No news is… what?

(Syndicated to Kansas newspapers April 22, 2013)

No news is… what?

Martin HawverSometimes no surprise is the surprise.

Remember last week, when we told you that a certain group of intense legislative-watchers were awaiting the pronouncement of the state’s top fiscal gurus of the Consensus Revenue Estimating Group assessment of what last year’s massive tax cuts would do for the state budget?

Well, we all wore clean shirts and were ready, but that pronouncement—key to wrapping up spending and taxing bills this legislative session—yielded essentially no surprise. No appreciable rise in state revenue, no plummeting state revenue, just about what the CREG predicted in November, and on which Gov. Sam Brownback based his budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1.