In the recent past Iola has lost more than 200 jobs with the closing of Haldex Brake, in favor of production in Mexico, and Herff-Jones, in a move to Indianapolis.
State legislation that cut income taxes wasn’t enough to keep either business in Iola, or Kansas. A report from Wichita State University’s Center for Economic Development and Business Research doesn’t forecast rosy months ahead statewide.
Employment nationwide is up 2.1 percent the past 12 months, but just 0.9 percent in Kansas. The prediction for 2016 is only marginally better at 1.0 percent.
From the opposite end of the taxing spectrum, lagging employment may be blamed in part on escalation of the sales tax to shore up the state budget. People with less disposable income buy less, an outcome that works its way to sales staffs and production lines, all through the cycle.
Among other factors that enter the equation are lower farm produce prices and the hit oil has taken. Both affect employment, often as much indirectly as directly.
A lump of coal dropped in the state’s stocking was revenue last month of $31 million less than anticipated.
In the main, the state’s reputation is flagging. Its bond rating has dropped, and penny pinching in education and state services doesn’t help when businesses and industries — and people — consider moving to Kansas.
Then, too, is the general negativism that constantly surfaces nationally from pundits and the covey of presidential candidates about the state of the nation. Among targets, and a great concern, is debt. To put it in perspective, with a population of 325 million, extrapolation with better than a $18 trillion national debt amounts to $55,500 for each man, woman and child in the U.S.
Back to Kansas.
The Register often has expressed its concerns about Gov. Sam Brownback’s single-minded rush to cut income taxes. Effects have been detrimental to schools, social programs, healthcare, highways, everything the state is charged with funding.
If in fact it had been a shot of adrenaline to the economic body, as the governor promised, the result might well have been as predicted. It hasn’t been, and next year looks far from promising.
The only trickle down we’re seeing is out the door.
The composure of both houses of the Legislature will remain unchanged until the November 2016 election. As is, temperament to raise the income tax is absent. That left the sales tax — its regressive nature hurting citizens least able to cope — the only opportunity to square the budget. It was passed with rabid objection, in large measure solely because of stubborn disdain for raising taxes, not how it affected people.
WHAT LIES AHEAD?
The House tended a bit more moderate this year and the events of the extended session might soften some hard minds. The Senate, though, is locked on and in lock-step with Brownback with an ultra-conservatism mindset.
The best hope for the state is a resurgence of caring Kansans to trek to the polls in 2016 and refashion both chambers to members who recognize their responsibilities are to all people of the state, not a handful.
— Bob Johnson
