Why are Kansas Republicans pitting schools against other state agencies?

This past weekend, Johnson County Commissioner Mike Brown took to Facebook to discuss the state’s budget.

Roads and bridges in Kansas are crumbling, Brown wrote, and school spending is partially to blame.

“Public Education … must be ‘a’ priority, but I also understand it cannot be the only priority with no regard or care for my fellow Kansans, their lives and the investment we’ve already made in our collective state,” he said.

House Speaker Ron Ryckman made a similar statement recently to The Star’s editorial board.

It seems increasingly clear conservative Kansas Republicans have settled on a divide-and-conquer strategy this year. They want to pit school teachers and students against mental health counselors, prison guards, highway patrol officers, road builders and others in the fight for state funding.

The goal: Convince interest groups they’re being cheated by greedy educators. Once that’s accomplished, the theory goes, it will be easier for lawmakers to vote against fully funding schools — or for Kansas voters to take the courts out of the equation.

It’s a cynical and deeply flawed argument. Kansans should reject it out-of-hand.

Remember: Some of the legislators behind this effort are the ones who broke the state’s tax structure in the first place. Roads and bridges aren’t crumbling because of schools — they’re in trouble because of ill-advised tax cuts in 2013 that robbed the state of needed revenue.

But don’t be deceived. Supporters of an “us vs. them” approach don’t really care about spending more money on transportation, or health care, or pensions, or any other state program in the years ahead. Their only real goal is to shrink government and cut taxes.

All governments must prioritize spending, and schools in Kansas should be subject to the same rigorous oversight as any other function. But Kansans have said time and again that schools are a top priority. We see no need to change that approach now.

Spending on important programs need not be an either-or proposition. Kansas can find enough money to pay for schools and roads once the Legislature agrees on a tax structure that brings in enough money to do so.

Returning to the pre-2013 tax brackets might help. Higher corporate taxes are a possibility. Kansas hasn’t raised its 24-cents-a-gallon gas tax since 2003.

All are ideas to consider.

What Kansans cannot accept is blaming schools for the failures of the state’s political leadership. We are all in this together, Kansans know. And legislators should act accordingly.

This story was originally published January 16, 2018 at 6:23 PM with the headline "Why are Kansas Republicans pitting schools against other state agencies?."