The recently overturned Kansas tax experiment was sold to Kansans with a tall tale: “Big income tax cuts bring economic prosperity without any pain.” Eventually most Kansans realized the story was false, and their legislators ended the experiment with a bipartisan veto override. Then, very quickly, a new story began to circulate: “The tax experiment failed because Kansas spends too much.”

Legislators on the losing side of the override vote made speeches claiming Kansas had a spending problem, not a revenue problem. Sam Brownback denounced “excessive spending” even as he signed the newly-passed state budget. Tax cut apologists at places like the American Legislative Exchange Council began arguing that tax cuts work, it’s just that in Kansas spending was not reduced enough to match revenue losses. And just days after the override vote, Kris Kobach entered the governor’s race, blasting the vote as an effort to “feed” state government spending.

It’s easy to discern that the too-much-spending rhetoric is the old tall tale morphed into a new form. Here’s the test: If the talk was credible, the talkers would be able to provide a coherent list of spending to be cut from the state budget. But they don’t. Brownback could have issued line-item vetoes to knock out the spending he considered excessive. But he didn’t.

If Kansas spends too much, what should be cut? Name it. Education? Highways? Health services?

Realistic spending cuts are produced by getting rid of inefficiencies, or finding less expensive alternatives to current practices, or convincing constituents that something does not need to be done anymore. That happens through the grind of the annual budget process, through vigorous and detailed debate. It can be hard, tedious work, far different from just declaring that spending is too high.

In the just completed legislative session, lawmakers created a reasonable budget. The process was open. They grappled with the recommendations from an efficiency study and seriously worked to address the school finance court case. The result they produced was not lavish. Many needs were left unmet. Even so, revenue had fallen so low as a result of the Brownback tax cuts that Kansas was almost a billion dollars short of meeting expenses. Lawmakers had no choice but to end the tax experiment

Expenses in the Kansas budget almost all go to education, human services, highways, and public safety. No easy cuts there. Citizens want and expect those services. Certainly lawmakers should always be on the lookout for ways to keep spending as low as possible, but future expenses are far more likely to go up than down as lawmakers work to get school funding back to an adequate level and undo the damage from raiding the highway fund.

Kansas has lots of work ahead to regain financial stability, but excessive spending isn’t one of the problems requiring a solution.

Those complaining of overspending in Kansas without offering specific places to cut lead the state nowhere. They tell a tall tale.

Duane Goossen formerly served 12 years as Kansas Budget Director.

By RON WILSON
Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development

July 14, 2015. An amazing scientific moment occurs, as a satellite from earth flies directly by the dwarf planet Pluto. Just like the man who originally discovered Pluto 85 years ago, the man who helped lead this mission to Pluto came from rural Kansas.

During the last two weeks, we have learned about the discoverer of Pluto, Clyde Tombaugh, and his boyhood home of Burdett, Kansas. Today, in the third and final profile in this series, we will learn about the man who was the project manager for the modern-day exploration of Pluto.

Glen Fountain is the recently-retired project manager for NASA’s New Horizons Pluto-Kuiper Belt mission at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. Glen grew up in western Reno County, Kansas. As a child, he was interested in science, and he found that his involvement in Boy Scouts broadened his horizons and encouraged his work ethic.

Glen went to Hutchinson Community College and then on to Kansas State where he earned advanced degrees in electrical engineering. “It was an excellent education and provided a foundation for a good career,” he said.

Glen’s family often vacationed in Colorado so he thought he would look for a job there, but a friend told him about the Applied Physics Lab in Maryland. “I figured I’d come east for five years and then go to Colorado. I still haven’t made it out there,” Glen said with a smile. He and his wife Sharon make their home in Maryland.

“I’ve had a great career doing interesting things,” Glen said. At the Applied Physics Lab, he worked on navigation satellites and other projects.

After Voyager flew by Neptune in 1989, the scientific community noted that NASA had gone to every one of our solar system’s planets at the time except Pluto. However, the estimated cost of going to Pluto was, um, astronomical. In fact, the agency even announced, “The Pluto mission is dead.” This generated strong pushback from the scientific community and the public, and eventually the project was reinstated.

In 2001, the Applied Physics Lab was selected to lead the project. Glen Fountain became the project manager in 2003.

The scope of the project was massive. “Many people didn’t think we could do it,” Glen said.

NASA called the project the New Horizons Pluto-Kuiper Belt mission, or New Horizons for short. The New Horizons spacecraft was launched in 2006. New Horizons was the fastest spacecraft ever to leave earth. Even so, it took 9.5 years and three billion miles to get to Pluto.

“We hit the target within 40 miles and arrived within 90 seconds of when we wanted to arrive,” Glen said. That’s like a person on Earth shooting a BB and hitting the exact pebble they were aiming for at the bottom of a crater on the moon. What’s more, it enabled the spacecraft to capture amazing images and the most close-up pictures of Pluto in history.

“We’ve found Pluto to be a much more fascinating place than any of us expected,” he said. “It’s a fantastic place and we’ve learned a lot.” The mission continues as New Horizons will fly into the Kuiper Belt in 2019.

This mission also showed an appreciation for history. The New Horizons spacecraft carried some of the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, the man who found Pluto first. Glen Fountain invited Clyde Tombaugh’s family to come to the headquarters for the flyby.

