January 2008

Jan. 31, 2008
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Jan. 28, 2008)

All-immigration/all-the-time?

In the next week or two, it’s going to be all-immigration/all-the-time for at least one House committee.
Immigration, illegal immigration and such is a big topic but some Statehouse regulars are wondering just where this issue goes.

Or…maybe just what the issue is for a state that is two states in from the Mexican border, where it doesn’t seem that a fence or two along the state line is going to dramatically change the mix of people you’re likely to meet at the grocery store or walking the streets.

Now, it’s probably relatively serious if people who aren’t U.S. citizens are voting in our elections. Especially if they are voting in more significant numbers than, say, any U.S. citizens who have maybe had a drink or two before voting or who go to the polling place without a clue about who is running for what or why.

It probably makes sense to check on whether voters are citizens or maybe, for those who appear a little wobbly, to have them blow into a tube so we can find out whether they are below .08 percent blood alcohol content, the maximum for driving…apparently even for U.S. citizens on their way to the polls.

Somehow, besides voting, it seems like if the federal government allows people who aren’t citizens to make their way two states into United States, to wind up in Kansas, well, we’re sort of playing with the cards we’re dealt.

Illegal immigration must either be very important to the state of Kansas for some reason or not very important, but catchy. Sort of like people talking on cell phones at the movies, or fighting over an official state fish (by consumption, we’d guess tuna), or putting anything besides maybe the word “Kansas” somewhere on our license plates.

The House Federal and State Affairs Committee will mull immigration concepts in coming weeks.
The buzz at the Statehouse is immigration reform through employers.

The idea is that if somehow the state punishes employers for hiring illegal immigrants, illegal immigrants won’t be able to get jobs in Kansas to earn money to spend in Kansas stores and pay rent to Kansas landlords. Hmmm…

If the presumption that Kansas businesses are, well, run by relatively smart people, we gotta figure that they’re not hiring people for work that really doesn’t need to be done just so that they can lure illegal immigrants to Kansas.

And if the state Legislature decides to make businesses check on the immigration status of everyone hired to do work that employers believe they need to pay someone to do, what happens if some businesses don’t get the employees they need? Now, it’s pretty clear that Kansas employers would prefer to hire workers who won’t cause them any legal trouble, if they can identify those workers. There are ways to check that may or may not take much time, but at some point, the business of business is business, not immigration reform.

Kansas doesn’t require businesses to check their workers to make sure they aren’t planting crops in government easements or keeping their pit bulls securely fenced or illegally downloading movies into their home computers…but immigration is apparently different.

Unless…of course, this immigration thing isn’t about foreign citizens coming into Kansas to work for employers who will pay them to do work that needs to be done, but about the citizens who are legally here who aren’t doing work at all…and are receiving some sort of state benefit, either welfare or health care or something, that comes out of the state’s budget.

Now, if we could just replace every undocumented worker with someone who receives welfare…well, pretty soon there would be less welfare. That’s if welfare recipients are able to do the work or if employers have confidence they can do the work. There is a host of reasons that some people on welfare are virtually unemployable.

Is this the back-story on immigration legislation in Kansas? Paring welfare expenses?

We’ll see what the Legislature’s take is on the issue…

Jan. 24, 2008
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Jan. 21, 2008)

The worst epithet?

Inside the walls of the Kansas Statehouse, there actually isn’t as much cursing as you might imagine…unless you consider the word “tax” to be inappropriate language among people who depend on voters to get them into the Statehouse as legislators in the first place.

It’s happening again this year, and even people who know better have determined “a tax is a tax is a tax,” and nobody really likes to go home and face voters after having used that epithet.

Makes you wonder what’s going to happen to a proposal by the Kansas Health Policy Authority for a 50-cent increase in the state tax on a pack of cigarettes, doesn’t it?

Chances look poor for a cigarette tax this election-year session.

What if the name was different?

What if they called the tax on cigarettes…say…a user fee?

