Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback: Betting on a bold agenda [The Wichita Eagle]
By Brad Cooper and Brent Wistrom, The Wichita Eagle | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
Gov.
Former
Brownback has rammed through massive income tax cuts, wiped away thousands of public sector jobs and cut spending for public broadcasting and social services.
He squeezed four state agencies into other departments. He handed the state's
The man is just getting started.
Now, backed with a growing legislative majority of conservative Republicans, Brownback stands ready to amp up his remake of state government in
His unapologetically bold agenda, backed with mounting political power, makes
Success for his policies could mean a leaner, more efficient state government nurturing an economic boom in
"He is ambitious," said outgoing
The Kansan with the soft-spoken charm and an aw-shucks demeanor has methodically built a resume that could energize any presidential prospects he might cultivate for 2016 or beyond even as, critics insist, he puts the state at risk.
In recent months, Brownback has traveled the country touting the power of small government, low taxes and his efforts leading the state out of a budget hole into a surplus.
A Catholic with a deep faith who is known to occasionally pray with people in the Capitol, Brownback also takes to the road boasting of laws he's signed making
Brownback shrugs off questions about his presidential ambitions, joking that he hasn't even talked to his wife about running again for governor.
"I am fully occupied," he said in an interview for this story. "I am staring at what we're doing here now."
If anything, Brownback is racing to reverse years of population decline and economic doldrums. He thinks reducing government spending and cutting taxes will foster growth.
"We're all trying to grow jobs and create opportunities in our states," Brownback said. "If you don't get it done here, it's going to happen somewhere else."
Critics say the Brownback agenda revolutionizes the state in his ideological image -- a place sometimes sarcastically referred to as "Brownbackistan."
"We are victims of an experiment that will go awry," said former longtime Republican state Sen.
"He believes that his policies are going to change the face of
While Brownback occasionally mixes the word "experiment" into talk about issues such as tax cuts, he resents any suggestion he's tinkering with untested ideas.
He said a number of his policies -- tax cuts, pension reform and managed care for
"There's experience," Brownback said. "This is well known."
After a failed bid for the presidency in 2008, Brownback makes the cut on few short lists of serious hopefuls for 2016. So many other names -- Christie, Walker and Daniels among them -- emerge first.
Yet one leading conservative, editor
"His success may be such that he will get more and more attention," Kristol said in an interview. "A re-elected
Others see a Brownback candidacy hamstrung by questions about whether his policies can travel outside a deeply red state.
"I am not sure how a very conservative governor from a small Midwestern state is going to appeal to the increasingly diverse electorate that makes up America," said
Brownback -- a former U.S. senator and congressman -- often seems to take a
He reorganized state agencies and policies to give his office growing control. For instance, he eliminated the parole board and required all human resource managers to report to the
Few governors in
Key allies in
"I wish that our leaders on the federal level would use the same approach ? we're clearly in an economic crisis," said incoming
Gliding into office with 63 percent of the vote, Brownback was one of 16 new Republican governors elected in 2010 at the height of the tea party's popularity amid the recession.
Immediately, Brownback faced a financial crisis as he grappled with increasing demands for
From the outset, Brownback made clear that government wouldn't lead the state into financial prosperity. Rather, like
"The days of ever-expanding government are over," Brownback said. "Under my administration, they will not return."
Within six months of moving into the governor's mansion, Brownback cut about 2,000 state jobs, many of which were already vacant.
Fallout from other budget cuts was big and small, including:
--Welfare rewrites. They saved the state
--Cut dollars for public broadcasting. Brownback originally wanted to end state subsidies for public radio and TV entirely. He ultimately agreed to a budget for 2013 that reduced spending by about 30 percent.
--Funding eliminated for other social programs. One program paid
--Deciding not to replace all of the lost federal stimulus money for education. That lowered the state base aid per pupil by
The cuts have touched Todd Roberts and his fellow teachers at
"It seems like that's not a big deal," he said. "But by the time you do it every single day, if it only takes 10 to 15 minutes, that's almost an hour I could be working on plans to figure out what's going to work for my students."
A year later, Brownback signed a budget that increased the base state aid by
Brownback hasn't gotten all the cuts he wanted.
For instance, he tried to strip funding from the state arts commission, figuring private donors would fill the void.
Community art and performance groups cried foul. The National Endowment for the
Other cuts mostly shifted expenses:
--Brownback trimmed funding for the state
"It restricts access to the courts," said
--The governor vetoed
--A program that helps military families with financial emergencies now depends heavily on charitable donations. Money has been cut for the program several times over the years and again for 2012, making it more dependent on donations from contributions made on income tax returns.
Brownback's voluntary buyouts, taken by more than 1,000 state workers, caused worry about the effect on state services even though some of those positions were replaced.
