This decision only creates a brief pause until the inconvenience of the 2006 election is behind us in just over 100 days.

    The Democratic and liberal dominated Kansas Supreme Court issued their latest spending edict that almost invited another school finance lawsuit. Ending the case was the court’s latest effort to end the close scrutiny and political controversy concerning the ethical misbehavior, improper communications, and irregular proceedings that have dogged this case since it arrived at the Kansas Supreme Court.

    Kansas lawsuits to raise state spending began in the 1980’s and the end of the Montoy case is a legal victory for Attorney General Phill Kline and the state school board but this entire legal mess is a terrible loss for Kansas taxpayers and the future of this state’s economy. One of the legislators running for Governor, Senator Jim Barnett, R-Emporia reacted to the decision saying, “Unfortunately, the decision neither approves nor disapproves the recently passed school finance bill, clearly indicating that the Court expects further involvement in school finance decisions.”

    The increased fiscal uncertainty and risk contained within this legal house of mirrors will keep Kansas operating in the economic slow lane for the indefinite future. Kansas already has high tax rates in addition to being a low income state.

    The sizable local property tax hikes contained within the legislation the court approved provide another problem for the already overburdened Kansas taxpayer. The cumulative cost over five years from the latest school finance lawsuit will be well over $2 billion. Ironically, the teachers unions, school administrators and the rest of the government school spending lobbyists continue to claim that Kansas spending on public schools does not keep up with inflation. Actually, Kansas spending for public schools far exceeds any and all inflation measures.

    The school finance lawsuits have had a major negative impact on the Kansas economy. The Kansas and Arkansas school finance lawsuits have also led to copycat litigation in neighboring Oklahoma. Texas’ school finance lawsuit contrasted significantly with Kansas by creating a huge $15 billion cut in property taxes that nets out to an overall $11 billion tax cut there. Texas did increase teacher salaries as well as expand some school spending too.

    Kansas school finance litigation has spawned another massive spending spree that has led the legislature, with today’s court approval, on a three year spending plan that will tie the hands of future legislatures and is not fully funded. This spending plan depends on state tax collections growing. If the growth in tax revenues slows, than higher taxes or some other revenue source, can you hear the casinos calling, must be found.

    The dismissal of the Montoy case is a disappointment to spending advocates who were looking for this to be a perpetual increase for government school spending. The ethical violation charges and improper judicial behavior complaints that have touched all of the members of the Kansas Supreme Court to varying degrees during the last year are a prime reason the court wanted this case terminated. The judicial activism the court displayed in 2005 had disappeared in today’s ruling.

    The latest edict from the Kansas Supreme Court indicated that increasing state public school spending by over $2 billion between 2005-06 and 2008-09 was approved with this cautionary note when the court said, “The sole issue now before this court is whether the legislation passed in 2005 and S.B. 549 (this year’s school spending bill) comply with the previous order of this court. If they do then our inquiry ends and this case must be dismissed. A constitutional challenge of S.B. 549 must wait for another day.” Hang onto your wallets and purses because another lawsuit will appear soon.

  • Kansas Taxpayers Network 2006 legislative vote ratings released

    Thank you to Karl Peterjohn for compiling this valuable resource. You can examine the rankings at the Kansas Taxpayers Network website at www.kansastaxpayers.com. Following is a press release describing the ratings.

    17 Legislators Earn 100% rating for 2006 Fiscal Votes

    “There are 17 Kansas legislators who scored 100% on the Kansas Taxpayers Network’s 2006 fiscal scorecard,” said KTN Executive Director Karl Peterjohn. Legislators were measured on their votes on tax and fiscal issues as well as their votes on reining in judicial activists and judicial appropriations. This scorecard also measured on their votes on correcting eminent domain abuse in the wake of the controversial Kelo decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. KTN also scored legislators on votes cast that would make this state more economically competitive with the rest of the country and provide property tax relief.

    “KTN has posted the 2006 legislative vote rating at www.kansastaxpayers.com,” said Peterjohn. “We hope that all fiscally concerned Kansans will carefully examine how their legislators have been voting at the statehouse during this election year.”