This was a wonderful way to close the circle of discovery. It was especially fitting because Glen Fountain, like Tombaugh, grew up in rural Kansas. Glen Fountain was originally from Arlington, Kansas, population 473. Now, that’s rural.

For more information on the Pluto flyby, go to www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main.

On July 14, 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft flew directly by Pluto, some three billion miles away from Earth, and is continuing into the Kuiper Belt. We commend Glen Fountain and all those involved in the New Horizons project for making a difference with their deep space, scientific expedition. It is exciting to hear that this project is still exploring new horizons.

By the writers of Insight Kansas

Sam Brownback pushed one of the paradoxes of American politics to its limit. It is a truism that Americans espouse a narrative of generally anti-government views and conservative rhetoric. Even the label “conservative” polls far, far better than does “liberal” or “progressive,” because it is how we like to see ourselves—especially around here.

Yet idealistic conservative reformers never fail to snag on the horns of reality—voters like the sound of lower taxes and smaller government, but not when it comes to our own kids’ schools, the roads that carry us to work, aid to our cash-strapped rural hospitals, and all the other basic services that make up what state government actually does. These are hardly waste, fraud, or abuse, they require tax dollars, and they can be expensive. Brownback tried through sheer force of will to align reality with the small-government rhetoric.

In the end, he failed.

Michael Smith (Dr. Michael Smith is a professor of political science at Emporia State University)

Sam Brownback’s governorship essentially ended when Kansas legislators rescinded his tax experiment through a bipartisan veto override. His departure puts a period at the end of a sentence already written. Brownback’s 2012 decision to sign a dramatic tax cut bill almost solely defined his governorship. The tax cuts threw Kansas into fiscal disarray and threatened public education and good highways, things that many Kansans hold dear.

Constant budget troubles required all of the state’s political energy to be focused on crisis management rather than putting Kansas in a strong position for the future. Kansans finally had enough, changed the makeup of the Legislature, and demanded financial stability and a fairer tax code. Under Brownback, a tax experiment rose and fell.

With his exit, the work of repairing the damage can begin.

Duane Goossen (Duane Goossen served as Director of the Budget for three Kansas Governors)

Sam Brownback campaigned for governor in 2010 with a roadmap that addressed mainstream issues, such as economic progress, educational improvement, and childhood poverty. But once elected, he quickly showed that he would govern in alignment with a far-right faction of the Republican Party and its associated interests.

Governor Brownback sought to reverse long-standing state policy on taxes, school finance, and Supreme Court appointments, among other issues, and for the most his radical vision for Kansas fell short.

Brownback will be remembered for his reckless tax experiment. His fanatical drive to eliminate the state income tax produced unbalanced budgets, a depleted state treasury, unfair taxes, record debt, credit downgrades, and lagging growth. In the end a bipartisan coalition—a majority of Republican state lawmakers, along with Democrats—overrode the governor’s veto and ended his experiment.

The Brownback tax experiment now serves as a cautionary message to governors and lawmakers throughout the country.

Kansas voters gave Brownback a landslide margin in 2010 but never endorsed his radical model of red-state governance. The governor’s approval ratings steadily declined to the lowest in nation. In 2016, voters rebuked the governor on taxes, school finance, and Supreme Court appointments and signaled the end of his governorship.

H. Edward Flentje (Dr. Ed Flentje is a professor emeritus of public policy at Wichita State University and worked in the administration of Kansas Governor Mike Hayden)

Sam Brownback was a man of faith lost in a world of pragmatic skepticism. His attempt to bring his deep belief in minimalist government with the smallest financial cost and the power of unfettered, laissez-faire private sector economics ran aground on Kansas realities. He had his true believers. Even now they are prepared to accept the notion that government steals every penny it extorts, wastes it despite universal objection from the public, and never accomplishes anything as well as the private sector would do, if given the chance. The trouble for Brownback was that those true believers did not grow in faith and numbers. Reality overwhelmed prophecy.

As Mrs. Brownback was caught saying to her husband the governor, “Are they booing us?”

Mark Peterson (Dr. Mark Peterson is a professor of political science at Washburn University)

Sam Brownback, by some reckoning the most popular electoral politician in Kansas history, has ended his political career by simply drifting away. Honestly, save for his veto pen, he has not proven a major force in Kansas politics and policy-making since his narrow reelection victory in 2014. Even his signature tax bill, enacted in 2012, resulted less from his careful plans and more from the awkward passage of a bill that he didn’t initially endorse. His time in the Senate produced little of consequence, compared to such stalwarts as Bob Dole, Nancy Kassebaum, and Frank Carlson.

In the end, Sam Brownback was remarkably disengaged, especially in the last few years, as his tax policies turned to dust. We’re left with an empty smile and the memories of a sweater vest.

Burdett Loomis (Dr. Burdett Loomis is a professor of political science and the University of Kansas and worked in the administration of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius)

At the end of May, we moved our office. Our new office is now on Main Street in Hays. It is a comfortable location.

In our rush to get set up, we put up some essential artwork just to make the new office look decent. This last Saturday, I was rummaging through the storage room. I realized that there were some photographs from the old office that I had not taken the time to hang. I even thought about not hanging those old, personal photographs.

I pulled them out of the box and I realized it was important to put them up. Let me just go through a few of those with you.

