John Coen hopes his stance as a Republican “with traditional values” will come across to voters in his race for the Kansas Senate.
Coen, 55, aligns himself as a moderate who favors keeping Kansas schools and highways adequately funded.
Today’s state legislature has put the state on a path to financial ruin, Coen said.
“We’re headed to a budget deficit of $2.7 billion by 2018,” he said Wednesday morning on a visit to the Register. “This is Las Vegas economics. We’re betting on the come.
“If industries indeed do flock to Kansas, then great. Meanwhile, the continued cuts to education are putting our children at great risk by jeopardizing their educations right now. You have only one chance to educate a child, and that’s today.”
The slash-and-burn methods of this year’s legislature session have also put the state’s highway system in danger of being able to maintain current roads, let alone plan for future improvements, Coen said. Maintaining highways is also a verifiable venue for good-paying jobs, he said.
“Kansans have never been against taxation,” to keep the state in good shape, Coen said. “They’re against irresponsible spending.”
Coen said legislators need to start anew and identify important programs and then how they are to be funded.
Today, he said, the majority of Kansas lawmakers have it backward — “They’ve had cutting taxes as their goal, and now are trying to figure out how they will fund programs.
“We’ve essentially done away with the balance that comes from the three legs of funding — sales, income and property taxes. The revenue lost through the massive tax cuts will have to be made up somehow.”
So far, the only increase in taxes has been on the backs of the poor. Low-income earners are the only class to see an increase in income taxes, compared to income tax cuts to be enjoyed by middle- and upper-income brackets.
COEN is a strong supporter of the E-Verify immigration program that ensures all workers in Kansas are here legally.
“In our world of technology, I can’t see how this program can’t get even better,” he said.
Kansas legislators failed to mandate E-Verify for employers of large industries.
In addition to ensuring all workers are in the state legally, proper immigration holds immigrants accountable to pay Kansas taxes.
“Our nation was built on a legal system for immigrants,” he said. “They can’t be here for a free ride.”
