The highest authority in Johnson County government says the administration of Governor Sam Brownback is a disaster.
From economic to health issues, criticism continues to rain on Slam Bam Sam.
Whether it’s his poor record or wishful thinking, he spawns rumors and speculation on many fronts involving the state’s political future. Will he quit and become president of Kansas State University? Will Kris Kobach run for governor in 2018? Can the Democrats find anyone to run against Kobach or any other Republican candidate?
Ed Eilert, former mayor of Overland Park and current chairman of the Johnson County Board of Commissioners, was speaking last Monday to members of the 40 Years Ago Column Club on various topics, including a new county courthouse. Then, during a question and answer session, he was asked about Brownback’s policies. Of course, everyone knows about the economic squeeze on the state budget after Brownback instituted his tax-cut plan.
Well, Eilert responded: “When the horse is dead, it’s time to get off.”
The Laffer Curve, he said, has created a mess and everyone should know that trickle-down economics ultimately results in increased expenditures. Brownback believes whole-heartedly that cutting taxes, including incomes of the more affluent, is good for business. In reality, Eilert said, Kansas faces a huge loss in revenue and that leads to dysfunctional government.
He pointed out that the Kansas Department of Transportation was losing all its good people as Brownback continued to move money away from the state agency. In fact, Eilert said, many other leaders of state agencies are leaving.
Without some sort of moderate Republican resurgence or a Democrat miraculously emerging, Brownback’s management style will continue to bury Kansas.
And Brownback isn’t the only villain.
With plenty of sarcasm, Eilert said, “We have so much voter fraud.”
Of course that was a reference to Secretary of State Kobach, who hasn’t seen a voter fraud he didn’t like. But his bravado is all a hoax.
Kobach warned Kansas lawmakers last year that he knew of at least 18 suspected cases of double voting in recent elections. With this spurious counsel, he was able to get the Legislature to make him the only secretary of state in the country with the power to prosecute in these fraud cases.
Actually, Kobach was simply continuing his attacks on U.S. immigration policy. The aliens are coming, the aliens are coming.
Instead of voter fraud, he’s exposed as the fraud. Throughout the country, studies have shown voter fraud is rare.
Oh, Kobach’s big campaign. Well, since the law took effect July 1, 2015, Kobach had filed just six cases.
Will Kobach run for govenor? Well, you know he came out for Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primary. Kansas political observers believe Kobach has his sights set on Washington, D.C., maybe with Trump appointing him to a Cabinet post or maybe even a vice-presidential spot, which would be akin to his over-stimulated approach to voter fraud.
Representatives Lynn Jenkins and Mike Pompeo are mentioned as possible candidates for governor. So is state Attorney General Derek Schmidt, the early front-runner.
Jenkins was elected representative in 2008, not mentioning anything about a divorce as she embraced her husband, Scott, after the victory. Just three days after she won, her husband filed for divorce, citing incompatibility as the reason.
Would the announcement have made any difference if it had come during her campaign? Who knows!
Now for the possibility that Brownback will take over at K-State. Why would the Board of Regents approve a guy who continues to cut the budgets of higher education? Moody’s Investors Service recently added Kansas State University, Wichita State University and Pittsburg State University to the negative outlook. The University of Kansas already had been moved there. Lower ratings tend to increase the interest rates the schools would pay on bonds they issue to raise money.
Brownback is a graduate of K-State but wouldn’t the students and faculty boo him if he took over? The Bronx cheers in the Little Apple!
His ultra conservative policies deserve many negative responses.
He has added fodder to those who believe he already has damaged the health programs in the state, from mental hospitals to Medicaid. Mental health advocates are raising concerns about a bill passed by Kansas lawmakers that would require doctors to try cheaper drugs before more expensive ones for Medicaid recipients.
The process, called step therapy, is common in many private and public health insurance plans. It was a key to resolving budget issues because it would reduce the state’s cost of providing health care for poor residents by nearly $11 million a year. Brownback signed the bill May 17.
People have different responses and tolerance levels with psychiatric drugs, said Rick Cagan, executive director of the Kansas affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. He told reporters, “Individuals and their prescribers need to have the greatest degree of flexibility to ensure a good match for patients. We don’t know as much about how the brain responds to this whole kind of cadre of medications.”
Lawmakers assured their colleagues during debates in both chambers that mental health patients would be safeguarded by a measure passed last year. The law allows insurance companies to require prior authorization for certain mental health drugs for Medicaid recipients, but it also created a nine-member committee of mental health practitioners and pharmacists who offer recommendations to a state drug review board. The board decides whether to accept the committee’s recommendations on prescription drug use. For example, the committee recently reviewed dosing limits for children’s antipsychotics.
The committee was created to address safety issues, but Amy Campbell, lobbyist for the Kansas Mental Health Coalition, worries that under this year’s bill the committee will be asked to recommend blocking access to medication because of cost. The issue is worsened for mental health patients because new anti-psychotic drugs tend to be expensive, she told reporters.
Another concern is whether mental health patients will be able to navigate administrative hurdles if they’re turned away from a pharmacy because the drug their doctor ordered was too expensive, Campbell added.
Everywhere you look in Kansas state government, there’s trouble. When the highest political authority in Johnson County calls Brownback’s policies a disaster, let us count the ways.