One was a photograph of my grandmother’s brother, Billy Tom. Billy Tom was a pilot entering into World War II. Unfortunately for him he was in Philippines at the time the war broke out, was captured, was one of the involuntary participants in the Bataan Death March, and spent years in prison camps in unspeakable conditions.

He was my grandmother’s older brother. She worshiped him. During the time of his captivity, it was thought by the family that he had died. It was with great excitement and joy that they learned at the end of the war that he was still alive. She had cards from him from his rehabilitation camp in Cuba, where he was sent by the Army to gain weight before he came home. My grandmother told stories of the homecoming. He married his sweetheart. He stayed in the military service.

My grandmother’s heart was again broken when about a year and a half after his return from the prison camp, his experimental jet plane exploded over Langley Airforce Base.

We do a lot of work with Veterans Pension Planning. I hung that photograph on the wall near our VA Specialist’s office. I think it is important to remember the sacrifices made by our veterans. It is important for us to remember that it touched us personally.

Another photograph was of my grandfather. My grandfather (Pop) was the sheriff of Hill County, Texas. He was a big, tall man. After being a sheriff, he became a police officer and subsequently assistant chief of police in a suburb of Fort Worth, Texas. He always had an interesting philosophy as a police officer: If he stopped someone for speeding or some other minor citation, if they would take time to listen to his lecture, he would not write them a ticket. He thought if they would listen rather than just being angry about a ticket, it would go further on keeping them safe.

Pop was an honorable man. He was unassuming, methodical in his thinking and always did what was right. He had one true love, my grandmother. They were married when she was 17 and they spent only one night apart (when Pop was injured in a train wreck) in almost 60 years of marriage. She was his partner and best friend in life. He always treated her with the utmost respect.

I hung Pop’s photograph in one of our conference rooms. Pop brought integrity to everything that he did. It is a great reminder of the integrity that we should all bring to our lives, our dealings, and the people we deal with.

Finally I found my grandmother’s picture. My grandmother was the inspiration for me transitioning to elder care services. Why? She was a caregiver her whole life. She cared for her own mother for over 30 years. She had two sons that were hemophiliacs. She learned how to give IV’s of whole blood into their body in order to keep them alive. She was with them when they both passed. When my grandfather had a stroke and when he broke his neck in a train accident, she nurtured him back to good health, in her home. At one time, she helped care for my sister and me when my parents were going through a very tough time.

When I was called on to be a caregiver for my grandmother, it was the job I took most seriously. Saturday I hung her picture in the main office area of our life care planning team. I want our team, and me, to remember why we do this. I want us to remember that we should treat our clients just like I would want my grandmother to be treated, and as my grandfather would expect.

This weekend of hanging photographs of my grandparents and my great uncle reminded me that it is never too late to remember. It is never too late to fall back on the lessons that you have learned from your family members. Just because you are 63, 73, 83 or even 93 does not mean that you cannot take time to recall the past and let those lessons guide you.

Randy Clinkscales of Clinkscales Elder Law Practice, PA, Hays, Kansas, is an elder care attorney, practicing in western Kansas. To contact him, please send an email to [email protected]. Disclaimer: The information in the column is for general information purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Each case is different and outcomes depend on the fact of each case and the then applicable law. For specific questions, you should contact a qualified attorney.

Hello from Goodland! I am completing more stops on my July Listening Tour this weekend! Hope to see you at one of these stops:

WILSON
Saturday, July 29, 8:30 a.m. – Grandma’s Soda Shop, 2524 Ave. E

LINCOLN
Saturday, July 29, 10 a.m. – Finch Theater Community Room, 122 E. Lincoln Ave.

As always, if you have any questions, concerns or know of ways my office can be of assistance, don’t hesitate to contact us.

See the above video for my conversation with my mentor and Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, Dr. Phil Roe! Watch our conversation about the important work the Chairman is doing to help our veterans.

In the House
Meeting with Secretary Perdue

Grateful to U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue for joining those of us in the Congressional Western Caucus for lunch last Wednesday. We had a great conversation on trade, particularly with Mexico.

He even took a moment to show off the big tom he shot. Big spurs, long beard. Well done, Secretary Perdue!

Remembering Amelia Earhart

This past Sunday would have been Amelia Earhart’s 120th birthday. Two weeks ago, I spoke from the House Floor to recognize this Kansan’s important contributions to our state, aviation, women and our national pride.

You can watch that speech here.

Happy birthday, Senator Bob Dole!

July 22 was Senator Bob Dole’s 94th birthday.

Senator Dole embodies what it means to be a public servant, a leader and a Kansan. I am proud to call him a friend, and I am humbled to bear the awesome responsibility of serving in the Congressional seat he one held. For as long as I can remember, Bob Dole has been a role model. Today, he is a mentor and continues as a shining example of international leadership. This serves as a great occasion for my colleagues to remember leaders like Senator Dole, who never forgot the human impact of each bill, who truly serves the public, and who never forgot where he was from – Russell, Kansas.

Watch my speech about his birthday.

Ag Committee Meeting on Rural Infrastructure

Last week, the House Ag Committee took a break from farm bill hearings to talk about another topic vital to rural America: Infrastructure.

This is not only regarding transportation. Many folks across the country take for granted the power of access to the internet. As we represent our rural communities and businesses, we must ensure that improved communications technologies and broadband infrastructure are realities all Kansans and Kansas businesses.

