The primary election next week is an important one for Republicans in Kansas. If far-right Republicans win those nominations, they also are likely to dominate the Legislature — Kansas has never been so solidly Republican as it is in 2012.
The consequence will be further cuts in spending for education, highways, law enforcement, care of the disabled and health care and other essential state services.
Radical Republican domination of the Legislature will also result in continued tax cuts for the wealthy and raise the very real possibility of tax increases for the poor and middle class when this year’s huge tax cuts take hold in 2014.
This destruction can be avoided by awarding the nominations to mainstream Republicans who use as their models moderates such as Nancy Kassebaum (the most popular Republican ever to serve in a Kansas U.S. Senate seat); former two-term governor Bill Graves, who just came back to Kansas to campaign for embattled Republican moderates; and Bob Dole, who established himself as a national leader, was the author of the Americans With Disabilities Act and pushed one of the largest tax increases in U.S. history through Congress under President Ronald Reagan.
ALLEN COUNTY voters can do their part by voting for John Coen for Senate. Coen campaigns on a promise to restore funding for the public schools and the state’s universities and cites the policies of Kassebaum and Dole as examples he would follow if elected.
Coen recognizes that funding the public schools, community colleges, state universities and helping to fund the state’s private colleges is far and away the most important function of state government. Together, those line items make up about 70 percent of the state’s annual budget. Add highways, health care and law enforcement and all that’s left is petty cash.
While they never say so, those who campaign on promises to “bring fiscal responsibility and budget discipline” to state government, really mean they will continue to beggar education, continue to funnel highway fund money to the general fund to justify tax cuts and will, in short, make Kansas unable to meet its basic obligations to its citizens.
It is mathematically impossible to cut taxes by $2.7 billion — as the radical tax cut bill passed this year does — without leaving the public schools, community colleges and state universities in ruins.
Because the Kansas economy has strengthened — and state support for education has been slashed — the 2013 Legislature will enjoy a large budget surplus. It should use most of that surplus to restore funding for the schools and higher education and to return the money to the Kansas Department of Transportation that it took over the past three years so that the state’s highways can be well maintained. Step two should be to repeal some of the tax cuts that were so foolishly made earlier this year so that budgets can be balanced from 2014 forward without reducing Kansas education to Third World standards.
Who should you vote for in the House contest? Find out which of the three will vote for more money for education. Demand a yes or no answer. If none will say yes, then try to divine which of them has shown the most compassion for their fellow creatures in their day jobs and give your vote to that man — or that woman.
Come to think of it, that’s a pretty good yardstick to use in measuring candidates in any race, from local on up to the White House.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
