Milkshakes and Handshakes: Brownback Signs Another Kansas Tax Cut

In Missouri, governors veto tax cuts. In Kansas, apparently governors sign tax cuts… annually. (Emphasis mine)

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Proclaiming Kansas “open for business,” Gov. Sam Brownback on Thursday signed into law a measure that makes additional income tax cuts over the next five years while generating new revenue through higher sales taxes and other adjustments. …

Conservative Republicans pushed the initial cuts through last year while acknowledging that the plan was too aggressive and would need refinement in 2013. Those changes in the bill signed by Brownback on Thursday include decreasing income tax deductions over time as overall rates drop, as well as giving a less generous standard deduction for married couples and single parents.

The top in personal income tax rate [sic] will drop to 3.9 percent for 2018, down from 4.9 percent, and promises future rate reductions in years when revenues grow more than 2 percent.

Notably, Kansas’s lowest income tax bracket will also drop, from 3 percent to 2.3 percent. And taken together with last year’s cuts, Kansas’s new cuts put the state on track to return nearly $4 billion to Kansans over the next five years. Huge.

There was a great deal of talk last week about how “progress” had been made to end the Kansas-Missouri economic border war, but the “progress” appears to boil down to Kansas deciding that it will drink Missouri’s milkshake, and Missouri hoping for a handshake in return. That’s a bad, bad deal, and that deal will only get worse the longer Missouri does nothing to lighten the state’s tax load on its families and businesses.