In case you hadn’t noticed, much of the state is mired in the “dog days” of summer. Excessive heat warnings. Abundant sunshine. High humidity.

You may not like this weather, but this is July and August in Kansas. It’s what we live with most years. And while it may be nothing to brag about, Kansans and the ancient Romans have a common appreciation (maybe aversion is a better word) to hot summer days.

While some Kansans are fortunate to work, and most of us live in air-conditioned homes, the Romans were forced to retreat to the seaside, a shady tree or a dip at the local bathhouse to keep cool.

So where did the term “dog days” come from?

Ancient Romans noted that the brightest star in the night sky – Sirius – appeared each year during hot, sultry weather. Sirius, which originates from the Greek word for “scorcher,” became known as the Dog Star. Consequently, the hot, steamy weather it brought was called, “dog days.”

Believing the star caused the miserable weather, ancient Romans sacrificed brown dogs to appease the rage of Sirius.

Instead of mythology, astrology or old wives’ tales, we have meteorology to help us define what’s going on with our weather. Based on the predictability of today’s weather – and it has improved dramatically – some people might argue we should revert to the techniques used by the early Romans.

Somehow, I seem to have started this column on the wrong foot. Maybe it’s the heat or lack of moisture. Anyway, let me begin again.

What does the rest of the summer and fall weather in Kansas look like?

To answer this question, I turned to Bill Gargan, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Topeka. Gargan has studied the weather in Kansas for years.

Because of a large ridge of high pressure setting above the Sunflower State, July and August temperatures will probably be higher than normal. This could mean somewhere in the high 80s or mid 90s and even triple digit temperatures, Gargan says.

Moisture amounts could be above or below “normal.” It’s difficult to predict moisture amounts during the summer months in Kansas. There just aren’t enough signals to rely on.

Thunderstorms will continue to be spotty with the potential for some heavy rains with these isolated storms.

“An isolated, small spot on the Kansas map may receive an inch or two while just a mile or less away may only pick up a trace of moisture,” says the National Weather Service lead forecaster.

The chance of any wide-spread rains during the rest of the summer is unlikely although not impossible. Instead, Kansas farmers and ranchers could experience scattered showers and if they’re lucky enough to experience one over cropland or pasture, they should consider themselves fortunate.

Moisture is going to be hit and miss for the rest of the summer and into the fall, Gargan says. The first early estimates, are little more than a guess, indicate above normal temperatures into the fall.

With the hottest days of summer bearing down on Kansas reach for your water bottle and keep your straw hat firmly anchored on your head. The rest of the summer may be a real scorcher – maybe even one for the record books.

What happens remains anybody’s guess. Farmers and livestock producers will keep a watchful eye toward the western sky, keep their fingers crossed and pray for rain.

As for brown dogs in farm and ranch country – beware.

John Schlageck, a Hoxie native, is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas.

By JOHN P. TRETBAR

Producers in Kansas who sell oil outside the state should take note of a ruling from the Third Circuit Court of Appeals last week. The court upheld a district court ruling in favor of companies who bought oil from SemCrude a decade ago just prior to the Tulsa firm’s bankruptcy.

That oil came from mostly Kansas producers who hadn’t been paid. Their security interests in the oil had been “perfected” under Kansas law, but not in Oklahoma and Delaware, where SemCrude did business. The companies who bought that oil from SemCrude were off the hook, according to the ruling, because they had no knowledge of the security interests in Kansas. The National Law Review notes that the Third Circuit’s decision should serve as a stark warning for oil producers to not rely on automatic perfection provisions of state law, and to take efforts to put subsequent purchasers on actual notice. Kansas producers lost millions of dollars in the bankruptcy settlement.

Baker Hughes reported a drop of one oil rig and a drop of one seeking natural gas in it’s national weekly total Friday. There are currently 950 active rigs nationwide. Canada has 206 active rigs, up 15. Independent reports that the Kansas active rig count was unchanged at 36. They’re drilling at one site in Barton County and moving in completion tools at two more. In Ellis County, operators report drilling ahead at one site, and they’re moving in completion tools at another.

Baker Hughes, widely regarded as authoritative, has not reported a single active drilling rig in Kansas in about a year, while Independent Oil & Gas has reported between two and three dozen active rigs during that period. On Friday, Baker Hughes didn’t even list Kansas among the 14 “Major State Variances” in its weekly report.

New drilling permits (and new well completions) in Kansas continue to outpace last year’s dismal numbers, but are still well behind the totals from two years ago. Operators filed 30 permits for drilling at new locations last week. There were 13 in eastern Kansas and 17 west of Wichita, including one new permit each in Barton and Ellis County. So far this year, there are 782 new drilling permits on file, compared to just 480 a year ago and 1,356 two years ago.

Independent Oil & Gas Service reported a total of 23 completions statewide last week, 13 of which were dry holes. There were 16 completions in eastern Kansas and seven in western Kansas, including two in Barton County. One of those was a dry hole. Year-to-date, the state has seen 740 new well completions, which is up from the 661 completions reported last year at this time, but well below the 2,631 completions reported two years ago at this time.

The energy-industry downturn cost the State of Wyoming 25,000 workers, about ten percent of its total workforce, between 2014 and 2016. The Casper Star-Tribune reports a slight uptick in the oil and gas employment today, up 1,700 jobs compared to a year ago.