    There are nine house members who scored 100% on KTN’s rating: Rep. Anthony Brown, R-Eudora; Rep. Steve Huebert, R-Valley Center; Rep. Lance Kinzer, R-Olathe; Rep. Forrest Knox, R-Fredonia; Rep. Brenda Landwehr, R-Wichita; Rep. Ty Masterson, R-Andover; Rep. Don Myers, R-Derby; Rep. Mary Pilcher-Cook, R-Shawnee; and Rep. Jason Watkins, R-Wichita.

    Eight senators earned 100% from KTN. They are: Sen. Jim Barnett, R-Emporia; Sen. Tim Huelskamp, R-Meade; Sen. Phil Journey, R-Haysville; Sen. Kay O’Connor, R-Olathe; Sen. Ralph Ostmeyer, R-Grinnell; Sen. Peggy Palmer, R-Augusta; Sen. Mike Petersen, R-Wichita; Sen. Dennis Pyle, R-Hiawatha; and Sen. Susan Wagle, R-Wichita.

    In addition, there were 16 senators and 50 representatives who scored 75% or higher on KTN’s 2006 vote rating and are listed as “taxpayer friendly,” by this group. Peterjohn added, “KTN’s scorecard is valuable since many other groups that used to measure legislators” votes no longer use a straightforward scoring system that is transparent and readily understandable to Kansans.”

    Kansas Taxpayers Network (KTN) is a statewide taxpayer organization based in Wichita. This is the 11th year that KTN has rated legislators’ fiscal votes. Legislators are measured on both their 2006 votes as well as their lifetime score based upon votes cast while serving in the legislature since 1996. KTN also circulates the Taxpayer Protection Pledge and will be issuing a news release on pledge signers before the August 1 primary election.

  • Remarks to Wichita City Council Regarding the AirTran Subsidy on July 11, 2006

    Mr. Mayor, Members of the City Council:

    You may recall that I have spoken to this body in years past expressing my opposition to the AirTran subsidy. At that time we were told that the subsidy was intended to be a short-tem measure. Today, four years after the start of the subsidy, with state funding planned for the next five years, it looks as though it is a permanent fixture.

    Supporters of the subsidy have made a variety of claims in its support: that the subsidy and the accompanying Fair Fares program are responsible for $4.8 billion in economic impact, that being a pioneer in subsidizing airlines is equivalent to the role that Kansas played in the years immediately prior to the Civil War, and that we would have a mass exodus of companies leaving Wichita if the subsidy were to end.

    I believe there is no doubt that fares are lower than what they would be if not for the subsidy. That points to the subsidy’s true achievement: government-imposed price controls. Its effect is to force many airlines to price their Wichita fares lower than they would otherwise. If it didn’t do that, there would be no reason to continue the subsidy.

    Economists tell us — and human behavior confirms — that when the price of any good is held lower than it would be in a free market, the result is a reduction in the quantity supplied.

    We see this happening. Earlier this year the Wichita Eagle reported that there are fewer daily flights supplied to and from Wichita, from 56 last year to 42 at the time of the article. It has been explained that the financial woes of Delta and NWA are to blame for this reduction. This is demonstrably false, as NWA recently added a daily flight to Wichita, and both airlines have added (and dropped) flights on many routes while in bankruptcy. Furthermore, even though in bankruptcy, theses airlines still desire to operate as profitably as possible.

    Now we learn that the legacy airlines — those established, older airlines that take pride in their comprehensive nationwide networks of routes — are revising their strategies. A Wall Street Journal article from earlier this year (“Major Airlines Fuel a Recovery By Grounding Unprofitable Flights” published on June 5, 2006) tells us that the legacy airlines are beginning to look at the profitability of each route and flight. They are not as interested as they have been in providing flights just for the sake of having a complete nationwide network.

