A 2-year-old knows how to say “no.” We expect more than that from adults and particularly from our elected representatives.

To say this isn’t the Kansas Legislature’s finest hour would be a huge understatement.

While school districts and city and county governments across the state are making plans to deeply cut their budgets for the coming year, some members of the Kansas House seem more intent on making a point. Political bickering stirred by the state’s redistricting process is spilling over into important discussions on the state’s financial future, and “no-tax” legislators are putting their narrow financial priorities and their own re-election hopes ahead of the best interests of the state.

In an attempt to figure out where the Kansas House might be willing to raise new revenue to offset a $698 million budget gap, Speaker Kent Glasscock, R-Manhattan, paraded a series of possible tax increases before the full House last week. One by one, House members rejected every proposal. They said “no” to sales taxes, income taxes, estate taxes and property taxes. They ended their week with a resounding “no” to six attempts to raise taxes on alcohol and cigarettes, the so-called “sin taxes.”

The anti-tax legislators who are leading this charge like to portray themselves as saying “no” to taxes and big government. What they actually are doing is saying “no” to public schools and higher education, “no” to social services that can save the state money in the long run and “no” to investing in the state’s future by supporting education, transportation and economic development efforts.

Glasscock, of course, has a strategy in mind. Having gotten the House on the record against all tax increases, Glasscock now will put the House Appropriations Committee to work on a budget based on revenue the state can expect to receive without any new tax revenue. That’s what the members of the House have voted for, so that’s what they’ll get, and Glasscock predicted early last week that it will be a “pretty ugly budget.”

It will cut even more from state services than the balanced budget Gov. Graves submitted at the beginning of the session, the budget that he, himself, denounced during his State of the State message as unacceptable. The governor is promising a revised budget proposal by the end of the week to try to close the budget gap.

But if the governor and the Legislature are to make any progress on budget negotiations, there will have to be compromise and some legislators will have to drop their stubborn, mind-numbing no-tax stand. Glasscock also said last week that he fully expected some members of the House to vote against all taxes and then vote against any budget that has been cut back to respond to the lack of new revenue. It could be the speaker will record the names of members who make that choice and even make the list public to hold them accountable for their decision.

It’s only fair. Some legislators like to take refuge behind the assertion that “I have heard no sentiment for tax increases in my district.” The question they should be asking now is whether there is sentiment in their districts for the kind of service cuts that will be necessary if no new revenue is raised.

The decision they make on behalf of their constituents could  and should  affect the decision voters make when they go to the polls next November.