(Syndicated to Kansas newspapers Dec. 12, 2016)
Well, we have a brand-new plan to balance the state budget starting July 1, but instantly, it has become an “us vs. them” political scrap that is likely to put the state Legislature into several fights that it’s too early to handicap.
The plan presented last week by a coalition of groups—interested in financing schools, building highways, taking care of the needs of the poor and paying state employees who are vital to meeting those needs—pencils out nicely to raise money for those purposes.
The Kansas Center for Economic Growth pulled together a wide range of interest groups to assemble a new tax regimen for the state and included taxing those 330,000 LLC-owning Kansans who don’t pay taxes now, reshuffling the tax rates to see the wealthy paying more taxes, cutting the sales tax on food, and boosting the tax on gasoline by 11 cents a gallon.