    When we couple this change in airline strategy with our local price controls, I believe that we in Wichita are in danger of losing more service from the legacy airlines. If AirTran — a new-generation airline with low labor costs — can’t earn a profit on its Wichita route at the fares it charges, how can the legacy airlines be expected to do so? And if they can’t earn a profit on a flight to or from Wichita, and if they are beginning to scrutinize the profitability of each flight, can we expect them to continue providing service in Wichita?

    No government has ever been able to successfully impose price controls without the people suffering harmful consequences. As economist Thomas Sowell wrote in a 2005 column:

    Prices are perhaps the most misunderstood thing in economics. Whenever prices are “too high” — whether these are prices of medicines or of gasoline or all sorts of other things — many people think the answer is for the government to force those prices down.

    It so happens there is a history of price controls and their consequences in countries around the world, going back literally thousands of years. But most people who advocate price controls are as unaware of, and uninterested in, that history as I was in the law of gravity.

    Prices are not just arbitrary numbers plucked out of the air or numbers dependent on whether sellers are “greedy” or not. In the competition of the marketplace, prices are signals that convey underlying realities about relative scarcities and relative costs of production.

    Those underlying realities are not changed in the slightest by price controls. You might as well try to deal with someone’s fever by putting the thermometer in cold water to lower the reading.

    This is my fear, that someday I will open the newspaper and learn that American, United, Delta, Northwest, or Continental has reduced or even ceased service to and from Wichita. That day, when it becomes difficult to travel to or from Wichita at any price, that is the day we will feel the harm the subsidy causes.

    On a personal level, my job as software engineer requires me to make from ten to twenty airline trips each year. Some of the places I travel to — Jackson, Mississippi and Lexington, Kentucky, for example — are not served by AirTran. If I am not able to travel there, no matter what the price, I will either have to find a different job or move from Wichita.

    Mr. Mayor and Council Members, I urge you to reconsider your support of the AirTran subsidy. Even though the legislature and governor have agreed to pay for most of the subsidy, I believe the subsidy is not in our long-term interest. We need to let the price system, operating in a free market, do its job in guiding the allocation of scarce resources for both producers and consumers. The result may be more expensive fares. The alternative, which is the very real possibility of greatly reduced service to and from Wichita, is much more harmful.

    Other Voice For Liberty in Wichita articles on this topic:

    The AirTran Subsidy and its Unseen Effects
    As Expected, Price Controls Harm Wichita Travelers
    AirTran Subsidy Is Harmful
    Wichita City Council Meeting, April 19, 2005
    Wichita Eagle Says “AirTran Subsidies Foster Competition”
    AirTran Subsidy Remarks
    The Downside of Being the Air Cap by Harry R. Clements. This article makes a striking conclusion as to why airfares in Wichita were so high.
    Letter to County Commissioners Regarding AirTran Subsidy
    Open Letter to Wichita City Council Regarding AirTran Subsidy
    Stretching Figures Strains Credibility

  • The AirTran subsidy and its unseen effects

    Writing from Natchez, Mississippi

    In a June 16, 2006 column, Wichita Eagle editorial writer Rhonda Holman again congratulates local and state government for its success in renewing the AirTran subsidy, and for getting the entire state of Kansas to help for it.

    We should take a moment to understand, however, that while the allure of the subsidy is undeniable, it may eventually extract a high price on Wichita. Currently, the legacy airlines provide service to Wichita and other small markets partly because they feel a duty to provide comprehensive, nationwide service. But that may be changing. In an article titled “Major Airlines Fuel a Recovery By Grounding Unprofitable Flights” from the June 5, 2006 Wall Street Journal, we learn that this may change:

    The big carriers, which for decades have doggedly pursued market share at any cost, now are focusing just as aggressively on the profitability of each route and flight.

    The so-called legacy carriers — those like American Airlines and Delta Air Lines, with big pension and other obligations that predate the industry’s deregulation in 1978 — have abandoned many of the tactics that have led to their cyclical weakness. They are increasingly unwilling to fly half-empty aircraft to stay competitive on a given route just for the sake of feeding their nationwide networks.

