I don’t need to tell you that the most difficult problem facing Kansans and all Americans this year is the perilous state of our economy. We are experiencing jaw-dropping deficits and government debt which will burden our children and grandchildren for years to come, budget shortfalls which prevent funding of essential government programs and services, and – most devastating of all – a soaring unemployment rate, depriving alarming numbers of hard-working Kansans the job opportunities necessary to provide for ourselves and our families.
We all know who creates and funds jobs in our State and country – it is not the government, but AMERICAN BUSINESS. Indeed, as many as 85% of the jobs in our economy are provided by small businesses. And yet, despite this unarguable fact, what is the Democrats’ only response to the loss of over 3.5 million jobs since president Obama took office and the wrong-headed stimulus plan was enacted? Whether it is the ultra-liberal Obama administration in Washington or the Sebelius-Parkinson team in Topeka and their Democrat allies in the Kansas legislature, including the District 18 incumbent, their answer is the same: soak and control the rich, and the companies they own and run, to redistribute wealth and grow government power! Increase taxes and regulatory burdens on the very entrepreneurs who provide the jobs for the vast majority of Americans, to fund and support not only current government operations, but a vast array of new programs and services, the latest of which is of course government-controlled health care. The result of such job-killing policies in our State has been predictable. Kansas has dropped to 32nd in the nation, and, worse, a non-competitive second to last among its neighboring states in the Midwest, in the Tax Foundation’s 2010 State Business Tax Climate Index. This Index measures the competitiveness of states’ tax systems and ranks them based on the taxes that matter most to businesses and business investment: corporate income, individual income, sales, property and unemployment insurance taxes. It means that, if our present policies are not reversed, businesses and the jobs they create will flee Kansas for the more favorable tax and regulatory economic environments in neighboring states.
The solution to this crisis is disarmingly simple. Stop hamstringing and punishing, over-taxing and over-regulating those who provide the jobs in our state. I propose that we significantly and permanently reduce both corporate and individual income tax rates – which apply to subchapter S corporations – across the board in Kansas; totally eliminate taxation of capital gains and dividends both to spur investment, and out of a sense of fairness, since income taxes have already been paid on those gains at the time they were earned by corporations and businesses; and ensure that necessary health care and other reforms do not impose new taxes, fines, financial burdens or costly bureaucratic red tape on Kansas businesses. The results of such measures, confirmed by history, will be swift and sure: economic development will be spurred in our state, existing businesses will expand, new businesses will relocate here, many thousands of new jobs will be created, and strapped state tax revenues – receipts – will increase dramatically, as the reduction in tax rates will be more than offset by the additional taxes collected from increased economic activity and the thousands of new taxpaying wage earners employed here. It has happened every time it has been tried: the Kennedy tax cuts, the Reagan tax cuts, the Bush I and Bush II tax cuts, and every significant state tax cut has created millions of new jobs and greatly increased tax revenues.
So it will be here. Let’s get Kansans back to work!
