Kansas Republican legislators override their Norquistian governor, restore income taxes

Hav­ing come to the real­iza­tion that try­ing to drown the peo­ple’s gov­ern­ment in a bath­tub is actu­al­ly a real­ly, real­ly, real­ly bad idea, Repub­li­can leg­is­la­tors in Kansas last night joined forces with Democ­rats to restore income tax rev­enue that was lost when Kansas embarked on a dis­as­trous tax cut­ting exper­i­ment sev­er­al years ago at the behest of Gov­er­nor Sam Brown­back, a dis­ci­ple of Grover Norquist.

The Tope­ka Cap­i­tal-Jour­nal reports:

The Sen­ate and House defied Gov. Sam Brown­back on Tues­day night by over­rid­ing his veto of a bill rais­ing Kansas income tax­es by $1.2 bil­lion over two years to fill a gap­ing hole in state rev­enue and bank mon­ey to improve fund­ing of pub­lic education.

Both cham­bers adopt­ed the land­mark tax leg­is­la­tion, but Brown­back wast­ed no time in reject­ing their work on the 109th day of the annu­al ses­sion. The Repub­li­can gov­er­nor issued a veto mes­sage declar­ing Sen­ate Bill 30 the largest tax increase in state his­to­ry, clear­ly dam­ag­ing to busi­ness­es’ job growth and destruc­tive to the well-being of families.

The Sen­ate, which con­tains 31 GOP mem­bers and nine Democ­rats, vot­ed 27–13 for the two-thirds major­i­ty nec­es­sary to reverse the governor’s action. The thresh­old was attained when Sen. Rick Wilborn, R‑McPherson, agreed to sup­port the over­ride after pre­vi­ous­ly vot­ing against the tax bill.

“The Leg­is­la­ture has the pow­er to over­ride the veto. I see no oth­er path,” said Sen­ate Vice Pres­i­dent Jeff Long­bine, R‑Emporia.

Des­per­ate­ly cling­ing to his unrea­son­able no-new-tax­es posi­tion, Brown­back had pro­posed a farce of a bud­get that would have weak­ened Kansas’ already per­ilous finan­cial posi­tion even fur­ther. Kansas leg­is­la­tors reject­ed Brown­back­’s pro­pos­al and deter­mined that the only way to safe­guard the state’s future was to defy him.

Con­sid­er­ing how Repub­li­can Kansas is, this is a remark­able devel­op­ment. Repub­li­cans run the show in Kansas — it’s one par­ty rule there — and so they have to gov­ern. They can’t be arm­chair crit­ics because they’re in charge.

Kansas Repub­li­cans were warned that Brown­back­’s Norquis­t­ian plot would only lead to dis­as­ter. But they did not lis­ten. And so they had to learn a hard lesson.

The truth about tax­es is that they are nec­es­sary. With­out tax­es, we don’t have a coun­try. Tax­es pay for all the pub­lic ser­vices that we depend on in our dai­ly lives. Schools to edu­cate our chil­dren. Roads and bridges to dri­ve on. Mass tran­sit so we have mobil­i­ty options. Police, fire, and emer­gency med­ical ser­vices. Libraries to per­mit access to knowl­edge. Parks, pools, and trails to recre­ate in.

These things, col­lec­tive­ly the com­mons, or what we own as a peo­ple — aren’t free. We have to pay for them. Right wing Repub­li­cans have sug­gest­ed for years that we either don’t need these things, or that we can have them with­out pay­ing for them. And they are wrong — com­plete­ly wrong — on both counts.

At times, Repub­li­cans like Sam Brown­back have dis­hon­est­ly tried to sell their tax cut schemes by claim­ing that tax cuts stim­u­late the econ­o­my to such an effect that rev­enue will not be impaired and there will be no harm­ful effects on pub­lic services.

But we know from expe­ri­ence that such schemes lead to dis­as­trous results. Trick­le down does­n’t. Giv­ing tax cuts to the wealthy is a recipe for fur­ther impoverishment.

Pub­lic ser­vices need depend­able rev­enue, and depend­able rev­enue is gen­er­at­ed by levy­ing tax­es. The tax­es we pay can be thought of as the price of mem­ber­ship in our state and coun­try. Togeth­er, by pool­ing our resources, we can invest in the things we need, like pub­lic schools. We can’t have those things otherwise.

And tax­es should be levied as fair­ly and respon­si­bil­i­ty as pos­si­ble. Abil­i­ty to pay should be the pri­ma­ry con­sid­er­a­tion when draw­ing up a tax code.

Kansas sen­si­bly has a state income tax. Restor­ing that tax so that it can once again gen­er­ate a more appro­pri­ate lev­el of rev­enue for the state was a nec­es­sary action.

The Leg­is­la­ture should have gone even fur­ther, but again, con­sid­er­ing the degree to which the Repub­li­can Par­ty dom­i­nates Kansas pol­i­tics, what hap­pened last night is some­thing of a mir­a­cle. Enough Repub­li­cans came to their sens­es to over­ride a veto by a man who osten­si­bly serves as Kansas’ chief exec­u­tive, but has in real­i­ty been run­ning the state right into the ground.

To the Nation­al Fed­er­a­tion of Inde­pen­dent Busi­ness and oth­er Brown­back allies who are upset with this vote, we ask: Where is your patriotism?

It is patri­ot­ic to be a tax­pay­er and pay your dues. Healthy pub­lic ser­vices are the foun­da­tion for broad pros­per­i­ty. Our econ­o­my is stronger when it is inclu­sive, and we can include more peo­ple in our econ­o­my by pool­ing our resources.

Every busi­nessper­son should under­stand and appre­ci­ate the con­cept of an invest­ment. Pay­ing tax­es to cre­ate and sus­tain great pub­lic ser­vices is an invest­ment. Through the wise invest­ment of our tax dol­lars, we’ve been able to afford many sci­en­tif­ic, med­ical, and tech­no­log­i­cal breakthroughs.

Con­sid­er all the tech­nolo­gies devel­oped by NASA or NASA’s con­trac­tors that were nec­es­sary for us to suc­cess­ful­ly explore space. The devel­op­ment of those tech­nolo­gies was a huge boon to our pri­vate sector.

A strong pri­vate sec­tor requires a strong pub­lic sec­tor. That is why it is so impor­tant we invest in our pub­lic sec­tor. That is what tax­es are all about.

Grover Norquist’s phi­los­o­phy of drown­ing gov­ern­ment in a bath­tub is dis­as­trous for the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca and will only lead to utter ruin.

It’s good to see at least some Repub­li­cans in Kansas now rec­og­nize that.