September 2004
Sept. 30, 2004
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Sept. 27, 2004)Death & taxes...
Let’s start with something very simple and then make it more complicated as we go, OK?
Right now, Kansans–especially poor Kansans in poor health–are seeing the start of a more aggressive system of recouping government payments for health care for the old and sick. It’s called estate recovery, and the principle is really simple.
The basics of the more aggressive system: The state, through Medicaid, the government-paid health program for the poor, ought to be able to recover the money it spent on the old and sick when they die under most circumstances. If you’ve been on Medicaid, the state has spent thousands of dollars on your care and safety. When you die, the state ought to be able to get what money is possible back, so that it can use that money to provide for the health and safety of others who are poor and ill.
In some cases, where there isn’t a surviving spouse or children who are too young to be on their own or who have disabilities, the state can recover the money from the sale of your home if you have one. You don’t need it any more. (Oh, and if you can afford to care for yourself but scheme a way to hide money or property so that you look poor on paper so the state pays for your health care, then you’re just a thief and not the object of legitimate concern.)
That estate recovery is troubling because it means that those who couldn’t afford to pay for their own care in the twilight of their lives won’t have a home to pass on to their grown children who under terms of the estate recovery program are actually no longer dependent on their parents. Everyone would, of course, like to leave something besides the family traditions and lore and morals and sensitivities and values that they’ve taught their children, and some will be able to and some–again, the poor–won’t, under estate recovery.
My how things change if one dies with no state financial involvement in paying for a nursing home or hospital stay. Those who have more money than is needed to pay for their end-of-life care managed somehow to run out of money at the time they run out of time... with a Medicaid safety net there that they didn’t have to use... Then, the estate recovery process is no longer an issue. And for those who die with money to spare, the focus switches to making sure that every dime gets to be passed on to heirs, both those who have special needs, such as the exemptions from estate recovery, and those who are on their own, living their own lives, supporting themselves.
Then, the concept of estate taxes–or the ever-popular and focus-group tested "death tax"–debate begins. Notwithstanding that in most cases a minimum of more than half a million dollars can be bequeathed to heirs without any estate or death taxes, the imposition of any taxes on inheritances is held by many to be abhorrent.
No, you can’t take the money with you when you die, but increasingly those who can provide for themselves are wanting to leave all of it untaxed to their heirs... along with their family traditions and lore and morals and sensitivities and values they’ve taught their children, just like those who die in poverty or at the end of state-supported treatment or in Medicaid-paid long-term care facilities.
Those are really starkly different situations. For the poor with a home, the "death tax" is generally going to be the only sizable asset that the poor have and wanted to pass on... with some justification. For those who "break even" at death, there is no estate to be taxed. And for those who pay their own way until the time of their death, well, there’s that death tax again.
Some legislative candidates are hearing about death taxes on doorsteps... in some neighborhoods. We’re betting they are hearing about one end of the spectrum or the other, probably not both.
Sept. 23, 2004
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Sept. 20, 2004)Just beneath the surface...
If you think the issue of same-sex marriage–specifically, the Legislature voting to put a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot next year or the year after–is an issue that played itself out at the primary election when it was a key in several races, think again.
Surprisingly, many legislative candidates who are spending this month and next going door-to-door to campaign report they aren’t hearing any questions on the subject. But if they think that the issue is over, those candidates need to rethink the issue.
Chances are good that many people, interrupted from their evening activities by candidates, care deeply about the issue but don’t bring it up because, well, it may tend to make them feel like rubes... unsophisticated...
But the issue is out there, and Missouri’s 70+ percent vote in August to put a prohibition in that state’s constitution isn’t far from the top of issues that Kansans, whether they want an amendment on the ballot or not, are thinking about.
Because the whole point is that once the Legislature votes to put the question about a constitutional ban on gay marriages on the ballot, that amendment is passed. There’s virtually no way that Kansas voters aren’t going to approve it, whether they know anything about it–even though there’s already a state law banning same-sex marriages.
Kansas’ Supreme Court even took the step in a recent decision of determining that the law of this land is that even if a boy has extensive and expensive surgery and hormone treatment to become as close to a girl as medical science can get... well, the boy was still born a boy and will remain one for legal purposes. The marriage of that heavily altered boy and a genuine, from the ground-up boy wasn’t legal. (The issue there was inheritance money, of course, but the principle of once a boy always a boy is now entrenched in Kansas law.)
Candidates would probably be best off if behind those doors that they knock on, voters would just say that they are interested in the issue. That would probably give a bright candidate a chance to make his or her pitch. Candidates who favor putting a same-sex marriage ban on the ballot would say, yes, and probably close the sale right there. Candidates who don’t favor teeing up the issue for voters would have their chance to do a little explaining. They may either make the sale, lose the sale or at least do a little education.
