Wrong Address: Unexcused Absences of Candor and Logic - KansasCity.com
Just like other GOP governors, Kansas governor Brownback knows how to take credit for benefits he didn’t create, all the while posturing against the taxes that create them.
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback has been tapped to deliver the weekly Republican address today. Expanding on a popular theme, he will talk about how, while Washington remains a mess, GOP governors are straightening things out.
Unfortunately, some of what Brownback says in his address (which was pre-recorded and embargoed until 5 a.m. Saturday) is exaggerated or misleading.
Like this: “The year I became governor, the state began the fiscal year with just $876.05 in the bank — less than $1,000 and it projected a $500 million deficit. Two years later we had a $500 million ending balance — and did it without tax increases.”
Not exactly.
Kansas, like most states, was in deep trouble when Brownback took office in 2011. What lifted Kansas out of its hole was a one-cent sales tax that Democratic Gov. Mark Parkinson signed into law and which took effect in July 2010. Brownback has benefited from that tax increase his entire term. He also is lobbying the Legislature to keep it in place, even though part of it is supposed to expire this July.
Then there’s this: “Now to make that financial turnaround a reality, we didn’t cut state funding to schools, we didn’t cut state funding for our universities and colleges, we didn’t cut state funding for our Medicaid system, we didn’t cut state funding for our prisons.”
Again, misleading.
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