Brownback defends budget, claims tax package is not a tax increase

Gov. Sam Brownback talks about the
record-long legislative session & taxes
during a news conference today.
Photo courtesy of the Wichita Eagle. 

In comments given at the Statehouse today, Kansas Gov. Brownback discussed the two bills legislators passed on Friday to raise $384 million during the fiscal year that begins July 1. One measure raises the sales tax to 6.5 percent, and the other increase the cigarette tax to $1.29. In passing these measures, the legislature averted a deficit that is prohibited by the Kansas constitution.

Gov. Brownback denied that an increase in sales and other taxes counts as a tax increase, because it comes on the heels of massive income tax cuts passed three years earlier.  The Kansas Governor stood behind his aggressive tax cuts of 2012, and maintained that economic growth would fuel the state’s needs.

Gov. Brownback described taxes on income as ‘productivity’ taxes, as opposed to ‘consumption’ taxes, which he said was a sales tax.

Republican Senator Jeff Longbine had asserted late last week that Gov. Brownback "blackmailed the legislature" into getting what he wanted in the budget and tax plans. Gov. Brownback denied this claim and also denied that business are the ones benefiting from the tax structure and budget plan (the cuts of 2012, included a policy that freed Kansas business-owners and farmers from paying income taxes on their profits).

Even with the new revenues from sales tax increases, Gov. Brownback might have to cut up to $50 million in spending.

Discussing the forthcoming cuts, Brownback said his administration "haven't started much of a serious look." Brownback said he hopes to make that $50 million cost-cutting goal by “looking at efficiencies and privatization” of state government operations where possible.

The governor said he had not decided on what cuts to enact with one exception. When he signed the budget he made a line item veto based on a recommendation from the Kansas Board of Regents, cutting $1.9 million both this coming year and next for a program that grants funds to post-secondary institutions that provide GED accelerators for students.