To the editor:

Don’t believe our Republican governor and legislators who pretend they are reacting to an unexpected economic crisis that left a huge hole in the state budget. They created the crisis when they eliminated income taxes for 330,000 of the state’s most well-to-do citizens — so-called small businesses. They include many doctors, lawyers and owners of farms and businesses who employ as many as 50 employees. Those employees get paychecks considerably smaller than their bosses’ earnings, but they will continue to pay income taxes. Ironically, their taxes and those of many others will increase if Republicans fill part of the hole in the budget by eliminating deductions on their income taxes and raising sales taxes.

None of their proposed fixes would even fill all of the hole in the budget. The “march to zero” that Brownback wrongly insisted would boost the state’s economy by cutting and eventually eliminating all Kansas income taxes will instead continue a march to zero support for: public schools (elementary through college), essential public works such as roads and bridges, and state programs that assist our poor, disabled and homeless citizens.

It makes no sense to hurt schoolchildren, endanger drivers who depend on safe roads, cut assistance to our most needy, and risk furloughing without pay thousands of state employees including 13,000 at KU — all to preserve an immoral law that eliminated taxes for the wealthy. The governor and legislature should do the right thing: Get rid of the bad law that started it all.