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Brownback concludes tour urging support of stable funding for higher education

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback is banking on the prospect that, in the next week or so, his Legislature will approve a tax increase.

Brownback, a master at the art of illusion, has been touring the state and portraying himself as the champion of Kansas’ colleges and universities. Only an extension of the sales tax increase, he said, could hold the schools’ budgets at their current levels.

But that level is hardly adequate. Jill Docking, Brownback’s one-time political opponent and a former member of the Board of Regents, noted that state funding for higher education plunged 11 percent from 2008 through 2012. Many states are taking advantage of rebounding revenues to make up recessionary losses; in Kansas, level funding is talked about as a victory.

“Higher education is a very competitive business,” Docking wrote on her blog, dockingblog.com. “We will lose our most talented students, faculty and researchers to those states with the commitment to education that Kansas has had for generations, but currently, apparently, lacks.”

Even a sales tax increase won’t cure the ills of the Kansas budget. Brownback and key lawmakers are desperately searching for pots of money to plunder, for projects to defer and for fiscal tricks to employ. The strategy is unsustainable.

It’s been interesting — if rather sad — to watch Brownback lobby for a sales tax increase while also insisting his end game is to eliminate the income tax. Under no scenario should the Legislature entertain such a notion. Credible studies show that the state must attract record numbers of high-paying jobs to close the budget gap the first round of tax cuts has created — a feat made all the more difficult as schools and service slip.

The governor’s tax increase would at least save Kansas from falling faster. Lawmakers should pass it, and close some tax loopholes as well. Then they should begin a soul-searching process aimed at steering back to a fiscal policy that honors the state’s traditional values, such as good schools and services.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/05/07/...

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May 8, 2013 at 7:47 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

U.S. Attorney General Holder tells Brownback new gun law is unconstitutional

After Sam Brownback took an oath of office Sam Brownback gave a speech and the Topeka Capital Journal reported the following:

In his speech, Brownback said the central event of the day was his oath to uphold the state and federal constitutions.

"An oath required by and pledging fealty to our Constitution, for ours is a government of laws, not men," he said.

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May 3, 2013 at 8:20 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

Leader of Eisenhower memorial effort discusses embattled plans in talk at Dole Institute

The founder of the John Birch Society was a guy named Welch. Fred Koch, the founder of Koch Industries was a charter member of the John Birch Society.

Welch, the founder, hated President Eisenhower and considered him a communist tool. This caused Bill Buckley and many conservatives to disavow the John Birchers. In short, the Koch brothers are heirs to the "Eisenhower was a communist tool" school of thought that their Dad was a part of.

So, this dislike of moderate Republicans like Dole, Eisenhower, Kassebaum, Bill Graves, etc. is nothing new.

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May 3, 2013 at 8:17 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

Rules tighten on TANF recipients

Republicans Prove How Clueless They Are By Blaming Their Debt on the Poor

It’s unfathomable to even contemplate how Republicans can classify the poor as the drivers of debt in our country. Day after day, we continue to be subjected to talks of President Obama’s chained CPI budget proposals not going far enough–that “real” entitlement cuts are needed across the board to truly start fixing our debt crisis. Republicans have doubled down on vilifying the poorest among us, just to protect the highest income earners from the horrors of shared sacrifice. In doing so, they’ve backed themselves into a mathematical paradox exposing how willfully ignorant they’ve become as a whole.

http://www.forwardprogressives.com/re...

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May 2, 2013 at 8:51 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

Rules tighten on TANF recipients

How The Poor, The Middle Class And The Rich Spend Their Money

Everyone devotes a huge chunk of their budget to housing, for example. Poor, middle class and rich families spend similar shares of their budgets on clothing and shoes, and on food outside the home.

But poor families spend a much larger share of their budget on basic necessities such as food at home, utilities and health care. Rich families are able to devote a much bigger chunk of their spending to education, and a much, much bigger share to saving for retirement. (The retirement line includes contributions to Social Security and to private retirement plans, by the way.)

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/0...

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May 2, 2013 at 8:47 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

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