Posted on 12/21/2015 8:04:52 AM PST by Lorianne
Right-wing Republican lawmakers have operated under the radar to suspend all statutory limits on highway debt, and that unprecedented authority was recently used to issue record-breaking levels of long-term debt to pay for their reckless income tax cuts this year and next.
Six lines buried deep in a 700-page appropriation bill last spring gave the Kansas Department of Transportation unlimited authority to issue debt, and in early December, without public disclosure, the agency used that authority to issue $400 million in highway bonds.
State law requires those debt proceeds to be used for improving state highways, but do not expect that to happen. Lawmakers directed that $400 million and more be swept from the highway fund to help pay for the $700 million dip in state revenues caused by income tax cuts in 2012 and 2013.
The $400 million in new highway debt represents the largest single highway bond in state history and bumps up total outstanding highway debt to $2.1 billion, also a state record. The size of the bond issue was boosted 60 percent higher than planned last January in order to stabilize at least temporarily the precarious condition of state finances.
(Excerpt) Read more at kansas.com ...
Go Brownback. Smash all the Democrats and Rinos in the face. Smash ‘em as hard as you can.
it’s amazing how those willing to break budgets for welfare and school spending get all haughty when someone else tries a new accounting gimmick!
In Kansas if you lower the increase to the schools you have “cut school funding.” There is nothing the media in Kansas can say that I would trust. I trust Brownback more than any of the partisans in the media.
Tax cuts are not a “cost,” so there is no need to “pay for them.”
In terms of the budgetary impact, governments always take in MORE revenue after they cut taxes!
True, but the title should be: Debt limits suspended to pay for highways
It is not fiscally responsible.
Is this supposed to be "journalism" or a biased hatchet job? Also, the Kennedy and Reagan tax cuts so stimulated the economy that tax receipts actually increased. The Laffer Curve suggests the same result. Hopefully, this Left-winged idiot at least drops the pretense of being a journalist.
Good point about the title.
I don’t get the highway spending in Kansas. It is like the opposite of Missouri. In Missouri the roads are terrible but never get fixed. In Kansas the roads are great but get fixed when there is nothing wrong with them (not always, but sometimes).
#$@#$@#$ing warped thinking.
The budget deficit did not start with Brownback.
Let’s see now, who was governor in 2008?
long-term debt to pay for their reckless income tax cuts this year and next.
You do not pay for a tax cut. Its a cut. Not a bill. You pay for spending.
Sounds like they have a spending problem
Just THINK of the boon if govt actually followed the Constitution!! The tax cut % ALONE that would happen if just the 5th A. were followed. If the People were obligated to live with the responsibilities of their own actions and request help from those whom agree to do so VOLUNTARILY, instead of being economically enslaved by legal theft by an all too real gun to the head....
Sorry, I just arrived in CO and was sampling their new snack foods. I have NO idea what just happened...
How ‘bout: Any Congressman who votes for a budget that results in an increase in the debt of 3% or more cannot run for reelection.
That does nothing for the revolving door of elected > lobbyist > pay-2-play-job > retire on taxpayer teat.
IMO, unless you can pull the lever, there should be NO ability to lobby, donate, aide, etc. Any/all failures to log/verify political donations require immediate removal from the race/office and a fine of $1M/violation (adj. for inflation) to be paid personally by the official. With any/all taxpayer enumeration/benefits/perks void and null.
Make it *HURT*
Spending money you don’t have is okay, but tax cuts are “reckless.”
Uh huh.
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