Kansas views on tax plan, Trump tax cuts, court funding
Tax plan – At the beginning of the session, legislators faced a two-year, $1 billion hole in the state budget. In the four months since, much has happened, but little has changed. The best option when lawmakers return on May 1 is to revive the tax plan that nearly succeeded in February and do what’s necessary to ensure it is passed this time.
Trump tax cuts – This week, Kansas lawmakers will once again try to figure out how to cover a massive shortfall in the state’s budget. We hope President Donald Trump will be in the gallery, taking notes. That’s because the president’s tax plan strongly resembles the disastrous tax plan passed in Kansas in 2012. Kansans know how this story ends.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin stood in front of a microphone and basically said that President Trump’s tax cuts wouldn’t just pay for themselves, they’d create countless jobs and generate unimagined prosperity. That would be nice. But it eerily resembles the vision Gov. Sam Brownback sold to Kansans five years ago in backing historic income tax cuts. Unfortunately, they propelled the state not to prosperity but to a financial crisis that has not yet abated.
Court funding – We know the state faces a $900 million shortfall over the next two years, but there’s an astonishing amount of evidence that our judicial branch is chronically underfunded. Lawton Nuss, chief justice of the Kansas Supreme Court, asked: “Is this the value we place on justice in Kansas?” We put the question to our Legislature.
This story was originally published May 1, 2017 at 5:26 AM with the headline "Kansas views on tax plan, Trump tax cuts, court funding."