    As I have written before, if AirTran — one of the newer airlines without the baggage of high costs that plague the legacy airlines — can’t earn a profit on its service to Wichita, it may be that other airlines are not, either. This article tells us that we may be in danger of losing the service of the legacy airlines. And, as I have written earlier, there are a great many destinations you can’t get to on AirTran.

    (The same article also tells us that during much of the time of the subsidy, airfares were falling nationwide anyway: “… the Air Travel Price Index, a quarterly measure of changes in airfares, rose 9.1% in the fourth quarter of last year from a five-year low a year earlier.” So we might have had lower fares even without the subsidy. Of course, we can’t know that, just as subsidy advocates can’t know how much we’ve saved from the subsidy, no matter what they may say.)

    Our local government leaders simply do not have the knowledge needed to successfully run a planned economy, which, in essence, is what they are doing when they apply price controls to the airfare market in Wichita. That’s right. The subsidy is a form of price controls. After all, if the subsidy didn’t serve to reduce the price of airfare, what would be its reason for existence?

    No government has ever been able successfully impose price controls without the people suffering harmful consequences. As economist Thomas Sowell wrote in a 2005 column:

    Prices are perhaps the most misunderstood thing in economics. Whenever prices are “too high” — whether these are prices of medicines or of gasoline or all sorts of other things — many people think the answer is for the government to force those prices down.

    It so happens there is a history of price controls and their consequences in countries around the world, going back literally thousands of years. But most people who advocate price controls are as unaware of, and uninterested in, that history as I was in the law of gravity.

    Prices are not just arbitrary numbers plucked out of the air or numbers dependent on whether sellers are “greedy” or not. In the competition of the marketplace, prices are signals that convey underlying realities about relative scarcities and relative costs of production.

    Those underlying realities are not changed in the slightest by price controls. You might as well try to deal with someone’s fever by putting the thermometer in cold water to lower the reading.

    Municipal transit used to be privately owned in many cities, until local politicians’ control of fares kept those fares too low to buy and maintain buses and trolleys, and replace them as they wore out. The costs of doing these things were not reduced in the slightest by refusing to let the fares cover those costs.

    All that happened was that municipal transit services deteriorated and taxpayers ended up paying through the nose as city governments took over from transit companies that they had driven out of business — and government usually did a worse job.

    The immediate effect of the subsidy is a drop in airfares. The long-term effects, the effects that we can’t really see right now (even though the number of daily flights to and from Wichita has decreased in the last year) are unknown, but are likely to be quite bad for our town. These unseen effects of a policy are important, and, being unseen, are hard to spot, even if you’re looking. Frederic Bastiat, in his pamphlet titled “That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen” http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html said this:

    Between a good and a bad economist this cons
    titutes the whole difference — the one takes account of the visible effect; the other takes account both of the effects which are seen, and also of those which it is necessary to foresee. Now this difference is enormous, for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favourable, the ultimate consequences are fatal, and the converse. Hence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good, which will be followed by a great evil to come, while the true economist pursues a great good to come, — at the risk of a small present evil.

    Henry Hazlitt writes of the fallacy of unseen effects, but realizes they are often obfuscated by “the special pleading of selfish interests.”

    Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man. This is no accident. The inherent difficulties of the subject would be great enough in any case, but they are multiplied a thousandfold by a factor that is insignificant in, say, physics, mathematics or medicine — the special pleading of selfish interests. While every group has certain economic interests identical with those of all groups, every group has also, as we shall see, interests antagonistic to those of all other groups. While certain public policies would in the long run benefit everybody, other policies would benefit one group only at the expense of all other groups. The group that would benefit by such policies, having such a direct interest in them, will argue for then plausibly and persistently. It will hire the best buyable minds to devote their whole time to presenting its case. And it will finally either convince the general public that its case is sound, or so befuddle it that clear thinking on the subject becomes next to impossible.

    In addition to these endless pleadings of self-interest, there is a second main factor that spawns new economic fallacies every day. This is the persistent tendency of men to see only the immediate effects of a given policy, or its effects only on a special group, and to neglect to inquire what the long-run effects of that policy will be not only on that special group but on all groups. It is the fallacy of overlooking secondary consequences.

