The story of Kansas’s financial collapse reads like a dime novel; “Horatio Alger files for bankruptcy.”
Only a few years ago we had $709 million in reserves.
Today, we’re facing a $290 million deficit.
And this is six years after the Great Recession, when most states have not only regained but also surpassed the balances of those lost years.
Massive state income tax cuts and tax breaks have drained state coffers.
So far, Brownback’s tack has been to cut expenses to meet declining revenues. But after four years of nothing but cuts, it’s beginning to take a serious toll on our collective psyche.
While we’re all for frugality, it’s another thing to reduce valuable programs and services to a shadow of their former selves.
It’s demoralizing for teachers to know state legislators don’t value their services enough to properly fund public schools. Budget cuts have many teachers purchasing school supplies out of their own pockets. They go for years without a raise, or worse, lose their jobs. The latest blow is the governor’s decision to withhold payments to their pension program.
It’s disheartening for our poor to see Kansas deny the expansion of Medi-caid. Federal funds are left laying on the table, all out of spite against President Obama’s signature healthcare legislation, the Affordable Care Act. Instead, we have about 150,000 Kansans denied health insurance.
These are but a couple among scores of examples of the suffering caused by the drastic cuts in state funding.
LEGISLATORS returned Wednesday to wrap up what so far has been a most ignominious session in that they have done absolutely nothing to change course.
Brownback’s “experiment” to eliminate the state income tax didn’t work.
OK, so what.
In business we try lots of things to drive income.
