Topeka ? For voters in the Republican gubernatorial primary, the race comes down to two simple but overriding questions.

Is a tax increase absolutely unacceptable?

But if a tax increase is acceptable, whom do you trust?

If voters answer those questions in that order, they’ll know which candidate best fits their views on the state’s biggest issue its budget problems.

The candidates are State Treasurer Tim Shallenburger; Senate President Dave Kerr, of Hutchinson; and Wichita Mayor Bob Knight.

A fourth candidate, Dan Bloom, a businessman and former Eudora school superintendent, dropped out of the race Friday night and endorsed Knight.

The winner from Tuesday’s primary advances to the Nov. 5 general election to face Democrat Kathleen Sebelius, who has amassed more than $1.2 million in funds.

The Republicans have spent much of their time discussing the budget because of the depth of the state’s fiscal woes.

An economic slump, made worse by a severe drought and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, caused state revenues to fall. Kansas finished its 2002 fiscal year with $306 million less in its general fund than the previous budget year.

Spurred by fears of cuts in aid to public schools, spending on higher education and social services, legislators approved $252 million in tax increases. They did it despite the concerns of colleagues who said many Kansans were hurting too much to see more of their paychecks go to the state.

Shallenburger: No taxes

Shallenburger’s message about taxes has been the clearest: He has promised not to increase them.

He argues that government can squeeze savings out of its large bureaucracy and has said spending can decline another 2 percent or 3 percent, without hurting services.

Voters who find a tax increase unacceptable under any circumstances have their candidate, then. They need not bother with the second question.

“I think the people deserve us to go in there and cut,” Shallenburger said during a recent interview.

But Shallenburger’s stance evokes skepticism from Gov. Bill Graves, other state officials, local officials, lobbyists and even reporters.

Education and social services consume more than 80 percent of state revenues. Any demand for efficiency in government is going to fall largely to education and social services.

Kerr, Knight: Protect services

Kerr and Knight have promised to protect vital services while remaining prudent stewards of public money. They’ve refused to make the no-tax-increase pledge, though they say they would be reluctant to raise taxes.

For voters who believe a tax increase can’t automatically be ruled out, the second question who they trust becomes important.

If they found the Legislature’s work this year acceptable, despite the record 107-day length of its session and the messiness of its process, Kerr is their candidate.

He was an architect of the tax package legislators approved to avoid cutting state services. He’s been a senator for 18 years and served five years as Senate Ways and Means Committee chairman, plus another two as president.

For the GOP, no other gubernatorial aspirant has been more directly involved in the setting of state policy. He is detail-oriented.

“I will not rely upon bumper-sticker or lapel-button kinds of decision making to guide state government,” he said.

For voters who don’t trust the Legislature, there is Knight.

Knight’s message on the budget is the same as Kerr’s, and he’s had to distinguish himself from the Senate president by pointing to his executive experience as Wichita mayor and deriding the “capital gang” in television ads.

“I think I’m going to be viewed as a fresh approach,” he said during a recent news conference.

But Knight’s outsider status is offset by his choice of House Speaker Kent Glasscock, of Manhattan, as a running mate.

If there is a capital gang responsible for the budget mess, Glasscock has been a part of it, in two years as speaker and two more as majority leader.

Knight says curtly that Glasscock isn’t running for governor, and he’d clearly be in charge.

He also picked up the endorsement of the race’s ultimate outsider. Many Republicans had seen Bloom as likely to finish a distant fourth.

Bloom naturally had some contacts in education and business circles, but there was no indication that he would have any base of support in the Legislature