A judge deciding whether to shut down the Dakota Access pipeline while more environmental review is completed says he’ll allow North Dakota’s main energy trade group to weigh in. The North Dakota Petroleum Council and others maintain their input is important because none of the parties in a lawsuit speaks for the general oil industry. Judge James Boasberg might also allow some national energy and manufacturing groups to have a say, though he didn’t immediately rule. Roughly half of the state’s daily production is being shipped through the pipeline., and the council maintains a shutdown “would pull the rug out from under the North Dakota oil industry.”

The Trump administration has not specifically said it will target Venezuela’s oil industry for sanctions, but they’ve gone after top Venezuelan officials, and US refiners worry that the country’s oil industry could be next. The San Antonio Express-News reports officials on the Texas coast are mobilizing against such a move with a letter to the president. Such a move could have a big impact along the Gulf Coast including in Corpus Christi, Texas, where Venezuela’s Citgo refines 157,000 barrels per day and employs more than 1,000 people. Citgo refines a total of nearly 750,000 barrels of crude oil in the US, at that site and two others in Louisiana and Illinois. The Chairman of the Port of Corpus Christi Commission and others are warning the president of a significant economic impact on refineries in the US that are operated by Citgo. Venezuelan lawmakers warned Tuesday the country could be headed for a “catastrophic” meltdown if the United States limits or blocks its crude exports amid an escalating struggle over the fate of the socialist administration.

The “Raging Grannies” have lost their case in federal court in Spokane, Washington. That’s the nickname of a group of people who filed a lawsuit seeking to stop coal and oil trains from moving through Spokane. A federal judge last week dismissed the lawsuit that challenged the primacy of the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act of 1995. The lawsuit was filed after failed efforts to ban the trains using local initiatives. The controversy culminated with the arrests of three women, all grandmothers, who blocked rail lines in the Spokane area last August.

Three ocean-front California local governments are taking legal action against oil companies, saying they’ve known for almost 50 years that fossil fuels are changing the climate and causing sea rise. Northern California’s Marin and San Mateo counties and the city of Imperial Beach in Southern California filed the complaints last week in California Superior Court, naming 37 energy producers.

Ever wonder why you never hear romantic stories about a guy proposing marriage to the love of his life while waiting for the fast-food employee to hand the fries out the window?

It’s because, we hope, it never happens.

But that’s pretty close to the proposal made by lawyers for the state at the Kansas Supreme Court oral arguments last week that its roughly $300 million in new money (atop about $4 billion spent now), two-year school finance plan will bring a lifetime of success to Kansas schoolchildren who attend public K-12 schools.

The state’s arguments were essentially that the low-buck new school finance plan passed this session will provide school districts enough money to turn out graduates we’ll be proud of, who will go on to technical education or higher education or be bright enough right out of high school to find jobs that will provide security for them for the rest of their lives.

Oh, that’s if the new plan for teaching the children more effectively succeeds…and we’ll get back to you in a couple years to see how that works.

If the Supreme Court accepts that proposal, well, then the Legislature has just scored a major victory. It convinced those justices to just sit quietly in the car, and presume that you’re going to share the fries with them, and the children of the state.

But at the end of the hearings last week, it didn’t look like the court is willing to accept that proposal. It was just fries, not even a dinner with tablecloths.

Only seven Kansans—justices of the court—know now whether the Legislature’s plan for school funding which includes new testing and new direction of spending of state resources by local school boards will satisfy the constitutional requirements for adequately financing public schools. But, admittedly, it’s the cheapest solution suggested to the court. Educators, including the State Board of Education, recommend about three times the Legislature’s increase in spending.

If the Legislature’s plan is upheld, well, lawmakers can figure that they won’t have to raise taxes on anyone in the year leading to the statewide offices and Kansas House elections. That’s probably the biggest issue that is going to face those candidates in the next year. You never go wrong by not raising taxes on registered voters. But if the new money and the detailed plan on how school districts are to spend it doesn’t provide adequate funding according to court decree, then we won’t have to wait for test scores in two or three years to see if the plan was successful. We’ll know by the outcome of next year’s elections.

Of course, the biggest issue is the students and whether the new plan provides us a generation of students that is going to be successful once the young adults leave school…and whether Kansas can wait two or three years to see if it works.

The plan rejected? Lawmakers go back to work probably this fall to try another plan…and whatever that yields, it’s going to have to be linked to a tax increase of some sort.  There is still a wide range of services which are exempt from sales taxes, and there is still the statewide 20-mill tax for support of public schools, but lawmakers have about run out of room for increasing general sales taxes and income taxes.

So, does this cheap date work? Or does the Supreme Court decide that the proposal it is considering isn’t just for a few years but a lifetime of success for Kansas schoolchildren?

That’s what the folks in the Statehouse are waiting to hear.

Syndicated by Hawver News Company LLC of Topeka; Martin Hawver is publisher of Hawver’s Capitol Report—to learn more about this nonpartisan statewide political news service, visit the website at www.hawvernews.com

I remember the Skunk in the cartoons from years ago named PePe Le Pew. PePe fancied himself a bit of a Don Juan and was always trying to woo other female animal characters with his charm. His most famous pick-up line began with the words “Ah my little lotus flower.”

