Davis Merritt: Session about political problem, not real one

For all the tears and hyperbole, threats and posturing, deception and outright lying that preceded the final votes in this year’s Legislature, one could surmise that something was actually accomplished.

One would be wrong.

Postponing a problem, shoving it down the road doesn’t qualify as an accomplishment. Come next January, the same people who spent a record 113 days avoiding the obvious will be back in Topeka facing the same fiscal dilemma. There’s no reason to believe, barring conscientious citizen or divine intervention, that their collective response will be any different six months from now.

The 4-to-1 Republican majority in the House of Representatives still will be so ideologically fractured that governing will once more depend upon tears, hyperbole, threats, posturing, deception and outright lying.

Gov. Sam Brownback will still be clinging to the myths of trickle-down economics, adrenaline shots and consumption taxes.

Lobbyists for state and local chambers of commerce, Americans for Prosperity, the American Legislative Exchange Council and the National Rifle Association will still be muscular and shove around wavering legislators who, to the lobbyists’ delight, will be even more vulnerable and beholden because of the looming 2016 elections, when every seat in both houses will be open.

Middle-class and poor families in Kansas will be scrimping even more to get by in a stagnant economy because of increased sales taxes, the partial loss of mortgage interest deductions, reductions in eligibility for financial assistance and lack of health insurance.

The 330,000 individuals excused from paying any state income tax since 2012 will continue to be grateful for the redistribution of other taxpayers’ money to them but, for the most part, not going on hiring or expansion binges. It will not occur to most, if any, of them that a useful investment of their windfall would be to raise the wages of their employees, who would then help grow the economy by spending more.

For a few hours near the end of the session, it seemed possible that the House’s 28 Democrats and a couple of handfuls of moderate Republicans might put together a coalition to return a bit of fairness to Kansas tax policy by rolling back the 2012 cuts a bit. The only result, however, was a contrived vote on one of the two bills that made it possible for Republicans to cast a meaningless “no” vote so they could tell constituents that they “voted against” the ultimate mess.

The hypocrisy level of that vote was matched, if not exceeded, by the shameless plea of Rep. Marvin Kleeb, R-Overland Park: “Every ‘yes’ (vote) tonight is going to be a vote for the kids.”

Here’s how the Republican tax committee chairman cooked up that stale intellectual pretzel: Brownback, who, with Kleeb’s help, created the revenue mess in the first place, threatened to impose 6.2 percent budget cuts across the board – including $200 million to public schools.

Get it? If the House didn’t pass the flawed tax bill, schoolkids would suffer; thus, a vote for the flawed tax bill was magically transmuted into an heroic vote for kids.

The only antidote to bad government – which Kansas has plenty of right now – is conscientious citizens with long memories. If you disagree with what’s going on, do not wait until the fall of 2016. Legislators are home now. Let them hear from you, civilly but firmly, in these next six months.

This story was originally published June 15, 2015 at 7:04 PM with the headline "Davis Merritt: Session about political problem, not real one."