To the editor:

Since 1995, the Kansas Legislature itself has robbed state revenues of $614 million annually. In an analysis of the four largest corporate welfare programs from 2000 to 2002, the Kansas Department of Revenue found that 60 percent of the state’s largest corporations claimed no tax liabilities whatsoever. Manufacturers reduced their public obligations the most by an average 54 percent, especially through “business and job development” credits.

Yet “no correlation could be found between the tax credit programs and improved employment performance for manufacturers claiming the largest amounts of those credits when compared to the employment performance for the Kansas manufacturing sector as a whole.” In fact, among the top 20 business and job development claimants, their combined employment levels were worse than that of the entire corporate sector.

Contrary to legislators’ delusional perceptions that corporate welfare shields manufacturers from economic recessions, these tax giveaways are robbing schools of the necessary funds to provide suitable education to students. Stealing from the state’s children may be a far more grievous sin than corporate greed. If legislators truly want to solve the school funding fiasco, they can easily find the money now by canceling corporate giveaways!

Jeanne Klein,

Lawrence