Budget plan kicks the can

No wonder Gov. Sam Brownback mentioned few budget details in his State of the State address last Tuesday. His budget plan relies on more gimmicks and fund transfers, as well as tax increases that disproportionately affect lower-income Kansans.

As Senate GOP leaders complained, it merely kicks the budget can down the road.

Brownback was vague in his address about the budget problems facing the state and his plans to solve them. He referred to an “imbalance between state revenues and expenditures” – rather than a budget shortfall of more than $900 million over the next 18 months.

He also promised a “structurally balanced” budget plan that “reconciles spending with available revenue.”

But the budget that his administration released the next day looks a lot like his previous budgets. It relies on fund transfers, borrowing and other one-time money to plug the budget shortfall, and it fails to address the root problem: that his tax policies have left the state short of revenue.

Brownback’s stopgap measures include liquidating a long-term investment fund and selling off the state’s future proceeds from its tobacco lawsuit settlement. Brownback also wants to continue raiding money from the state’s highway fund (about $600 million over the next two and a half years) and shortchanging the state pension plan (about $600 million over the next three years).

These are the types of desperate financial moves that institutions make when they are headed toward bankruptcy.

Brownback also said in his address that he would propose “modest, targeted revenue measures.” But his call to increase taxes on cigarettes and alcohol would mostly target low- and middle-income Kansans.

Lawmakers weren’t impressed by Brownback’s budget, but they also are in a bind.

The state has less than six months left in the current fiscal year, so there is little time to implement budget cuts. As a result, the state likely may need to rely on some one-time money to help get through this fiscal year.

But lawmakers are tired of the recurring budget problems – and Brownback’s tired claims that his tax policies are working.

About a third of state lawmakers are new this session, and most of them oppose all or parts of Brownback’s tax policies. Many of the returning lawmakers also are ready to change course.

Brownback’s budget is the same old, same old. Instead of solving the state’s fiscal problems, it pushes the problems to the future – where they could grow even worse.

This story was originally published January 15, 2017 at 5:05 AM with the headline "Budget plan kicks the can."