For example, the state now has 63 fewer heavy equipment operators than a year ago to plow snow. Some 230 engineering technicians can fill in for localized storms. But if a blizzard blankets the whole state, crews would be about 70 people short of keeping all their trucks on the road around the clock.
In the end, Brownback shrunk state government. He dipped into various state coffers to replace disappearing federal stimulus dollars, but not enough to offset the loss.
"People need to marinate in these things for a while before they start sounding the alarm," said Chapman Rackaway, a political science professor at
Moderate Republicans and Democrats argue that the governor's early budgets haven't done enough to restore cuts in state programs made at the depth of the recession.
"(Brownback) walked into office sort of thinking there's all this waste and inefficiency in government," said House Minority Leader
Brownback said he simply doesn't like dumping more money into general government programs. He prefers targeted spending, such as committing money to increase the number of fourth-grade students who can read at grade level. He also has won approval of financial incentives to encourage people to move to withering areas of the state and persuaded
"That's the way we should try to encourage the system to produce the results," he said of his targeted approach.
Numbers man
Perhaps no one is more pivotal in Brownback's call to limit spending than one of his first appointees, Budget Director
The group hired Anderson to create a model budget for
Brownback's office wouldn't let Anderson comment for this story. But his AFP report gives a road map for Brownback's policies.
The report's influence shows in the governor's restructuring of
Anderson's model budget also recommended merging the
"Human rights are too important to be politicized," said
Witt, like other critics, sees something deeper at work than achieving government efficiency in the governor's remaking of state government.
"
Indeed, Brownback and his staff have developed a reputation for playing hardball.
Already, the governor-appointed chiefs of three state agencies -- social services, labor and juvenile justice -- have either resigned from the Brownback administration or were fired over undisclosed disputes.
And he and his conservative allies took on -- and defeated -- senators from their own party who they viewed as too moderate in the Republican primary.
The governor's former chief of staff and top political lieutenant,
Brownback has a style distinct from his Republican and Democratic predecessors in the last 20 years, said
"Caution characterized them," he said of prior governors. "Brownback is a dramatic move away from that. He's kind of a risk-taker."
The
Two years after being sworn into office, Brownback now works a national circuit talking up a great
He plays down the school cuts, noting that he has put more money into areas that are not traditionally calculated as part of classroom spending such as teacher pensions, special education and debt payments on school construction projects.
In many ways, Brownback talks about his
"The way you change America is by changing the states," Brownback said last fall in
He emphasized that point recently after the federal government agreed to let
"This is a big deal," Brownback said. "Instead of cutting services, cutting providers, we're adding. This is the way forward. You're going to see a lot of states doing this."
Brownback refers to the tax cuts as a "real-live experiment."
"We're right next to some other states that haven't lowered taxes," Brownback said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" show. "
The state, he said, has paid for its tax cuts partly by saving "nickels and dimes." Brownback said it's a matter of looking at the small things such as rent or janitorial service.
"You can say that's not going to add up to anything," he said. "It actually does."
Indeed, the state under Brownback's leadership did find small ways to curtail small expenses.
Brownback tried to eliminate or curtail other programs.
The governor wanted to close the
Tougher times might lie ahead, especially if Brownback's income tax cuts leave massive holes in the budget and conservative lawmakers remain hungry to cut. Revenues are already projected to be down by about
Brownback had a plan that would have paid for the tax cuts by keeping part of a penny sales tax increase that is scheduled to lapse next summer and eliminating deductions for home mortgage interest payments, charitable contributions and other exemptions.
He got the tax cuts, but not the sales tax or the deductions. Now he's in a position of asking
Legacy takes shape
In August, Brownback's budget director told state agencies to show how they would cut 10 percent of their budgets. Many saw those marching orders as the administration's early efforts to accommodate this year's tax cuts. The budget director said it was more about having a contingency plan.
Many agencies cautioned that the cuts would have real impact.
The state ethics commission warned it would have to lay off one of its two auditors, further limiting its ability to investigate dodgy campaign activity when lobbying and political spending only balloon. Secretary of Corrections
Brownback has vowed to shield education, public safety and medical services for the poor. But he is still looking for ways to consolidate state government and cut costs without gutting services.
"We're going to keep pushing to do those things," the governor said. "There's room yet to go ? substantial room."
Others worry that Brownback's plan could leave
"The chickens are going to come home to roost," predicted Senate Minority Leader
So what does this all mean for Brownback?
Many a respectable run for the
He can more reliably expect a place of note in
O'Neal, the outgoing House speaker, said Brownback could position himself to run for president if he gets the state closer to eliminating income taxes and if that, in turn, produces jobs. Even if Brownback doesn't ultimately run for president, he will have left an imprint.
"If he doesn't have those ambitions or those ambitions don't pan out, what a legacy," O'Neal said. "I think the legacy he wants is to get government back into the footprint that it was intended to be in."
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