Need skilled policymakers in D.C., Topeka

President Trump vowed to repeal and replace Obamacare. But when the first opportunity arose, the president stood by helplessly as House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., rescinded the replacement – a clear policy failure at the hands of a supposed guru who failed to walk the wonk.

Gov. Sam Brownback’s “pro-growth” tax experiment was supposed to deliver a shot of adrenaline to the heart of the Kansas economy. But the tax savings have not trickled down quickly enough to support the state’s budget – a clear policy crisis without a viable legislative solution.

The Republican Party is driving the bus – both in Congress and here in our home state – and one thing is now clear: We need some skilled policymakers behind the wheel.

Trump should not bear much blame for the health care debacle. When Ryan dodged the inevitable by curtailing a vote, not even the plan’s master architect seemed at all surprised. When you plant potatoes, you get potatoes – even on friendly soil.

Democrats saw the bill as the perfect party favor for any insurance executive’s birthday party, if it had only come in a glittery bag with a kazoo and Fun Dip. To some dissenters across the aisle, its primary flaw was under-protecting the underwriters. But one thing about the plan was certain: No left-behind Trump voters were getting picked up in the speaker’s vehicle.

The biggest travesty for Trump is that the speaker’s tangled mess of a replacement bill was paraded about in all its inadequacy before it was turfed, and the president endorsed it. His opponents will couch him as a leader willing to chase bad policy down into the sewers, when his voters still expect him to drain the swamps.

On Trump’s Bermuda fairways, talk will surely revolve around re-election defeats for those who crossed him, and how to make them happen in November 2018. But what he should be considering is election victories in 2018 for lawmakers who can devise sound policy to shade in the populist vision he has sketched.

Here in Kansas, our Republicans need leaders who can articulate and implement a new plan for our economy that does more than cut taxes, hope for a trickle-down and raid the usual suspects for cash in the meantime. Our roads all eventually need repairing. Our state workers eventually need their pensions.

When it comes time to vote again in Kansas, we should ask our candidates what they really intend to do about our economy, and reject their answers when it’s clear that “more of the same” is all they have planned.

We need better economic policy for the future of our state and our country. If our current policymakers can’t get the job done, we may just need new ones.

This story was originally published April 1, 2017 at 5:06 AM with the headline "Need skilled policymakers in D.C., Topeka."