When driving through the McPherson Valley Wetlands lately I’ve noticed amazing yellow flowers in some of the many ponds. This morning I donned my waders and got a firsthand look at what I was seeing. I crossed the surrounding drainage ditch and clamored up the tall dike on the back side. What greeted me was like something from an exotic Chinese water garden. I’ve always called them water lilies, but Jason Black, Public Lands Manager for the Kansas Dept of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism who manages the entire McPherson Valley Wetlands system tells me their proper name is American Lotus, and says they are in fact native to Kansas.

They filled the shallow waters in the corners of the pond like a mat of immense green leaves dotted with bold, pale, yellowish-white flowers the size of cereal bowls. Most of the time these plants are shown with their enormous leaves floating on the water, but here where the water was shallow they actually rise above the water’s surface. Most of the leaves on these plants were about a foot wide, give or take, and the flowers that were fully opened measured 6 inches across. Leaves on older American Lotus plants can reach 24 inches in diameter. An interesting phenomenon is that American Lotus leaves never get wet; water forms a droplet on them and just runs off.

Each flower has a bright, yellow, round center resembling a little double-layer cake. When the flower dies, that center swells into a seed pod 3 or 4 inches wide resembling a wasp nest with several individual seed compartments that each contain a single marble-sized seed. As it further dries the seed pod droops toward the water and the seeds eventually spill out and lay on the bottom of the pond. The seeds can lay dormant in the mud for several years before germinating, which occurs when the hard outer shell softens. The plants grow from tuberous roots called rhizomes which can become up to 50 feet long and can have dozens of plants growing from them. American Lotus plants will grow in the still water of any pond, lake or stream that is shallower than 3 feet.

Waterfowl and other wildlife will eat the seeds and tubers if they can get to them. Native Americans peeled and cooked the tubers to eat as vegetables or dried and stored them for winter food. They ate the seeds in soups and other dishes or roasted them like chestnuts. Many Great Plains tribes attributed mystic powers to the American Lotus plants. A poultice made from the pulp of the root was thought to relieve the pain of inflammatory ailments such as arthritis, and a mash made from the blossoms and leaves was said to have anti-fungal properties. Although little sound research exists concerning the medicinal properties of the American Lotus, a close cousin, the Indian or Sacred Lotus which is native to Asia and Australia has been used medicinally for generations. It is known to relieve asthma, inflammation, headache and fatigue, and is said to promote good digestion.

When I first visited Kansas over 30 years ago, I either bought or was given a decorative seed pod of some sort that was brown and hard with numerous round compartments in it, each containing a round hard seed of some sort. I was told they were called “lake nuts.” That decorative object has long since disappeared, but at the time I remember no one seemed to know what the heck it really was. Guess what? After writing this column, I now know it was an American Lotus seed pod! I never cease to be amazed at the wildlife and plants which flourish here in Kansas that common sense tells me shouldn’t be here in our prairie state at all. For instance, beavers and bobcats here in Kansas, really; and now waterlillies!!! Of the American Lotus someone has said, “Whenever you doubt your self-worth, remember the lotus flower.

Even though it plunges to life beneath the mud, it does not allow the dirt that surrounds it to affect its growth or beauty.”Continue to Explore Kansas Outdoors!

Steve Gilliland, Inman, can be contacted by email at [email protected].

It’s the time when heat and pests aggravate the best of gardeners. It’s hard to keep tomatoes setting fruit when days and nights break record temperatures. To compound matters, grasshoppers and tomato hornworms appear and gnaw tender fruits, leaves, and stems to little nubbins. Plains green thumbs frequently face daunting challenges. So do horticulturists everywhere, I’ve learned.

Trying something new, I experimented with a high altitude garden in the Rockies. Of course, that means inhaling thinner air, but cool mornings and nights compensate for short breath. Despite planting later and facing shorter harvest dates, I sweat less and face fewer pests. Or so I thought.

No one told me about picket pins, Wyoming rodents that love cruciferous veggies. Since this is an experiment, I rented a community garden plot. I figured I’d learn from locals used to the altitude and temperatures. My 8 x 4 foot raised bed came filled with fertile soil just waiting for me to show up with trowel and seeds. In no time, tidy rows of kale, kohlrabi, lettuce, spinach, radishes and onions absorbed soil nutrients, spring rains, and sunshine. I patted myself on the back, thinking my mountain garden would escape difficulties I’d faced back home.

Once sun warmed the earth in this raised bed, greens grew thick and plentifully. In no time, we enjoyed fresh spinach and lettuce, crisp radishes, and crunchy onions. It was lovely to harvest veggies that didn’t have a single beetle or grasshopper bite taken out of them. My pleasure didn’t last long.

Within days, something had nibbled away at kale and kohlrabi planted near the garden’s edge. I looked for insect droppings but found none. A high fence around the garden prevented trespassing deer so I couldn’t imagine what devoured my dream harvest. It was certainly healthy because it consumed entire rows of healthful greens.

Finally, I caught the thieves. Bigger than chipmunks but smaller than prairie dogs, they were speedy rodents. I learned they’re ground squirrels that natives call picket pins because of their tendency to stand up straight outside their holes , looking like stakes that keep a horse from straying. They also really like cruciferous vegetables.