It would make a big difference in whether the Legislature decides this election year session to increase the cigarette tax 50 cents a pack.

But, because it is a tax, and increasing taxes is a loaded pistol on the nightstand in an election year, the roughly $60 million that a tax increase might raise to be used for improving the health, or paying for the illnesses, of Kansans doesn’t stand much chance this session.

And it’s somewhat amazing.

There are legislators who don’t smoke who would never pay the tax and who have a majority of constituents who would never pay the tax, but “a tax is a tax is a tax.”

But it isn’t surprising that when a brochure or a letter or a campaign advertisement lists someone as a “tax raiser” most people don’t ask the logical follow-up question: “A tax on what?” before they decide whether they will put up with that “tax” language?

Looking downstream at a cigarette tax, if the cigarette tax was increased, a pack of smokes would cost more and maybe youngsters wouldn’t start smoking regularly. Now, kids being kids, they’re going to try a cigarette or two—that’s what many did behind the barn in rural areas or outside the mall in urban areas, we guess. But if the price of cigarettes, tax included, keeps some kids from smoking, well, what parent is going to mind? Unless, of course, the kids take the money they have saved by not smoking and spend it on tattoos or body piercings or…gas for car dates…
If the cigarette tax made it too expensive for grown-ups to smoke, well, we’re still looking for the downside there. Fewer people smoking, fewer people compromising their health by smoke, well, we’re still looking for the harm there.

One of the weirder arguments about raising the cigarette tax is that it might produce $60 million a year that could be directed to health care, but if the tax is too high, fewer people will smoke and it won’t produce the revenue that legislators are expecting.

Very practically, because some health problems are caused by smoking, it might actually balance out somehow. It would be difficult to tell, of course, but it seems fairly reasonable that less smoking might mean lower health care costs. Is there a one-to-one relationship? Probably not, but it’s probably somewhere close.

It’s the word “tax” that is the stumbling block for the Kansas Legislature. Whoever votes for a cigarette tax increase gets labeled “tax-raisers” and that in many cases means those legislators are going to have to find some other way to spend their winters because they probably won’t be coming to Topeka to serve in the Legislature.

The power of the word “tax” even when it is applied to something that you don’t buy is amazing.
Unless…voters start asking “tax on what?”

We’ll see how that works out.

Jan. 17, 2008
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Jan. 14, 2008)


They’re off!

There are enough big issues, not-so-big issues, purely political issues and issues that really aren’t issues at all but lend themselves to cute quotes for public consumption that the Kansas Legislature probably needs this first week of the session to acclimate itself to life under the Dome again.

Yes, the Legislature officially starts this week, with the governor delivering her view of what needs to be done for Kansas, legislators responding, and individuals floating what they believe are good ideas they came up with over the summer and awaiting their peers’ judgment.

Here are the issues that are the hottest at the Statehouse:

