Much national attention has portrayed the upcoming election for Kansas governor as a referendum on the efficacy of tax reform, but that really isn’t the issue. The real issue is whether government should spend whatever it wants or provide quality services at a better price in order to keep taxes low. Unfortunately, some people simply aren’t going to allow that cultural shift to happen – even if it means distorting the truth.

Conservative governors are condescendingly being warned against blithely peddling tax cuts to boost economic growth. They are admonished for daring to reduce taxes because government needs every dollar to nurture growth. One can almost envision the elites angrily chastising conservatives for not being obedient disciples of their big-government teachings. “Hey, you didn’t build that! Have you forgotten everything we taught you? How dare you rob government of its due.”

They falsely decry “draconian” spending cuts while Kansas is setting a new spending record this year. They rail that per-pupil education expenditures have been “devastated” when in reality, per-pupil expenditures set records each of the last two years and will set another new record this year at $13,268 – up from $12,330 in 2010.

If trailing national economic metrics is a sign of failure, where was the outrage in Kathleen Sebelius’ first term? Private sector jobs in Kansas grew a dismal 1.3 percent between 2002 and 2006, while the nation grew 4.9 percent. Kansas’ long tradition of economic stagnation is actually the reason for tax reform and reversing that trend won’t happen in a year or two.

The early signs, though, are encouraging. The private sector only added 2.3 percent more jobs between 1998 and 2012 while our income-taxing peers gained 3.4 percent; Kansas was only 68 percent as good as our peers in the past. But since December 2012, Kansas is at 88 percent of our peers’ growth, growing 2.5% versus 2.9 percent. Private sector GDP growth beat the national average last year and Kansas had the fourteenth best personal income growth rate in the second quarter of 2014. Creighton University’s Mid-America Business Conditions Index has Kansas leading a nine-state region for September.

So how does a state rationally reduce taxes? James Carville might say, “It’s the spending, stupid.” Every state provides education, social services, highways, etc. but the low-tax states provide those services at a better price. In 2012, the states that tax income spent 49 percent more per-resident than those without an income tax. Kansas was 37 percent higher.

Kansas does have a structural budget issue because of bi-partisan resistance to reducing the cost of government when taxes were reduced. Fortunately, the budget can be balanced without any service reductions or tax increases by making better use of existing resources. Our 5-year plan identifies large, unnecessary cash surpluses that could be returned to the General Fund. A half billion dollars of sales taxes are annually sent directly to the Department of Transportation without being budgeted, and some of that money results in surplus balances; annual transfers can be reduced without impacting highway projects. Placing new hires in a 401(k) plan would save $147 million in the first four years.

Implementing these and a few other opportunities would more than resolve the structural issue and leave very healthy ending balances. And even if revenue estimates decline, state government would only need to operate less than 5 percent more efficiently under our plan.

Kansas and other states can reduce taxes by providing the same or better quality service at a better price. Legislators and media just need to remember that government is supposed to work for citizens.

Dave Trabert is president of the Kansas Policy Institute.

Laptops, Tablets, MacBook Air, Trios — the list of expensive electronic devices that K-12 schools are buying to achieve so-called “1-to-1” broadband media access is endless. And the cost to school districts for buying these short-lived devices is even more astounding. At least you would assume that all of the research shows that this technology provides a better way to learn. You would be wrong.

In this June issue of Psychological Science, researchers Mueller (Princeton) and Oppenheimer (UCLA) published their multiple experiments with college students who either took notes on a laptop or wrote their class notes by hand. The results were clear. Students with laptops typed out what the professor said, much like a court recorder, without really thinking about what was being said. Meanwhile, students who took handwritten notes listened to the instructor and then rewrote in their own words what they understood.

Many teachers see this in class every day. I taught one recent class in a large lecture hall. A first-semester freshman came in ahead of class each day to take a seat alongside the wall where there was an electrical outlet. He unpacked his new laptop and plugged it in. He also had a cell phone that not only recorded my lecture and class discussions, but had an “app” that converted the recorded words to text. On top of that, he typed out what I said on his laptop.

My freshman classes have a quiz at the end of class every day. Half of making it through school is showing up and some need to develop that habit. That daily quiz gives both of us a day-by-day indication of how well they understand the textbook, the teacher and the student discussions. My new student, armed by all of the technology that his family could buy him, started the semester with the illusion that his technology would give him an advantage. Instead, it pulled him down. He was so busy typing and managing his equipment that it kept him from paying attention in class and taking notes based on what he understood. In spite of all of his high-tech toys—indeed, because of them—he dropped out of his classes halfway through the semester.

This is the time of year when college students meet advisors to enroll in spring classes. Not only do many good students prefer to avoid online courses and “PowerPoint Profs,” they also try to avoid instructors who deliver all assignments online through various “Learning Management Systems.” Many have stories about professors who place all assignments online. The student has to access the materials, do the work, and then upload the finished assignment back to the teacher. Sometimes it works smoothly. But often it does not.

Students are reluctant to complain that they spend more time trying to download and upload lessons than they spend actually completing the assignments. In some cases, a three-credit hour course should actually award two of the credits for tech-management and one credit for the content, since that is the actual proportion of time spent on that “classwork.” And what “tech” they learn will be obsolete in a few years.

At the K-12 level, school administrators get together and brag how they have eliminated textbook fees and gone paperless. Instead of paying $80 a year for textbook rental, the family is expected to have broadband internet at home and an updated computer—total costs that exceed a thousand dollars a year!

In higher education, administrators likewise tout their “techiness.” They consider any tech problems to be a failure of Luddite teachers. But again, actual research shows that the “millennials” are not any more tech-savvy than K-12 teachers and college professors across all ages. Instructional technology support at universities now exceeds the cost of the largest department and contributes to the fast-growing cost of a college education.
But when it comes to improving education, skill with a video-app on a cell phone or typing on tablets simply does not translate into improvement in classroom learning. Indeed, the Mueller-Oppenheimer research indicates that technology can be a handicap.