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Spending
Spending in Kansas is out-of-control, with increases of eight or nine percent a year over the past five years. The Kansas General Fund Budget has almost doubled in the past 12 years, from $3.4 billion in 1996 to $6.1 billion this year. It has grown at three times the rate of inflation and twice the rate of wages in just the past four years of the Sebelius administration alone. If nothing is done, we will face a shortfall of almost $200 million in the FY2010 budget. What's right for families on a tight budget is also right for the government in difficult economic times: unnecessary, non-essential spending must be curtailed. I support zero-based budgeting to rein in our current runaway State spending. The question for all State agencies and programs seeking budget appropriations from the Legislature should never be how much more they get to spend than the previous year, but rather, a hard-nosed, ground-up analysis of how much they need to perform essential State services. Fraud, waste, mismanagement, duplication and pork-barrel projects contained in State spending must be eliminated. Some examples ripe for elimination or restructuring in the FY 2009 budget: top-heavy management in agencies such as the Department of Labor, with 12 Director or Chief Executive positions; duplication of support functions such as accounting and data processing among agencies; and two pork-barrel projects -- Kansas' own "road to nowhere," $750,000 to improve the entrance road to a closed army ammunition plant in Parsons; and $20 million in bonding authority for a low-security prison facility in Yates Center of dubious necessity.
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