Candidates report that a lot of voters don’t understand that gay marriage is already illegal in Kansas. Those voters, who presumably have been reading the Sunday wedding announcements for years, must think that the gay couples’ pictures didn’t come out, so they just didn’t run the marriage stories.
Would knowing that there’s a law against same-sex marriage change voters’ minds about putting it in the constitution? Maybe, maybe not.
There’s even one clever candidate out there who is telling voters that now that Missouri has a gay marriage ban in its constitution, maybe the smartest thing to do is to see what happens there. With the backstop of a state law, the candidate is taking the skeptical route that might appeal to Kansans... that before the state winds up spending thousands and thousands of dollars on defending a Kansas constitutional amendment, it might be smartest to give Missouri a little time to see what happens there.
Is that candidate for or against gay marriage bans, against legal fees, or just cautious, as Kansans tend to be? The candidate is surely diverting the question, but in an interesting and plausible way. There apparently are no gay marriages in Kansas now, so there probably is no big hurry and probably no reason that Kansas can’t wait and see what happens in Missouri, to see if that state’s newly amended constitution winds up being tumble-dried by a state or federal court over there.
But the real political question for the next several weeks may be whether voters will ask their candidates where they stand on the issue. There are actually just three possible answers: yes, no, or I’ll do whatever I have to do to get elected to be able to make policy on
other issues that I think are more critical than a gay marriage ban.We’ll see how it goes....
Sept. 16, 2004
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Sept. 13, 2004)Roll the dice?
Kansas is beginning something that hasn’t been accomplished since 1995–entering into a new gaming compact with Indian tribes–to construct and operate what will be the most lavish, spectacular casino-resort-hotel that the state has seen.
This fall, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ staff is expected to present to the Joint Committee on State-Tribal Relations its proposal for a compact with two tribes, the Sac-and-Fox and the Kickapoo for a nearly $200 million resort and casino. It will be fancier, more expensive, and probably more lucrative for the tribes and the state than anything that Kansas has seen yet.
It’s to be relocated in the suddenly tony western Wyandotte County, where it will be close to the NASCAR race track, Cabela’s, Nebraska Furniture Mart and a passel of new upscale, lifestyle-type stores and restaurants.
The proposal for the compact comes at a time when the face of the Kansas Legislature is about to change and it comes at a time when Wyandotte County, formerly one of the state’s poorer counties, is just busting with economic development. Wyandotte County is not the poor relation to bustling Johnson County anymore, and its job growth and creation are booming.
All of that means that Wyandotte County is a great place, now, for an Indian casino that will be luxurious enough to give Kansas City, Mo., casinos a run for their money.
But, did you pick up that earlier statement, that the Kansas Legislature is about to change? That means as a result of the already-over primary elections and the upcoming general elections, that socially conservative Republicans are about to take over and they’re not big fans of casino gaming.
And those who aren’t fans of casino gaming, seeing more than 1,000 casino jobs already in place with the state’s four existing Indian casinos in northeast Kansas, can take the position that they don’t want to expand gaming... because it may threaten what is a pretty cozy little business that is already in place and doesn’t need any competition, thank you. Opponents of casino gaming in northeast Kansas can have their cake–the jobs and economic development that the casinos have brought–and eat it, too, by opposing expansion of gaming anywhere else on moral grounds.
Oh, and there’s a clock ticking on this compact between the state and the tribes... mid-January, when the 2005 session of the Kansas Legislature convenes. The compact now can be acted upon by the tribal relations committee, and then the seven-member Legislative Coordinating Council, and go into effect. After the 2005 session convenes, it will take a majority vote in the House and Senate to put the compact into effect... the same approval that just two committees can grant before new legislators take over next year...
Now, there’s no way of knowing for sure, but from the primary election results not many would care to bet on the chances that the full Legislature next session would approve the gambling compact. The full Legislature could either outright kill it or require some deal-killing additions.
This is going to be the compact that actually produces some revenue for the state. Previous compacts have merely paid the state for its costs in providing security and general oversight of the casino operations. This time, Kansas is slated to get a portion of the winnings from the casino. That’s another sensitive issue. Thousands of Kansans still incorrectly believe that Lottery revenues go to finance public education. They don’t, never did and never were planned to.
This compact as the governor proposes it won’t earmark money for public education, either, because the state really doesn’t want its public schools dependent on the entertainment whims of Kansans or to encourage morally questionable behavior to educate our children.
This is a proposal with a lot of embedded issues either real or imagined that make it a shaky bet for legislative approval next session. So we’ll be watching to see how quickly things move along... or whether they move at all...
Sept. 9, 2004
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Sept. 6, 2004)Recounting New York
NEW YORK—The best thing about national political conventions is the range of war stories that delegates and alternates and hangers-on get to tell when they get back home.
Oh, yes, there is the off-camera nomination of a presidential/vice-presidential slate. But for Kansas Republicans, there are going to be better war stories than in recent years... and better war stories than Democrats brought home from their fairly tame convention last month in Boston.
