Gov. Sam Brownback loves snappy phrases.
When he first ran for Congress from this district, he promised voters he would “get Uncle Sam off your back and out of your pockets.” Meaning, I guess, that he would lessen government regulation and cut taxes.
This week his bon mot changed form, but not meaning: He said, “The 2012 legislative session came down to a simple question: Do we want to grow government or grow the economy? The resounding answer: We’re going to grow the economy.”
He deserves to be taken seriously.
Gov. Brownback is saying a strong government and a strong economy are incompatibles. You can have one, but not both. In the governor’s philosophy, spending for government weakens the economy and is therefore injurious to the public welfare. Government is portrayed as an enemy of the people rather than their servant.
To be as kind as possible, this is not a traditional Republican value judgment. As Lincoln said, government is “of the people, by the people and for the people.” Government is the agency the people use to achieve the general good. It is, in fact, the only agency the people can use to work together as a community.
One needn’t go back to the founder of the Republican tradition to make the point. Kansas has had a string of productive Republican governors in its past. Most of today’s Register readers enjoyed Kansas while Bill Graves was governor. Gov. Graves presided over very productive years for Kansas highways, Kansas public schools, Kansas universities. His state government was strong. So was the Kansas economy.
To refresh your memory, dig back into history and read about the governorships of Alf Landon, Frank Carlson, Bill Avery, Mike Hayden and Bob Bennett. Our Democrat governors were achievers, too. Gov. Joan Finney was in the chair when Kansas moved to statewide funding of public education and gave property owners in poor counties like ours enormous relief. John Carlin greatly strengthened the state’s economic development machinery.
Because of ambitious governors determined to take our state forward, Kansas is among the few states which has had three 10-year highway programs in a row and, as a consequence, is a national leader in highway quality.
BECAUSE KANSAS is a small state, population-wise, with only modest resources, Kansans should embrace and support ambitious leaders. We need governors, senators and representatives who stand out from among their cohorts and, working in harmony with the people, make Kansas stand out.
Like it or not, government — at all its levels, city, county, state and national — is the only agency leaders can use to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number. Those who attack government attack progress for the people and would leave the field to the predatory few.
Put that in your teapot and steep it.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