A fellow gardener lost her cabbage plants to the hungry hordes. Yes, hordes. These creatures reproduce like rabbits so scores of them call the hillside near our fenced plot home. While deer can’t leap over the ten-foot fence, these intruders have no trouble sneaking between posts or under gates. I caught one perched on the wooden edge framing my rented garden. He unhurriedly nibbled what was left of my last kohlrabi plant before scampering out of reach. I swear he winked when he left.

Unconcerned with his human visitor, he didn’t run until I swung a canvas garden bag his direction. Ironically, this guy and his buddies have done far more damage than any grasshoppers or hornworms that visited my Kansas gardens. The verdict is still out about exchanging high plains planting for mountain tilling. What I have figured out is that no matter where vegetables grow, there’s a pest waiting to snatch them from my plate.

Native Kansan Karen Madorin is a local writer and retired teacher who loves sharing stories about places, people, critters, plants, food, and history of the High Plains.

I have waited a few years to publish this case. The administrator involved has retired. And since I have worked with teachers from border to border in Kansas, no one should attempt to guess which school I describe.

She was a veteran biology teacher with 15 years of experience in the Kansas classroom. Her husband worked in a corporate office in the same community. But his corporation moved its offices to another city, still in Kansas. While he transferred to the new facilities over Christmas break, she remained to complete the school year and also to help sell their house.

Fortunately, the high school in their new community had a biology vacancy. This was an opportunity to continue as a biology teacher in a school not far from their new home. And this was not a high-poverty school district.

However, in her job interview with an older male administrator, she was told bluntly: With your track record, you are by far the best teaching candidate. But with 15 years experience, you are too expensive. Several applicants who just finished student teaching would enter at the bottom of the pay scale. But if you re-apply and only claim 5 years of teaching experience, we could afford to hire you.

To refuse the offer could mean taking a more distant vacancy and driving several counties away each day, if such vacancies became available and were not taken by new graduates. She felt she had no choice but to agree to teach at the 5-years-of-experience salary scale.

Kansas salary scales vary but annual pay steps average about $500 per year. So she was receiving approximately $5,000 less in pay per year than her co-workers with equivalent experience. That amounts to about $125,000 less in her 25 remaining years of teaching!

This practice is downright wrong and unethical. I have never heard of a male teacher being asked to claim fewer years of experience. This is a Neanderthal attitude that only men are valued breadwinners. The attitude that work by women is not as important or worthy of equal pay is an 1800’s attitude that should never have seen the light of the 1900’s, let alone survive into the 21st century. The few cases I know have always involved an older male administrator.

Unfortunately, our nationwide, profession-wide gender pay gap is still 17 percent; that is, women receive 83 cents when a man is paid one dollar for equal work and experience. I hope that there are no coercive offers being made today. But without doubt, some women teachers in Kansas classrooms are still being paid less than male teachers with equal tenure due to past coercion to claim less experience.

This inequity should fade away and teacher pay should become equal for several reasons. First, the older generation that included some male chauvinist administrators should be retiring off. In addition, we are seeing more women superintendents; we would hope that they would not resort to this bigotry. And the rapidly growing teacher shortage means that there are no cheap rookies waiting in the wings. Today, a qualified woman teacher is likely to be the only qualified applicant. [However, there is no one in the Kansas Department of Education who comes around to confirm that each districts’ teachers are indeed credentialed and fully paid according to actual experience.]

This inequity across all employment should have ended nearly a half century ago when the Equal Rights Amendment was passed by both the Congress and the Senate. But 38 states still had to ratify the amendment. And I am proud that Kansas was the sixth state to ratify the ERA on March 28, 1972. Unfortunately, the ERA fell short with just 35 states ratifying it before 1982.

Hiring women teachers below salary scale should have stopped by now. But the past injustices continue for the lifetimes of those teachers. To the extent colleagues become aware of pay inequity, this can also become a factor discouraging future women students from entering the teaching field. Fortunately, with the ability to provide retention bonuses, a school that discovers that they have teachers working lower on the pay scale than their experience merits can not only restore the correct pay level, but can increase compensation for those teachers’ remaining careers to partially make up for that injustice.

Make up of denied fair pay—is the right thing to do.

Attention you so-called “enemies of the people” and alleged purveyors of biased reporting: There’s reason to think fewer people than last year might see you that way, despite the ongoing, politicized attacks from multiple quarters on the news media’s credibility.

President Donald Trump hurled that “enemies” epithet at journalists some time ago, and continues to complain about biased news coverage nearly every time there are news accounts regarding contacts with Russian officials by his administration.

But such criticism comes with varying levels of vitriol from a variety of quarters, and started long before Trump took office. Often, the harshest criticism of the media comes just as much from those who consume news as from those who make it.

This year, however, there are signs that the public’s disdain for the media has somewhat abated. The 2017 “State of the First Amendment” survey, released over the July 4 holiday by the First Amendment Center of the Newseum Institute in partnership with the Fors Marsh Group, found that:

A solid majority of the public — about 68 percent — still believes in the importance of news media as a watchdog on democracy.
Less than half (43.2 percent) said they believe the news media tries to report the news without bias; but this figure is a marked improvement from 2015 (23 percent) and 2016 (24 percent).
There are some likely reasons for this shift: A significant amount of TV, online and print journalism has shifted from the softer “horse race” focus of the 2016 election to this year’s focus on hard news and complex issues. And — with more than a bit of irony — as more Americans are inclined only to consume news from sources that line up with their individual perspectives, there’s a likely parallel increase in the “trust factor” in those sources, even if they resemble echo chambers more than truth-tellers. Among those who believe that media tries to report unbiased information, most expressed a preference for news information that aligns with their own views (60.7 percent). Those more critical of media efforts to report news without bias were also less prone to report a preference for news aligned with their own views (49.1 percent).

