California’s Gov. Jerry Brown is acting like a Republican.
The staunch Democrat wants to build up the state’s rainy day fund, because an “inevitable recession” is on the horizon, just as sure as tomorrow dawns.
Gov. Brown is taking advantage of the state’s good times. After years of fiscal mayhem, California is on solid ground thanks to its income tax laws that sock it to the super wealthy.
Kansas is a study in contrast.
Our super wealthy get it super easy and our tax laws work against making the state more stable.
Beginning in 2018, any revenue increase above 2 percent automatically triggers more tax cuts.
With that formula, the state won’t be able to keep up with funding Medicaid and KPERS, the state’s retirement program, let alone education, transportation, and all the other programs and agencies that keep a state functioning as it should.
And the idea of saving for a rainy day? Fuhgedaboutit.
As bad as that is, say another recession happens and the bottom drops out on sales and property tax receipts.
A new base is set. Programs are cut.
With the 2 percent rule in effect any significant rebound from those hard times would go to tax cuts, not restoring the cuts to programs, forcing us to dig ourselves into an ever deeper hole of neglect.
ALREADY, the tax cuts have cost Kansas 8 percent of revenue. That’s the equivalent of a mid-sized recession in itself. In five years’ time, the loss is predicted to rise to 16 percent. Kansas, in effect, will self-impose its own economic depression.
The “great experiment” is falling flat. The tax cuts have not boosted the economy. Kansas is adding jobs at a slower rate than the country as a whole. Personal earnings are not increasing at the pace of the national average. The only exception is farmers. And though Gov. Sam Brownback would like to take credit for the end of the drought, that goes to a higher power.
Every indicator points to massive tax cuts and the 2 percent rule will restrict Kansas from adequately funding its schools, public health programs, courts, parks, libraries, employees and infrastructure.
