Opinion: Brownback’s economy spin wearing thin

For six years Gov. Sam Brownback has put his spin on the state of the state’s fiscal condition. Perhaps we have all been too dense to appreciate the underlying grand strategy of this supremely skilled budgeteer and his legislative allies who knew in advance that planning both pleasure (tax reduction) and pain (spending cuts) at the same time would awaken the beast in the body politic.

Recently the governor rejected the Kansas Hospital Association’s proposal to expand KanCare and take advantage of Medicaid. He noted that the current program was not yet functioning well and it therefore seemed foolish to expand it or add money that would lead to service expansion beyond the current clientele. His punch line on the subject was, “At the end of the day, every big government program is about one thing, taking money from the many and giving it to the few. Is that really in the best interests of all Kansans?”

While he was clearly making a rhetorical query, it is in fact a policy question. Services provided by government tend to raise revenues from the broadest available resources and provide services to a narrower group of beneficiaries. Government typically implements programs because they are too difficult, unprofitable or legally and ethically inappropriate for private parties to provide. Government spending and programs are meant to solve problems, and good problem-solving requires planning. One thing a majority of Kansans would agree upon is that planning has not been the premier skill of this gubernatorial administration.

Consider this list of widely discussed problems: The societal costs associated with Kansas children who fail from the beginning due to disparities of wealth, parenting and skimpy public resources; the ongoing need to adequately and equitably fund K-12 public education requires a sound plan; and KanCare, an enterprise based health care ‘solution’ that is failing in the absence of Medicaid expansion and, by the governor’s own admission, poor planning.

Who is planning to end the flight of our best and brightest young people as funding for higher education stagnates and declines precipitously? The greatest unmet planning challenge is addressing the tremendous differences in the cultures, public costs and economies that exist between urbanized Kansas and the rest, where the population gets down to fewer than 20 people per square mile in spots and the most severe health care issues exist.

The governor, after six years, has just solicited a reported 50 organizations to propose alternatives to his two years of block grant funding for the state’s K-12 education system. He says he wants ideas from the citizenry in general and from a long list of other sources ranging from the Brookings Institution to Americans for Prosperity and the Kansas Chamber of Commerce. He declares that the time has NOW come to begin serious conversations and planning to reduce public appetites for state spending in light of continued revenue shortages which have — wait for it — come about because of hard times in agriculture, the oil patch and aviation.

It is stunning to think that the administration is finally accepting that, along with revenue cuts, good government practice dictates aligning spending habits with revenue. What is equally stunning is the implicit acknowledgement that the governor and his administration aren’t willing to offer leadership on these matters. Grudgingly, Senate President Susan Wagle and several apprehensive state House members seem to have come to realize that the cupboards have been swept bare.

The evidence, however, strongly points to cluelessness rather than calculation. With Nov. 8 now just nine weeks away it might be well to remember, fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us.

— Dr. Mark Peterson teaches political science at the college level in Topeka.