Dave Helling: Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback gets a fresh start with second term

Through much of the 1960s, the great political cartoonist Herb Block usually drew Richard Nixon with an ominous five o’clock shadow — a gray smear beneath a ski-jump nose and heavy eyebrows.

Until 1968. After Nixon won the race for the White House that year, Block offered an olive branch of sorts: “This shop gives to every new president of the United States a free shave,” his cartoon said.

In that spirit, let’s offer Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback best wishes as he’s sworn in for a second term next week — and a fair opportunity to reset his stewardship of the state.

It won’t be easy, of course. Brownback’s first-term efforts to remake tax policy have put the Kansas budget in a potentially dangerous hole, a problem that deepened before New Year’s Day when a three-judge panel in Topeka ruled that schools remain underfunded.

It’s difficult to see how the governor can make all the budget pieces fit this year.

Yet Kansas voters knew about those problems last November and re-elected Brownback anyway. In fact, his political trajectory strangely resembles that of Barack Obama. Both unapologetically sought big-picture, first-term reforms (tax cuts in Kansas, health coverage through the feds). Both struggled to implement those reforms. And both were re-elected to second terms despite serious opposition.

Kansans, we now know, are willing to give Gov. Brownback the benefit of the doubt.

Let’s hope he returns the favor by being completely candid about the size of the challenge ahead. During the campaign, Brownback insisted the sun is shining in the state, a claim that wasn’t accurate. Revenue continues to slide, jobs are growing more slowly than in the rest of the nation and people are still moving away.

A simple admission that his tax cuts haven’t worked as quickly as he hoped would buy Brownback enormous goodwill. That, followed by a reasonable proposal to restore the state’s solvency, would likely give the governor the final-term legacy he clearly seeks.

Any such plan will almost certainly have to include increasing state revenue. That doesn’t have to mean an income tax hike: a broader tax base, maybe, or a higher gas tax could fatten the Kansas bank account. Postponing the next round of income tax reductions seems unavoidable, but revenue-increasing tax changes might also do the trick.

Most Kansans understand Democrats and judges aren’t the enemy — the calculator is. Let’s hope Gov. Brownback takes the oath with a good one in his pocket.

This story was originally published January 7, 2015 at 3:18 PM with the headline "Dave Helling: Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback gets a fresh start with second term."