• Energy—it’s a fight between western Kansas legislators who want a multibillion dollar coal-fired power center built in western Kansas and the governor whose secretary of Health and Environment, Rod Bremby, killed the application to build it.  This issue colors everything else in the Legislature; it’s a west-east battle, a “who’s in charge” battle, and ultimately, it’s the battle over the last big construction project in sight in western Kansas before reapportionment of the Legislature which will cost western Kansas votes, and therefore, legislative horsepower.
• Taxes—always a top issue, but there isn’t much money for tax breaks so we’ll hear about little breaks—like no sales tax on back-to-school clothes. A couple million dollars at best, and we’ll see if legislators are clever enough to start the sales tax holiday to coincide with the primary election—when candidates can remind voters who brought them the savings.
• Health—nearly everything here is expensive, but there are some low-buck things possible that will sound impressive, and there is always the old refrain about “transparency” which everyone likes, but practically, if you’re sick or your child is hurt, you aren’t bargain-shopping, you are looking for the closest, quickest assistance you can find.
• Immigration—is this really a Kansas issue? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean it won’t yield powerful sound bites and quotes. Easiest way to sound like the Legislature is dealing with the problem is to find someone to blame and so far it looks like businesses which hire undocumented workers. Legislators hate to beat up businesses, though, so look for some back-door exemption to take all but the most flagrant violators off the hook. Lots of talk about illegal aliens voting, there’s not much proof any are, but it is politically chilling for enough voters that it will garner a lot of headlines.
• Elementary Education—again, not much money after this year’s Legislature appropriates the $123 million it bankrolled for this, the last year of the massive three-year school finance overhaul the Kansas Supreme Court ordered. Look for some money to be again bankrolled for the following year, but not anywhere near this year’s $123 million. Watch lawmakers talk about the teacher shortage and try to find ways to keep veteran teachers in the classroom instead of retiring…again, on the cheap.
• Higher Education—Last year’s “deferred maintenance” initiative will help repair and remodel buildings, but it really didn’t put any money in the classroom. Look for more tax breaks for donating money to colleges and look for some real coordination between community colleges, technical and vocational schools, and four-year universities. Not everyone needs a four-year college degree to be successful and productive, and Kansas is just learning that.
• Open government—sounds good and who doesn’t want to roam the Internet to find out where every tax dollar is being spent? This is one of those issues that is hard to oppose but it may also mean that the public is going to know things that their legislators don’t, and that is always tricky for those in office. Many believe in the old saw “why keep a dog and bark yourself?” which translates into: Didn’t we elect legislators to take care of this stuff?

Legislators are just settling in this week, but give them maybe a month and we’ll know whether we have to do some barking ourselves…

Jan. 10, 2008
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Jan. 7, 2008)

Bet on it?

Somewhere in a crowded office in the Shawnee County Courthouse, a district court judge is considering whether the keystone of the state’s new expanded gaming law is constitutional.

The decision by District Court Judge Charles Andrews—sometime this month, he says-- will probably be appealed to the Kansas Supreme Court, but the importance of the legislation standing up to court scrutiny isn’t just a moral or constitutional issue.

Gamble or don’t, the decision on expanded gaming—that’s four destination resort casinos and at least three “racinos” or horse/dog racetracks with hundreds of slot machines in the lobby—means about $170 million to the state yet this fiscal year (about $80 million from casino buy-in fees, the rest from slots-at-tracks buy-ins and earnings). And for a Legislature that is seeing some signs of a slowing economy, er, slowing tax revenues, that money is important.

It’s probably worth mentioning that even opponents of the state-owned-and-operated gambling business aren’t bashful about planning to spend the money from the gaming enterprises. No, not one bit bashful…

The cash flow to the state is predicted to be that massive $170 million by June 30, then tail off a bit, to about $80 million in the state fiscal year that starts  July 1 and in following years be worth about $230 million.

The dip? That’s while the destination resort casinos are being built, and the roughly $80 million is the state’s take from the slot machines. After that, well, the cash spigot is opened when the casinos open their doors and start churning out money.

The prospects for that infusion of cash into the state treasury will become clearer in the next month when Andrews decides whether the plan for the casinos and racetracks to buy the gaming machines and run them for the state comprises “state-owned-and-operated.”

That money is going to loom large in the upcoming legislative session because of the purposes to which it has been targeted.

The three permitted uses are reducing state debt, infrastructure improvements and reducing property taxes:

• Reducing state debt is simple: it’s buying back bonds that have been issued by the state for buildings, roads, the state pension plan and stuff like that which fiscal conservatives have been wailing about for years. That’s the “debt we have handed to our children” that conservatives abhor.
• Infrastructure? Look at that as state buildings…and a state highway maintenance/construction program that is just a year away from getting serious legislative study. The current highway plan—oh, sorry, we’re now calling it a comprehensive transportation plan but it is still mostly roads and bridges—ends next year. That’s a key and looming issue because everyone likes nice wide, safe highways and rock solid bridges, and there really isn’t any way to get them without millions of dollars of spending that could come either from higher generalized taxes or the pockets of gamblers.
• Property taxes? Ever met a legislator who doesn’t want to reduce property taxes? Not in this state in recent memory. Several years ago when the state was  nearly broke, the state shut off money for the Local Ad Valorem Tax Reduction Fund which counties use to reduce the amount of property taxes that they levy. The counties want the LAVTRF back in operation and they want it back quickly.

