Editorials & Backgrounders
Considering the past, do Kansas legislators
have courage for the future?
By Christy Levings
November 2003
The economic downturn of the last nearly three years has made us all sensitive to the financial needs of other people. We have heard the tragic stories of failed businesses and families in distress and wonder how the economic future will affect us. When we hear about the circumstances of these individuals and families we often mourn for them because of the illness or fire or other disaster that caused their economic difficulties to spiral out of control.
I would ask you to consider how sensitive to their needs you might feel if you knew the following facts.
- Would you feel as sympathetic over the loss of a house if you heard that not only did they not make their house payments when they lost their income, but they had not been making their payments for years when they had a good income level?
- Would you feel as open to their plight if, when their income was good, they bought a new luxury car or returned a small amount of their income instead of addressing their long term financial needs?
- How about if, in spite of having some of the best financial advisors in the state asking, telling and pleading with them not to, they still made short term budget cuts that would create long term financial disasters?
- Or what if they continually ignored facts and projections about what the future might bring?
If you are feeling less sympathy for those individuals than you might have before these facts were presented, then you have joined a growing number of questioners. If you are wondering, “What were these people thinking?” that also will put you in good company as many of your fellow citizens are scratching their heads with wonder and confusion. The decisions of the Kansas legislature have put us all in a difficult dilemma.
Their past decisions are making it difficult to handle our financial needs this year and in the future. I have trouble having much sympathy and understanding for some of the tough financial decisions our state needs to make because of the poor decisions that were made in the past.
Just like the family that skips its house payments in good times and then wonders why it has a huge financial hole to make up when the bank calls in the loan, our state has grossly under funded crucial services like public education for a long time and now struggles to find the money to bring schools back to the level of funding they should have been receiving.
I have heard many legislators talk about how we would catch up when times were good and then vote for tax cuts that limited state income instead of applying revenues to starving vital services. While certainly no one likes to pay more taxes, Kansans have made it clear they will pay for those services that make their communities strong. I have seen polling information on schools, higher education, health care and services for the most needy in which Kansas citizens said they would pay more money if they knew it would go to improve these specific programs.
I have a lot of respect for the people of Kansas. They value their state and are willing to pull together to make each community strong. They deserve decision makers who understand that long term financial planning must be tied to strong services today. They need representatives in the legislature who recognize that strong schools equal a strong state economy. They should have representatives who admit that for working Kansas families a small tax cut today is worth little in comparison to the long-term benefit of all day kindergarten, reasonable college tuition or retaining a quality teaching staff in each Kansas school district.
Kansas taxpayers are also smart enough to know that not paying the bills today will hurt us tomorrow. We band together as citizens of this country to produce an unequaled standard of living compared to the rest of the world. Our pioneer families settled Kansas and endured the heat, the dust and the wind to create a great place to live and raise our families. They did not endure so we could squander the opportunity to secure the future for our children and our children’s children.
We need legislators with the guts to step up to the plate and guarantee our future. This is not the time to whine about the hole we have made in the last ten years when paying our way did not seem to be the priority and political grandstanding was more the game. We need to applaud those who have the guts to approach the problem and we need to demand that they begin now.
Christy Levings is the president of the Kansas National Education Association. An elementary teacher on leave from the Olathe School District, she lives in Osawatomie.
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