    We must hope that the legacy airlines choose to continue their service to and from Wichita, in spite of our government’s action.

  • Liberal “Moderates” Unite In Governor’s Ticket

    Thank you to Karl Peterjohn of the Kansas Taxpayers Network for this fine piece.

    For the record, here’s how the Associated Press quoted Mark Parkinson in 2002:

    “I would say that any Republican who supports Kathleen Sebelius for governor is either insincere or uninformed,” Parkinson said. “She is a left-wing liberal Democrat and no Republican in good conscience can support her.”

    It is hardly surprising to me that two politicians, Mark Parkinson and Governor Kathleen Sebelius in this case, could have such a dramatic change of heart. I think we can reasonably conclude that these two politicians are so hungry for power that either will do anything that is necessary to gain or keep their office.

    There is a simple solution. Reduce the power of government. If government was limited to performing only those very few functions that only government can do, politics would be so boring that few would be so attracted to political offices. Private life would be much better, however, as we regain the liberties that government has taken from us.

    Liberal “Moderates” Unite In Governor’s Ticket
    Karl Peterjohn, Kansas Taxpayers Network

    Over 40 years ago the Conservative Party candidate for Mayor of New York City provided the perfect response to describe his liberal Democratic and Republican opponents in that 1965 election, “Their differences are biological, not political,” said William F. Buckley. Kansas statehouse observers would not be cynical for having the same feeling about the self-described “moderates” in both the Republican and Democrat parties. This became vividly clear as Governor Sebelius made her selection of former GOP state chairman and former Johnson County legislator Mark Parkinson as her 2006 Lieutenant Governor running mate official May 31.

    Naturally conservative Republicans were quick to point out the liberal positions on taxes, on judicial dominance over state school spending, on a variety of hot button social issues from illegal immigration subsidies for state college tuition, drivers licenses, expanding gambling, late term abortions, and the governor’s unsuccessful veto of conceal carry legislation in criticizing Kathleen Sebelius. Many self described GOP “moderates” in the legislature have voting records that reflect many of these positions along with their Democratic colleagues. For many average Kansans, if not the bulk of the Kansas news media establishment, these are left-wing, not “moderate” positions on key state issues.

    Kansas GOP state party chairman, Tim Shallenburger, the unsuccessful GOP gubernatorial candidate in 2002, described Parkinson as, “…want to raise taxes, want to spend more, want to give their friends jobs.” The irony is that Parkinson’s comments in 2002 as state party chairman sound utterly prescient today, “Clearly, she’s (Sebelius) worried about her record which puts her squarely in the liberal camp. No running mate can disguise that.” In 1994, then Sen. Parkinson had joined with then Rep. Sebelius and a majority of the Kansas legislature to raise the statewide property tax from 33 to 35 mills or over six percent.

    In 2002 then candidate Sebelius kept making fiscally conservative claims about opposing tax hikes before that gubernatorial election. Kansans now know from the last four years that Governor Sebelius supports tax hikes, expanding state gaming to raise revenues, as well as other revenue “enhancements” to help grow Kansas government. Recent polling indicates that will not go over well with the average Kansan.

    Rasmussen Reports conducted a Kansas survey between April 3 and May 4 this year. This scientific poll asked 500 Kansans if tax increases helped or hurt the economy. By a better than 3-to-1 majority, Kansans said tax hikes hurt 59 percent-to-19 percent. When asked if tax cuts helped or hurt the state’s economy, a similar 3-to-1 majority said tax cuts helped. The figures here were 58-to-18. On a third question a narrow plurality said they would rank tax preparation worse than visiting the dentist 43 percent to 41 percent.

    The conventional statehouse wisdom is that Governor Sebelius was going to win easy reelection against a weak GOP opponent coming out of the August primary in November. Actually, despite her hefty campaign treasury and all of the advantages of incumbency, Governor Sebelius is struggling with voters. Her poll numbers in a heads up match up with any of the likely GOP challengers has her stuck in the high 40’s despite the fact that none of her challengers even has 50 percent name recognition statewide.

