In the end, it wasn’t even close.
Despite the lead-up rhetoric, Republican legislators overwhelmingly gave in to Gov. Sam Brownback Friday night and refused to repeal the income tax break that gives 330,000 business owners and farmers a free ride.
Rep. Kent Thompson, R-LaHarpe, was in that 74-45 majority. Rep. Adam Lusker, D-Frontenac, aligned with the minority.
So secretaries will continue to pay taxes, but not their bosses.
Would that change have solved Kansas’s budget problems? No, but it would have raised $250 million, which goes a long way toward our $290 million shortfall for this and next year’s budget.
Perhaps even more importantly, it would have sent the message that we are not a tax haven for the wealthy.
To their credit, about one-third of the Republican body voted for the measure’s repeal.
Of the Democrats, 14 voted against the measure, 12 in favor.
MODERATE Republicans and Democrats voting against the repeal said the legislation didn’t go far enough in addressing the state’s financial chaos and that it wouldn’t be responsible voting for a half-way measure.
With a state so desperately over budget, legislators can’t afford to be so high-minded.
Others intimated even if it did pass, the more conservative-leaning Senate likely would not have passed it and in any event Gov. Sam Brownback would have vetoed it.
Republicans who voted in favor of the measure fall into two camps:
A) There’s not a tax cut they don’t like; or,
B) They want to be re-elected and fear the backlash from ultra-conservative groups, including the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and Americans for Prosperity.
Some legislators live in fear of being targeted as pro-tax, which they interpret as a death sentence in an election year.
