To the editor:

According to the Kansas Economic Progress Council, a statewide nonprofit organization of businesses, trade organizations, chambers of commerce and others interested in advancing sound policy in Kansas, to offset the drastic tax cuts contained in the bill sent to Gov. Sam Brownback last week, private sector jobs in Kansas must increase 50 percent during the next six years.

Brownback is enthralled with Texas history and wants Kansas to imitate it. Unfortunately, in his haste to pay off his financial backers, the governor overlooks the fact that, in the past 10 years, Texas job growth, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, has only amounted to 14.8 percent. In other words, according to the KEPC, “Kansas would have to grow over five and a half times as fast as Texas has been growing to get to a zero ending balance in 2018.”

And if that isn’t bad enough, these jobs created must average paying $50,000 per year.

Don’t be fooled, this House Bill 2117 is going to dramatically increase property taxes and at the same time hurt education, kindergarten through college, as well as lots of other services many of us need.