There is a lot riding on Andrews’ decision, and on the decision of the Kansas Supreme Court.  If the Legislature need to do some tune-up to the gambling statute passed last year to make it constitutional it’s going to be interesting to see whether the discussion stays just with the moral considerations of gambling or whether, lets’ see…fiscal conservatives, infrastructure fans or friends of the highways dominate the 2008 legislative session in tossing a life line to that pot of cash that might be going under water.

Now that the moral issue has been narrowly decided by lawmakers, we’re wondering whether the discussion moves to explaining to voters what the state can’t do if it doesn’t have the gambling money and why that is a good thing.

We’ll all be watching…

Jan. 3, 2008
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Dec. 31, 2007)


Going green?

If you were hoping that the Kansas Corporation Commission would “go green” with its “predetermination” of rates for a proposed Westar Energy wind energy initiative, you didn’t get it last week.

The KCC pretty much went “black and white” as in show us the numbers first and then we’ll talk about whether the utility will receive any additional profits from the roughly 300 megawatts of power that it wants to produce from three wind farms.

The utility sought a predetermination of just how the KCC would handle rates for its wind power enterprise, and it basically got no additional profit guarantee for its environmentally friendly project.

It was a dab surprising. The governor is a fan of wind energy as long as it’s not in the picturesque Flint Hills, and Westar wasn’t proposing doing anything to muss the natural beauty of that area.

The governor reportedly has been saying she wants utilities that dive into the wind stream to be fully compensated for their investment, and the KCC decision does that…but nothing more.

Any above-standard profits that Westar would be able to earn for its stockholders can be considered in two years, after the windmills are up and running and providing power and there’s some experience on the books to determine how well they work and at what cost.

There’s nothing firm in the KCC’s order, and there’s also nothing that would make it predictable that Westar would get any special profit consideration two years from now, when there is a decent chance that the novelty will have worn off the wind power. And, at some point, whether the electricity comes from coal plants, nuclear plants or windmills, it becomes just another source of fuel to lift your garage door or recharge your cell phone.

There may be industrial users of electricity who can get some tax breaks by using non-carbon based electricity, but for most of us who aren’t spot-welding airplane parts as a sideline or assembling cars, the real advantage is pretty much ephemeral…doing good by using wind energy as long as the tithe is reasonable.

The KCC’s studied ambivalence clearly didn’t amuse Westar, which says it will build the 300 megawatts of wind power it proposed, but doesn’t sound happy about it. Another 200 megawatts of wind power is off the table for now, as far as Westar is concerned.
The governor grudgingly gets the wind power she likes to talk about, but Westar isn’t happy.

At this point, it appears that the green governor has won what she wants, windmills but not carbon dioxide-spewing coal-fired power plants in western Kansas, which, remember, were nixed by her Department of Health and Environment.

Western Kansas lawmakers wanted that coal plant built; the governor wants windmills in areas you can’t see from the highway, and the KCC didn’t do her any favors in encouraging wind power.

Westar made the business decision to go ahead with the wind power, but the luster has clearly worn off what was going to be an environmentally friendly and financially rewarding venture into wind. Think any other Kansas utilities are going to look at wind power in the future? Probably not for a while and possibly not forever, depending on what good happens for Westar stockholders two years from now.

It looked like Westar was trying to do a basically good thing and make friends with the governor and it just didn’t pay off…except for Westar customers who get wind energy at  no additional cost if they care about it at all.

This might be the last wind energy produced for use in Kansas unless there’s some tradeoff—guaranteed higher profits for wind power in return for some coal-fired power plants out west.

This energy deal isn’t over yet…