    There is a huge vulnerability to the governor from the activist and Democrat dominated Kansas Supreme Court that has forced the rest of the state government to submit to their specific fiscal demands. The average Kansan is not comfortable with judicial appropriation of state spending, an oligarchy of black robed lawyers steering state government, state subsidies for illegal aliens receiving everything from drivers licenses, in-state college tuition, as well as various forms of welfare. Throwing billions of more tax dollars at the government school structure in Kansas seems like a dismal repetition of the fiscal and educational failure that occurred in a Kansas City, Missouri courtroom 20 years ago.

    Kansans view this judicial spending spree as left wing judicial activism but all practical Kansans want to see success in government and not a repetition of very expensive past failures. That’s why Governor Sebelius along with her activist and ethically challenged liberal Supreme Court are in political trouble in 2006. Mark Parkinson’s selection won’t solve that primary problem facing the governor since she must defend her record during the last four years.

  • Kansas Spends While Neighboring States Invest

    Writing from Gainesville, Florida

    Thank you to Karl Peterjohn of the Kansas Taxpayers Network for this fine editorial. I have learned that the education lobby in Kansas is very effective in pursuing their agenda in Topeka. I have also learned that the goals of the education lobby, and the teachers union in particular, are not often in the best interests of Kansas schoolchildren.

    The worst thing that happened in Topeka this legislative session was that, as far as I can tell, no progress was made in allowing parents greater choice in where to send their children to school. In fact, I believe we have gone backwards, as advocates for the existing education system and bureaucracy will point to the increased spending on schools as the solution to schools’ problems. It is unlikely that Kansas schools will improve. I hope they do, however, for the sake of the children.

    Kansas Spends While Neighboring States Invest
    Karl Peterjohn, Kansas Taxpayers Network

    Kansas will spend $984.2 million in state funds over the next three years and a record-setting state budget as a result of the 2006 legislature. Alan Rupe, the attorney for the litigious school districts, told the Wichita Eagle that this spending hike is inadequate and demanded more on May 12. The ethically challenged Kansas Supreme Court, three of its seven members having had ethics complaints filed against them in this matter during the last year, will soon render their latest verdict in the long-running school finance litigation that began in the 1980’s. Three members of this court have endorsed the legal theory that would have the court exercising almost perpetual financial oversight on state public school spending and eviscerating the power of elected officials.

    Suing for dollars has been profitable but it is not a universally successful way of setting state budgets. Texas has been undergoing a similar school finance lawsuit and has had a number of special legislative sessions trying to solve their school spending problem. Today, there is now an important difference between Texas and Kansas.

    In Kansas’s case spending is soaring. In Texas, property taxes are being cut over $15 billion and the average homeowner is looking at a $2,000 reduction in their property taxes over the next two years as extra state revenues are being returned to taxpayers. This cut is partially offset with $4 billion in higher cigarette taxes, sales tax on used cars, and restructuring the business franchise tax. Texas state school spending will also grow by $300 million and teachers are getting a $2,000 raise, but the focus is placed on trying to correct property tax problems while improving their public schools. The fiscal focus is upon property tax cuts and rejects raising overall taxes.

    In Oklahoma the legislature still has a number of days left in their 2006 session. It now appears likely that Oklahomans will be enjoying another tax cut as state revenues have rapidly grown and a portion is going to be returned to taxpayers. A bipartisan group of state leaders is looking at cutting the state’s maximum personal income tax rate by 12 percent to 5.5 percent and begin phasing out the state level death tax. However, Oklahoma legislature’s final outcome is still pending.

