(Syndicated to Kansas newspapers May 18, 2015)
Ever do a little, polite, considerate favor for a friend, maybe trimming the grass on the sidewalk clear to your neighbor’s driveway, not just stopping at the property line?
Well, we saw one of those little, considerate favors last week on the floor of the House when legislators debated that tax-increase bill, the one that pulls about $400 million out of our pockets and deposits it in the State General Fund.
The favor, in the building where the public wants to know every detail of every bill and who voted for it and who voted against it, was simply not doing that.
Eventually legislators are going to have to pass a tax increase bill and a budget for the state. Those are going to be ugly votes. Nobody likes taxes, and legislators who stand for reelection next year—after those taxes have taken effect and are pulling money out of your wallet—don’t like voting for them.
And, no matter how the state’s budget turns out, we know that there are going to be disappointments, too little money for environmental projects, not enough for assistance to the poor, not enough cash to compete with other states to lure new industry and the resultant jobs to each community in Kansas.
Nope, nobody is going to like all of either the upcoming tax or spending bills, so the key is to vote on them just once, not over and over while citizens and the political community are keeping score.
Simple as it sounds, while the House was debating the widely hated tax increase bill, there was a courtesy provided to Republicans by Democrats.
In nearly two hours of debate, including an amendment that would have levied income taxes on those 330,000-plus Kansans who don’t pay income tax because they have incorporated their businesses in a manner that makes non-wage income exempt from taxes, there wasn’t a single call for a roll call vote that would have forced members of the House to have their names associated with the bill.
It was all voice votes, both to reject that tax-business-income amendment and to forward the bill to a publicly recorded final action vote (which failed).
That little leave-no-tracks courtesy for the House’s Republican (97) majority was provided by…the House’s Democratic (28) minority.
It just takes 15 hands in the air to force that politically dangerous roll call vote on amendments or forwarding the bill to a final vote, but Democrats who don’t like the bill didn’t force it.
While that means that there isn’t a firm number of House members who are apparently willing to vote on tax increases, it also means that Republicans who are willing to vote on tax increases don’t get identified this early in the tax-raising process—so lobbyists and the executive branch and others don’t target them for political opposition.
That’s a little courtesy provided to Republicans by Democrats.
Now…will that little courtesy be repaid?
It might be maybe an extra tenth of a percent reduction in sales tax on groceries, which Democrats like because it means poor Kansans—all Kansans, really, but Democrats tend to forget that the wealthy pay sales tax on groceries, too—save a little money.
Or it might mean that some Republicans could go for putting back some of those income taxes that Democrats maintain Republicans aren’t paying…though Democrats pay income taxes too, and luckily, there is no statistic on how many Democrats are income tax scot-free.
Or, it might mean that Republicans will just have to hold their noses and vote once on taxes. Just once.
Or, it might mean that Democratic House members next year get to keep parking in the Statehouse garage…instead of having to leave frequently to plug the meter…