The actual business of the convention? There were fire-breathing speakers and even a political cross-dresser, if you will, in Democratic Sen. Zell Miller of Alabama, endorsing Republican President George W. Bush over his party’s nominee, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.
There were actual, in-the-streets protests for Republicans in New York, shouting, angry signs, and even at one point, anti-war carollers at Kansas Republicans’ headquarters hotel, the Park Central.
Republican delegates took home stories of $9 hotel shirt laundry and shoebox-sized $14 pastrami sandwiches on 7th Avenue where there is apparently a size-war going on among rival delis. There were no "girlie man" portions for those merely seeking a lunch for one... Oh, and there was that $26 double Scotch-and-water at the hotel bar that is worth recounting to those who may sympathize.
The politics of the event? Well, some had reservations, but nobody in the delegation didn’t like Bush and did like Kerry. And while that unanimity breaks down right below the top race on the ballot, New York was about the first question voters will face: Bush or Kerry.
Democrats left their convention both fearful of a second Bush term and knowing they face an uphill fight that is going to have to be waged on the issues of education, jobs and the slowly recovering economy.
Republicans left New York for home more confident of Bush’s reelection as long as the vote can be based on terrorism, on 9/11, on national defense and the most basic of obligations of a national government.
Republicans are confident that Kansas’ six electoral votes will go to Bush. Kansas Democrats left their convention with the slimmest of longshot chances for a Kerry victory in Kansas... But then Democrat Kathleen Sebelius is the governor, and that’s a ray of hope for them.
But Kansas Republicans leave New York knowing that for most people voting is a one-day activity among the precious few undecided, and terrorism or a new threat of terrorism or a major development in the war in Iraq galvanizes the public and Bush benefits from that. The point is that nearing election day, the president can pretty much determine what issue will be foremost in the voters’ minds and make sure that it’s one that he is perceived as good at...
Kansas Republicans brought their pro-choice/pro-life divisions with them and will take them home not much changed from their stay in New York.
There were pro-choice speakers nearly every night on the speaker podium during prime-time hours whether they used the phrase "pro-choice" or not. Pro-life and social conservatives were generally restricted to non-televised, short speeches. That’s where U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., wound up one night, to the cheers of Kansas’ social conservative delegates but largely ignored by the state’s moderates.
From the convention in New York, there was even talk about Kansas Republicans splitting their party, one socially conservative, the other moderate-to-liberal with the chance of lassoing unaffiliated voters and the more conservative of the state’s Democrats.
And oddly, though it was largely locker-room talk, moderates talking about a new party seemed relatively serious. Conservatives who are on the verge of seizing control of the Republican Party next Kansas Day don’t seem upset.
Is it anything worth either Republicans, Democrats or unaffiliated political junkies worrying about? Hard to say.
But with the top-of-the-ticket unanimity apparently rolling out of New York and back to Kansas, that talk of a division may be the heaviest bit of luggage coming from the Republican National Convention.
...Not many delegates are going to be taking home New York-laundered shirts... or returning home with pesky unspent cash or much in the way of a credit line left on their cards...
Sept. 2, 2004
(Distributed to Kansas newspapers Aug. 30, 2004)Welcome to New York
NEW YORK–Maybe the interesting part of the Kansas delegation’s adventure at the Republican National Convention is that fairly mundane things happen on a grand scale here, and because it’s New York, it’s supposed to be of nation-shaking magnitude.
In New York, the numbers are bigger of course, and there are more reporters here on any day, and many, many more reporters here during the Republican National Convention
Take Sunday’s antiwar protest march, which several of the state’s 39 GOP delegates tried to see, but had little luck.
There were supposed to be a quarter-million protesters, marching within yards of the empty-on-Sunday Madison Square Garden, home of the Republican National Convention which goes Monday to Thursday this week.
Delegates had been hearing about this protest for weeks, and most of Sunday were just upset by it. Afraid that it would signal violence in a city that has seen its share of violence.
Well, the earth-shaking protest march was a pretty good protest march from what could be seen from the police barricades that were continually moved to push the crowd away from the parade-protest.
And, during the afternoon and evening there were protesters doing a little fairly juvenile taunting of delegates from Kansas and other states. But besides being memorably coarse, it amounted to about what Topekans, for example, and Kansans in general, are becoming familiar with as acting out... or Kansans being off their meds for some reason.
What else for Kansans? Well, they are finding that they have some of the same unexciting allure that Kansas Democrats had during their Democratic National Convention foray. While Kansas Democrats could be counted on to produce no electoral votes for Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, Kansas Republicans can be counted on to produce a solid six electoral votes for President George Bush. Little drama, little need for flashy convention receptions or courting.
Chances are good that Republican and Democratic convention delegates can compare the number of meals that they bought out of their own wallets. They may well find that in the eyes of that great nonpolitical leveler of all Kansans... the credit limit on their charge cards... Republicans and Democrats spent a lot.