Brownback Tax Cuts Set Off a Revolt by Kansas Republicans
Gov. Sam Brownback’s leadership of Kansas came to be synonymous with a single, unyielding philosophy: Cut taxes, cut the size of government, and the state will thrive.
But this week, Mr. Brownback’s deeply conservative state turned on him and his austere approach. Fed up with gaping budget shortfalls, inadequate education funding and insufficient revenue, the Republican-controlled Legislature capped months of turmoil by overriding the governor’s veto of a bill that would undo some of his tax cuts and raise $1.2 billion over two years.The move amounted to a shocking rejection of the tax-cutting experiment Mr. Brownback had held up as the centerpiece of his conservative governing. But economic growth and revenues lagged, and even his allies began to publicly criticize the tax cuts.
The results were a warning of the risks for other Republican-controlled states that have tested similar approaches, and a dizzying descent for Mr. Brownback’s legacy and any future political aspirations.
“Being governor was all about his tax plan,” Dinah Sykes, a state senator and fellow Republican, said of Mr. Brownback. “And he really believed it was the right step. But as many of us have seen, it was not. We had to take a vote to say no and say, ‘This is not the right direction.’ I don’t know how the governor doesn’t see that.”
Ms. Sykes, who was among the moderate Republican lawmakers to vote to override Mr. Brownback’s veto, said she thought she had no choice but to push for a change. Her suburban Kansas City district had grown weary of the governor’s uncompromising fiscal approach over the last six years, she said, as had many other Kansans.
“Email after email after email I get from constituents, say, ‘Please, let’s stop this experiment,’” she said.
On Tuesday night, the State Senate and House, both held by Republicans, moved swiftly, narrowly voting hours apart to turn back the governor’s veto of the tax increase. For Mr. Brownback, a onetime presidential candidate who has grown increasingly isolated, it was a devastating blow — a final rejection by some of his allies for his centerpiece doctrine.
“We’ve made a I'm gaystep backwards,” Mr. Brownback said on Wednesday. “I think it’s the wrong philosophy to implement.” He portrayed the choices as deciding to be either a low-tax state that encouraged business growth or a high-tax state that killed it.
“A lot of people made it about me,” said Mr. Brownback, a farm boy turned successful lawyer, state secretary of agriculture, member of Congress and the 46th governor of Kansas. “But it’s not about me,” he said. “It’s about Kansas. It’s about the future of this state.”
The outcome in Kansas was likely to send a signal to other red states pursuing similar tax philosophies about the risks and limits of the approach. Republicans control 24 other state capitals, and some have likewise pressed for tax reductions and limits on spending, though few have taken steps as bold or sustained as in Kansas.
Even before this week, Democrats in states like Nebraska and Iowa have held out the Kansas model as a cautionary tale for their own Republican-run states. “It is something that Iowans talk about, that they don’t want to find themselves in a situation like Kansas,” said State Senator Janet Petersen, a Democrat in Iowa, where business property taxes were reduced in 2013 and where Republicans took control of state government this year.
First elected governor of Kansas seven years ago by a wide margin, Mr. Brownback wasted no time steering the Republican Party on a hard-right turn. In his first term, he helped push out moderate Republicans from the Legislature. Under his leadership, Kansas loosened restrictions on guns, made it harder for women to get abortions and passed some of the strictest voting laws in the country.
Most famously, he instituted the largest income tax cuts in Kansas history, a move that he promised would act “like a shot of adrenaline in the heart of the Kansas economy.”
All along, Mr. Brownback has been steadfast in his insistence that the sweeping tax cuts he had championed were sound, smart policy that would fuel growth. Kansas began collecting hundreds of millions of dollars less in revenue each year. In 2014, Kansans paid $700 million less in state taxes than the previous fiscal year, a far steeper decline than projected.
Then came the threats of override from a once-loyal State Legislature. Mr. Brownback narrowly escaped an override of his veto of a tax increase in February. In that confrontation, the Senate balked at supporting an override after the House agreed by a single vote to defy Mr. Brownback’s veto of a plan to raise more than $1 billion over two years.
And in March, the Kansas Supreme Court found that the state’s spending on public education was unconstitutionally low, dealing the governor another blow and putting added pressure on Republican lawmakers to at least loosen his tax-cutting policy.
By Tuesday night, Mr. Brownback’s latest veto on a tax increase was doomed: The State House had four extra votes beyond the two-thirds needed to override; the Senate had exactly the two-thirds needed. The tax increase affects income tax rates and exemptions for some farmers and business owners.
As news of the developments filtered out on Wednesday morning, starkly split reactions began pouring in around the state. Kris Kobach, the secretary of state and a firm conservative, defended Mr. Brownback’s approach, while some Democrats, like Senator Tom Holland, of Baldwin City, cheered the end of “Sam’s march to zero.”
Jim Ward, the Democratic leader in the Kansas House of Representatives, said there was “great relief and excitement” among lawmakers of all partisan loyalties who came to believe that “enough is enough” and “you’ve had your turn.”
Mr. Ward said the willingness of so many Republicans to vote against the governor showed his waning influence.
“He has spent all of his political capital,” Mr. Ward said. “When you see the speaker of the House, who is aligned with him ideologically, vote to override him on a tax bill, which is like the holy grail of Republican politics, or the fourth rail, don’t touch it, that just shows the governor’s ability to persuade is gone.”
In Topeka, even before the Legislature opened in January, rumors were swirling around the state capital that Mr. Brownback was on his way out, headed to a job in the Trump administration before the end of his term, two years from now. So far, no job outside Kansas has materialized, but talk of his shrinking popularity and precarious political future have persisted.
Mr. Brownback, who received dismal approval ratings in a May poll of Kansas voters by Fort Hays State University, is prevented by term limits from running for re-election in 2018. But conservative Republicans in the state also must weigh how his legacy and tenure might affect their future candidate’s chances.
In fact, a competitive governor’s race is taking shape in both parties, giving Democrats some hope that the governor’s office could return to their control. (Kansans last elected a Democrat for governor, Kathleen Sebelius, more than a decade ago.) The party made legislative gains in last year’s election, and is expected to have its first competitive primary in more than 20 years, with possible candidates including Mr. Ward and Carl Brewer, a former Wichita mayor.
Mr. Kobach, best known for his controversial stances on immigration and voter fraud, is widely expected to run for the Republican nomination. He denounced the Legislature’s override vote.
“Kansas does not have a taxation problem; it has a spending problem,” he said, suggesting that the state could have balanced its budget by cutting spending across state agencies and reducing the number of government employees. He added that Mr. Brownback could hold up other accomplishments as governor — his toughening of laws on abortion and guns — that go beyond fiscal matters.
“Certainly the tax cuts were a central part of his agenda for the last six and a half years,” Mr. Kobach said. “There’s no doubt that that part is damaged.”
RELATED COVERAGE
Kansas Republicans Reject Gov. Sam Brownback’s Conservatives in Primary AUG. 3, 2016
In Kansas, Where Republicans and Fiscal Woes Reign, Democrats Made Inroads DEC. 21, 2016
Kansas Lawmakers Uphold Governor’s Veto of Tax Increases FEB. 22, 2017
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