Please read this whole editorial to understand what we’re up against and what we could have if we had different people in charge of the legislature.
“This month, the Kansas Chamber, the main representative of Koch interests and a major player in Kansas politics, released its legislative priorities — its marching orders to leadership — and it was more of the same: a flat tax; opposition to Medicaid expansion; and public money for unaccredited, unregulated, private, religious and home schools.
“To be clear, these policies are proven failures. To take them in order: The flat tax is another way to cut taxes on the wealthy, the very strategy that caused us all those problems during Gov. Sam Brownback’s terms. Every previous attempt at vouchers (or tax credits, or whatever the message testing wants them to be called this year) has failed, primarily because rural Republicans realize that vouchers would be the undoing of many a rural school district. And of course, Kansas is one of the last 10 states to have not expanded Medicaid, and Hawkins is on a media tour to make clear that he has no intention of allowing a hearing or bringing it to a vote.
“For a cautionary tale about where the Chamber’s priorities would lead us (if the 2010s in Kansas weren’t enough), we can look to Arizona, which passed both a flat tax and a universal school voucher program and turned a $1.8 billion surplus into a $400 million budget deficit this year and another $450 million gap next year.
“This is the kind of future Hawkins and Masterson are trying to write for us, but Kansas has already seen this movie, and we don’t need to see it again…
“Like the governor, I would much rather be developing bipartisan policy to help our people, stabilize the state’s finances, and keep vital state services [including public education] functioning. As I did last year, I urge legislative leadership to take a big step back from confrontation and culture war, and to work with the governor to develop policies that can receive bipartisan support and move our state forward.
“In that way, their time in office can mean something to someone other than the Kansas Chamber and right-wing culture warriors.”
Read full article here: https://kansasreflector.com/2024/01/16/kansas-legislative-leaders-have-chosen-course-of-maximum-confrontation-extremism/?fbclid=IwAR2l20R3Mrl7Kpqux7fV2IWzV6Ky9bwJv9ZLFybHwtITdl_QgpcaWlP2-Oo