    Kansas is following the liberal policy prescriptions of left-wing groups like Kansas Families United for Public Education (KFUPE). This government school spending lobby believes that high school spending will lead to economic growth. “Quality public schools are essential to economic growth. Businesses must have a well educated work force to draw from to remain profitable,” KFUPE’s web site claims. KFUPE’s web site inaccurately claims that Kansas spending on public schools has not kept up with inflation. (See Kansas Families United for Public Education (KFUPE) on State Aid to Schools)

    KFUPE also ignores the fact that a number of studies, including the 2006 Kansas Standard and Poors report, that quality education and high levels of spending are not necessarily the same thing. Efficient operating procedures and quality curriculum can mean more to providing quality education than just throwing unlimited tax funds at the schools. Many of the states with the highest level of spending per pupil often lag in educational performance.

    However, high levels of government spending can only occur with high levels of taxes and this has a negative economic impact. Oklahoma and Texas are investing by allowing their citizens to keep a portion of the revenue growth created by the 2003 and 2004 federal tax cuts and income repatriation bills nationally. In Kansas, the state will spend it all to meet the school districts’ legal demands and try to implement the KFUPE economic growth theory.

    The fascinating point is that this is the same fiscal policy that Governor Sebelius’s father tried when he was Ohio’s governor in the 1970’s and raised taxes to fund state spending back then. Bigger government only led to bigger levels of economic stagnation. Government spending growth is a barrier to real economic growth that will be shown once again as Kansas spends its windfall while our neighbors invest in their people.

  • Judicial Scandal Grows

    Judicial Scandal Grows As $3 Billion Public School Spending Bill Advances
    By Karl Peterjohn, Kansas Taxpayers Network, www.kansastaxpayers.com

    The Kansas legislature’s school spending spree is racing the latest developments in the judicial-legislative misconduct scandal over school finance in Kansas. The outcome of this race could influence the size of the spending spree going on at the Kansas statehouse right now. The latest revelations on the school finance scandal brings the governor into the story. Senate President Steve Morris has now informed at least some in the statehouse press that he told the governor about his meeting with Supreme Court Justice Nuss and Senator Pete Brungardt.

    Morris cannot recall exactly when he spoke to the governor and how much of the details of his luncheon meeting with Nuss he relayed to her. What makes this story compelling is not only the governor’s involvement, that has been percolating at the fringes of this story ever since she told legislative leaders last summer that the court was going to come down hard on them the next day–and then the court did so but as another vivid reminder of the culture of arrogance among this state’s bipartisan, self described “moderate” leadership in this state.

    The governor’s ties to the Supreme Court through her former chief of staff Joyce Allegrucci who is married to long time Supreme Court Justice Donald Allegrucci is obvious for anyone who has any common sense. Governor Sebelius’ knowledge about the outcome of the court’s most recent edict in this case frustrated legislative leaders like house speaker Doug Mays and pro-tem speaker Ray Merrick last summer.

    When the governor expressed her “outrage” over the revelation of the Nuss-Morris-Brungardt school finance luncheon it now appears that she was probably more upset about it being revealed to the public than about the contents of the meeting. She already knew about the meeting from her buddy, the nominally GOP senate president Morris.

    Senate Minority Leader Tony Hensley now admits that he knew about the meeting in sometime shortly after the meeting was held in March. Hensley did not see a problem with this meeting and this view demonstrates the culture of arrogance that exists in Kansas government. If Hensley did not see it as a problem, I’m sure that he was happy to share his knowledge with legislative friends who share his support, as a public school teacher/KNEA member, with an additional $3 billion spending spree. This is going to total $6,650 per pupil or $133,000 per classroom (assuming 20 kids per class) in new spending over these five years.

    What is compelling today about this latest revelation is being connected to the timeline of events. March 1 is the luncheon meeting between the court and legislative leaders. March 2, a Thursday, the senate leadership plan (the four main senate leaders including two attorneys, senators Morris, D.Schmidt, Hensley, Vratil–with Schmidt and Vratil being the lawyers) for spending billions (SB 584, the senate leadership plan has a five year price tag beginning with the increased spending from last summer of $3.2216 billion) through the 2009-10 fiscal year is made public! Is that just a coincidence??? That’s the Kool-Aid the “moderate” i.e. Leftist leadership in this state’s judicial/executive/legislative branch wants you to believe.

