With the opening of this year’s legislature session just a week away I have been thinking about what I hope will happen. In doing this thinking I have tried to be realistic recognizing that both the House and the Senate are overwhelmingly Republican and conservative and unlikely to violate their ideological premises. Thus, I think that it is fruitless to hope for increased funding for K-12 education or higher education let alone increases for social services for Kansas’ poor and needy.

In this spirit I have decided that the best thing to hope for is a combination of pragmatism and fact-based realism, neither of which should violate conservative principles. I also hope that the Legislature will not waste time and effort on trivialities or long debates on issues that are beyond its power as it has done in past sessions.

To me one of the most troubling aspects of recent legislative sessions has been a rejection of pragmatic action and of realistic assessments of economic realities. This year such a rejection could be truly devastating to the state’s economic well-being. I believe that the Legislature must start from the premise that as of now the economic situation in Kansas is dire.

There is a constitutional mandate for the Legislature to have a balanced budget, but in order to achieve this goal, the Legislature must either raise revenues or decrease spending or some combination of the two. Failure to do so not only will produce a major constitutional crisis but also likely will result in further downgrading of the state’s credit rating by outside rating entities. If this were to happen again, as it has happened several times already in the recent past, the effect on the state’s economy and prospects for economic growth will be extremely negative.

Assuming the Legislature does deal with the current and projected budgetary shortfalls, I believe it is crucial they do so in a rational manner, motivated not by politics and abstract ideologies but by hard facts and objective assessments of the pros and cons of any paths they consider to close the shortfall. In the past several years, legislators have tended to listen to the “experts” who gave them the answers that they wanted to hear rather than to those experts whose opinions were most grounded in reality and sound economics. This cannot continue.

As well as seeking out the best economic advice I think it is also crucial that the Legislature seriously consider the economic and social consequences, both short- and long-term, of any options they explore. What impact will further privatization of government functions have on the residents of Kansas. What areas are most efficiently privatized and what should remain public functions. What will be the long- and short-term economic effects of further cuts to education, social services, law enforcement and other state agencies. Will such cuts produce short-term gains but long-term losses?

Leaving aside political and social ideologies, is it fair to ask the elected representatives of Kansas to act rationally and base their decisions on solid facts and accepted theory? I think that it is not only fair, but it is essential. Otherwise, the currently bad economic situation in which the state finds itself will rapidly become dire and, perish the thought, irreversible.