TOPEKA, Kansas — Kansas lawmakers returning to Topeka this week find a growing pile surplus of cash — and some tough election-year choices.
They’ll need to redraw the state’s political map, and sort out a perennial list of issues like medical marijuana, sports gaming and election security. And new this year: critical race theory, a potent new culture war tinderbox.
Meanwhile, Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly hopes to boost her reelection campaign by pushing for nearly $1 billion in tax cuts.
Notably, she’s touting an end to the sales tax on groceries. She’s also proposing giving Kansans who filed income tax returns last year a one-time rebate of $250. Married couples who filed jointly would get $500.
Republicans, who control the Legislature, are normally all-in when it comes to tax cuts. Not so much when it comes to Kelly’s proposals. Giving her any big wins, they fear, could improve her chances of fending off a challenge from Republican Attorney General Derek Schmidt, their likely nominee for governor.
When Kelly announced her tax rebate plan, Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson, an Andover Republican, said he appreciated her “election-year revelation that Kansans are taxed too much” but preferred “permanent solutions.”
The fact that many Republicans have supported previous attempts to lower the sales tax may make it trickier for them to oppose the governor’s grocery tax proposal.
“I’m hoping that they’re being sincere and that they will work with me,” the governor said in an interview with the Kansas News Service.
Yet the cost of the proposal could prove problematic. Stopping the collection of the state’s 6.5% sales tax on groceries would mean about $500 million a year less in government revenue.
Kelly has said the state can cover the loss with its growing surplus, which could top $3 billion by the end of the budget year. Republicans argue that state government surplus is propped up by federal pandemic relief tax dollars — money that won’t last.
Masterson compared the situation to the federal stimulus money that flowed into the state following the Great Recession in 2008.
“We had some significant revenues that came through that process,” Masterson said. “But … when the federal dollars ended, so did the fun and games.”
Masterson and other Republicans say now is the time to impose additional spending controls on state government. Among other things, Masterson favors amending the Kansas Constitution to require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to raise taxes.
“With so much money in the system,” he said, “this is the year to do it.”
It takes a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to place a proposed constitutional change on the ballot for Kansas voters to consider.