    A day after the Nuss revelation appeared, and only about 10 days ago, the Chief Justice Kay McFarland went to a lunch with the powerful chair of the senate’s spending, Ways and Means Committee, Senator Dwayne Umbarger. Supposedly nothing more controversial than the weather, families, and judicial budgets were discussed then according to Umbarger, but the following week Umbarger’s got the latest school spending spending plan for his fellow senators to consider. Another coincidence … yeah … sure.

    Another revelation is the open records requests that are being made and now denied. The Kansas Supreme Court is refusing to release any information from documents and email being sought by legislators who are upset at this scandal. Similar open record requests are also being made to the governor’s office concerning communications between the Sebelius administration and the KS Supreme Court too.

    Stay tuned on the request to the governor’s office because the exemption the court is using to stonewall any requests does not extend to the executive branch. The culture of arrogance is also being exposed as the court refuses to provide anything to the public.

    Legislatively, the Kansas house is taking up the latest school spending plan later today (May 1). Their original version was actually about $40 million a year more expensive than the senate’s propsal (HB 2986). The special house school finance committee’s latest school spending proposal is slightly smaller than the senate plan but the price tag is still approaching $3 billion over five years. The out year funding sources for either the house and senate plans are not visible–these folks are acting like they are congressman who can get the federal reserve to cover for them. If state revenues continue to grow at 10 percent or more a year and the rest of the state’s budget is largely frozen, they might be able to thread this fiscal needle between now and 2010, but a lot of unusual events would need to occur for this to happen.

    Just in case this needle is not threaded, then the governor wants to try and use this legislation as a lever to try and get gambling expansion revisited too. Governor Sebelius has close ties to ex-Wichitan and now-Nevadan Phil Ruffin who owns the Wichita Greyhound Park and Kansas could still become the first state to have state “owned and operated” casinos created under a previous piece of legislating from the bench by the Kansas Supreme Court that ruled that the 1986 vote on creating the state lottery also meant that five “state owned and operated casinos” would be permissible under their interpretation of the infinitely flexible Kansas Constitution. No one among the casino advocates has come up with a way for gambling expansion to generate more than about 30% of this $3 billion proposed spending spree.

    The stage is being set for a tax hike similar to the governor’s 2004 property, income, and sales hike that was backed by her legislative allies like senators Hensley and Morris and the rest of the spend and tax crowd in Topeka. Hensley has his own plan for raising income and sales taxes too. Liberals in both parties have a variety of tax plans that will appear shortly after the inconvenience of this year’s gubernatorial and house elections are behind us.

    A $3 billion public school spending spree is ultimately going to be a fiscal boat anchor thrown into the hands of the Kansas economy that is struggling to stay afloat right now. This state’s economy is already performing well below the national average in terms of productivity, population growth, and average income per Kansan. This new fiscal burden will destroy this state’s economy leaving a growing percentage of tax consumers as the foundation for Kansas’ economic future. This is going to be grim as we become the next New York or Ohio on the prairie. The success of suing for more spending is going to continue as the school finance spending plan will not significantly diminish the variances in state funding for the mid-sized school districts led by Salina and Dodge City public schools that started this case with their extra tax dollars. That means we’ll get another lawsuit filed soon and this fiscal litigation game will begin again.

    God help Kansas because the power establishment in Topeka is fiscally destroying this state while demonstrating a culture of arrogance that is a national model for what should NOT be done. Kansas struggles economically but the new spending commitments being made today will harm this state’s economy for the next generation. This is similar to the harm Governor Sebelius’ father imposed when John Gilligan was governor of Ohio for four years in the early 1970’s. Like father, like daughter. As Ohio went, so goes Kansas now.

    The irony is that the disastrous school spending in Kansas City, Missouri under earlier judicial activism in the 1980’s, albeit in the federal courts, proved disastrous in terms of student achievement and performance back then. Now Kansas is repeating this mistake. The mess in Kansas City is being exported statewide to Kansas. While there was plenty of corruption in Kansas City back in the old Pendergast days there was never a judicial scandal that cost the people billions to pay for on a statewide basis.