Editor’s Note — Prior to the August primary, several campaign items landed in voter mailboxes. They were aimed at moderate Republicans and in most cases were misleading at best. Rep. Steven Johnson, who has been a leader in the effort to restore civility to public debate in Kansas, represents Ellsworth and other counties in the 108th Kansas House District. He is unopposed in the general election. Here is his response with information that will undoubtedly be as important during the general election. This is the second part of a twopart column on tax legislation in the wake of the Brownback tax experiment.

Tax revenues fell precipitously following 2012. Credit downgrades quickly followed. Debt was being heavily relied upon to meet obligations. Beyond increasing normal debt, we borrowed from the Pooled Money Investment Board and bonded short-term maintenance to keep KDOT operations going, two things we would normally not do or had not done before.

Several businesses (not all) and others across Kansas became increasingly concerned about the pressure they were feeling on property taxes due to decreased state support of functions. Their reaction was they preferred some income tax which varies with their income to higher property tax which is a fixed hurdle they must meet even in poor years.

But revenues required don’t operate in a vacuum, but must be considered along with expenses. (We also had pretty conservative leadership on our budget committees to hold the line on spending if and where possible from 2012-16.) KPERS payments, caseloads and mental health needs are great. Continuing lawsuits over education funding have focused on driving that number higher by the rate of inflation. An attempt to just balance declining revenues and settle the education lawsuit in 2017 required roughly $600 million/ year more than we were projected to raise. (Those numbers are all different now, but for some reason, tax increases were commonly referred to in the amount raised over two years.)

Other solutions? I don’t pretend to have them all, but can offer a few, and they could be mixed and matched:

• Cut everything but education as required by the lawsuit (draconian cuts to remainder of budget)

• Continue to increase the use of debt (difficult as downgrades may have made the ability to borrow too expensive or limited our ability to borrow)

• Offload more services to local governments

• Increase property tax (appeared to be opposed by more than the income tax alternative)

• Increase sales tax (done previously taking us to the 8th highest sales tax among states.)

• Economic development plans that grow revenue (difficult to rely upon or define with certainty.)

(Your solutions among and in addition to these are welcome feedback!)

Our memories are often short (which can be a good thing to forget pain.) You may recall how the previous administration in the state was vilified for tax policy. Some may credit that in part for our election of a governor of a different party in the 2018 election.

Is this tax policy right? (I don’t know if there is a “right” ... although there can be “wrong”.) Is it better or worse? If there were no spending constraints, I think we would all be an enthusiastic “yes” on the LLC loophole. These and the tradeoffs necessary to enable changes need to continue to be discussed (I like transparently) as we work together to find what is best for us in Kansas.