Kansas views on food sales tax, budget shortfall, Planned Parenthood, Democrats
Food sales tax – Gov. Sam Brownback has said he doesn’t want to revisit tax issues this session. As complicated as changes in tax policies can be, that’s understandable. But the longer the state postpones action on the sales tax on groceries, the longer it will burden the state’s low-income residents and the longer Kansans in border counties will take their grocery shopping – and perhaps other business – out of state.
Cause of shortfall – Senate President Susan Wagle, R-Wichita, reached into the conservative Republicans’ seemingly endless bag-o-excuses to come up with another reason why the state is suffering financially. “We are in this situation not because of what we’ve done here in Kansas. We’re in this situation because we are in an international recession,” Wagle told a GOP gathering. The reporting did not note whether there were widespread guffaws, toe-tapping and eye-rolling in the room when Wagle said that, but there should have been. Kansas is struggling financially not because of some imaginary world recession but because of the Brownbackers’ ill-conceived income tax cuts back in 2012 and 2013.
Planned Parenthood – When Gov. Sam Brownback explained his plan to prevent even a single dollar of taxpayer money from going to Planned Parenthood, he asserted that every life has dignity, beauty and value. Except, apparently, when it is a low-income woman in need of health care. That is the person affected by taking approximately $61,000 in Medicaid funding away from Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri. The organization uses it to provide health exams, wellness care, cancer screenings and birth-control services. No tax dollars are used to perform abortions. Nor, for that matter, is the group taking fetal parts and selling them for profit.
Democrats – It’s understandable that Democrats, who represent a small minority in the Legislature, don’t want to spend the time and effort to draft complex legislative proposals that are likely to be rejected by the Republican leadership without ever receiving a hearing. But if Democrats don’t put forth plans of their own, they often are reduced to sniping at Republican proposals without being able to point to meaningful alternatives.
This story was originally published January 24, 2016 at 6:07 PM with the headline "Kansas views on food sales tax, budget shortfall, Planned Parenthood, Democrats."