So, no celebratory back flips in the nation’s newsrooms, please, especially since the uptick only puts the “bias” figure roughly back to levels seen in 2013 and 2014 (46 percent and 41 percent, respectively).

Those inclined to support the work of today’s journalists hope that the drop in those who perceive media bias generally stems from that combination of dramatically increased visibility of news operations and their reporting on serious news, such as health care reform and investigations of Russian influence in the 2016 election. For my own part, I believe more people saw reporting of real news, not fluffy “click-bait” features and dramatic but mostly meaningless polling reports, and it earned back some of their lost approval and trust.

Here’s an idea for journalists nationwide: Keep trying hard news, accountability reporting on issues that — while not necessarily “sexy” — matter the most to people and their communities, such as jobs, health care, education, and local and state government.

For years, news industry moguls and newsroom leaders have sought ways to reverse their dwindling income, which has led to fewer newsrooms resources and less real journalism, and which in turn has prompted additional loss of consumers. Clearly, mushy stories about the travails of celebrities, feel-good stories, and valuing tweets over investigative reporting are not working out that well.

Acting on this realization will mean putting an emphasis on innovation and finding new ways to report on subjects that, in themselves, don’t necessarily draw in a new generation of readers. But therein is the opportunity for those who will be the news media success stories of the 21st century. This year’s survey results show that the opportunity is there, that news consumers are hungry for imaginative reporting on issues that directly impact their lives.

But we can still take comfort in the 20 percent drop in those who presume journalists are incapable of reporting without bias: Attitudes can change, and trust can be regained.
Read the full report.

Editor’s Note: A version of this column appeared earlier on the Newseum Institute website as part of the 2017 State of the First Amendment report.

Gene Policinski is chief operating officer of the Newseum Institute. He can be reached at [email protected], or follow him on Twitter at @genefac.

On July 6, Senator Jerry Moran temporarily embraced boldness after a townhall meeting in Palco, Kansas.

Our junior Senator met hundreds of constituents to discuss the healthcare experiences of real people from all across the state. Rural and urban hospital administrators came to argue for Medicaid funding, and he got an earful from a west Kansas doctor who once provided care to the Senator’s children.

Our senator said he was not going to vote for Senate Majority Leader McConnell’s “Better Health Care Reform Act” (BCRA) because it failed to serve the interests of Moran’s constituents. This epiphany seemed to reflect a sympathetic understanding of the many issues inherent in the healthcare debate in Kansas.

Not long ago in Kansas a life cut short by mishap or illness was commonplace. Such events were mostly “bad luck” or fate, and so the burden was individual and familial. The community was mostly there for the mourning.

Then things changed. Medical research, healthcare and government policies produced unimaginable change since the mid-20th Century. Unexpected death became rarer and chronic illness managed with diet, good medical care and medications became the norm. Good healthcare began to seem less a random privilege and more a right.

Medicare commenced in 1965. It is now universally available for Americans at age 65. Today 435,000 Kansans are age eligible for Medicare. Medicaid assists many elderly – both rural and urban – who can’t afford nursing care on their own. Today, 43,000 Kansas seniors receive such assistance. In all, 425,000 Kansans were enrolled in Medicaid and SCHIP at the end of 2016. There are 204,000 Kansas veterans of which 16% (32,000) are rated for disability and receive some VA health benefits. Nearly 100,000 Kansans were enrolled in ACA health insurance coverage at the end of the 2017 enrollment period last winter.

Even allowing for the overlap amongst the populations just described and the many other Kansans who have benefited from the inclusion of preventive health screenings and the extension of insurance coverage to adult children under parental medical insurance mandated by the ACA, well over a million Kansans benefit from federal health programs and policies.

The number grows larger when considering one of the arguments made to Senator Moran that he embraced as justification for his opposition to BCRA. Medicaid, and Medicare reimbursements are linchpins to the economic viability of hospitals and clinics all across rural and suburban Kansas. In short, healthcare for the most at-risk and, truth be told, all the rest of us has moved from being a system of significant risk and inconsistent effectiveness to something that works albeit too expensively for everyone’s taste.

When Senator Moran and Senator Mike Lee of Utah announced they would not vote for BCRA, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell proposed a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act with a commitment to make the repeal effective after the 2018 election so that a replacement capable of attracting a perhaps bipartisan majority might be constructed. This is a “hamburger today for which I shall pay you Tuesday” approach for the gullible. If repeal occurs first, the matter will become the battle cry of the 2018 congressional elections, and after that a deflated and scuffed football to be kicked all the way to the end of the 2020 presidential election season and beyond.

Now is the time for Senator Moran to stop auditioning for the role of Wimpy in the ‘hamburger today’ show and instead embrace the role of leadership and advocacy for the million and more constituents in Kansas who know that these health policy issues need to be fixed now — not repealed with a feeble commitment to “replace” later.



Dr. Mark Peterson teaches political science at the college level in Topeka.