Gov. Sam Brownback and his supporters in the Legislature just won’t stop digging.

They are borrowing billions, delaying bill payments and cutting education. Rather than fix Kansas’s budget problem, such measures make it worse.

The problem is this: The state does not collect enough money in taxes, fees and federal funds to pay its recurring expenses. That means government doesn’t have sufficient funds to pay for education, road maintenance, upkeep at state parks, state police and laboratories, prisons, or such other things as medical care for the disabled and children living in extreme poverty.

It’s not a short-term problem. The state’s fiscal system has been out of whack since Brownback and legislators approved wide ranging tax cuts four years ago.

Rather than correct the problem, the governor and lawmakers have borrowed billions and cut services to come up with a “balanced” budget. The result is more expensive government that offers Kansans less and less.

Running up the debt while also reducing state programs and services is what passes as conservative in some circles. But more and more Republican lawmakers are balking.

This year, Republicans in the Legislature refused to pass any real budget. They just tossed the problem into Brownback’s lap and went home.

Brownback has since made about $100 million in cuts, most of which will end up costing the state and its residents far more than we would have paid had lawmakers conceded the need for fair and equitable taxes on businesses and residents.

Instead Brownback and his supporters continue to blame Barack Obama for the state’s budget shortfalls, while praising themselves for achieving so much in such tough times.

Here are a few of their achievements:

They delayed for up to two years payments to the Kansas public workers’ retirement fund. Kansas taxpayers will have to pay 8 percent interest on the unpaid contribution.

Eight percent. That’s more money Kansans will have to come up with down the road because legislators refused to pay the bills on time.

Legislators also cut funds to public universities and colleges, and then the governor cut even more. As a result, students will receive fewer scholarships and tuition will rise even higher. That means Kansas students and their parents will pay thousands more to get the educations they need to improve themselves, their communities and the state.

The cuts lawmakers authorized the governor to make also include lower payments to doctors and other health-care providers who accept patients on Medicaid.

So while the governor refuses to roll back income tax breaks because he argues that the private sector needs the money to create jobs and fuel the state’s economy, he has no problem shortchanging doctors and others who operate health-care businesses.

The state also is again raiding the Kansas Department of Transportation. Last year, lawmakers authorized the DOT to take on even more debt – so there would be more money they could take from highway projects to balance the budget.

Not only will Kansas taxpayers have to pay the interest on the DOT bonds, but they will lose the revenue generated by the construction jobs and projects that were supposed to be built.

The KDOT bonds are in addition to $1 billion in bonds that the Legislature approved for the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System last year. Lawmakers and the governor bet that they could borrow $1 billion and make enough money on investments to pay back the loan and make money.

So far, it’s a losing bet; taxpayers may end up repaying those bonds as well.

That’s on top of the higher sales taxes also approved by conservatives. The sales tax hits middle- and low-income families hardest, especially because Kansas taxes groceries at one of the nation’s highest rates.

Here’s what Moody’s Investment Services said as it again dinged Kansas for its fiscal policies: “By continuing to balance its budget with unsustainable nonrecurring resources, including pension underfunding, it is accumulating large and expensive long-term liabilities that it will be paying off for a long time.”

It’s time for Kansas officials to stop digging, and to start working to put government back on sound financial ground.

Historians must be giddy over how the 2016 presidential election is shaping up.

The rest of us? Not so much.

It’s the kind of storyline a satirical novelist would invent: A bombastic real estate mogul decides he wants to be president and faces a former president’s wife who has spent a lifetime jockeying for the job.

Few Americans like either character.

Not the vulgar, insulting bully who tells the most obviously obvious lies.

And not the opportunistic politician who argues that her own dishonesty and flouting of laws are irrelevant because she’s smart and accomplished and her intentions are good.

Political analysts are sifting through centuries’ worth of data to determine how the race between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton might play out.

Will turnout be up or down? Will the extraordinarily high negatives for both candidates propel voters to the polls or keep them away? How will the votes break by gender, by race, by age, by income level, by religion?

So far analysts have more questions than answers. They’re stumped. There aren’t many election years and candidates that can be reasonably compared to 2016.

That’s not to say that this is the most dramatic election in American history. Many TV pundits and partisans are prone to such histrionics, but don’t believe their nonsense.

Americans have a sturdy history of dealing with political weirdness, dating back at least to the presidential election of 1800.

That’s when the conniving Aaron Burr tried to maneuver himself to the top of the presidential ticket. He had hopes of ousting the presumed winner Thomas Jefferson.

A tie vote in the Electoral College sent the decision to the House of Representatives. It took nearly a week of negotiations and lobbying by Alexander Hamilton – who hated Jefferson but hated Burr more – before Jefferson was elected on the 36^th ballot.

Burr became vice president – that was before he killed Hamilton in a duel and before he was tried, unsuccessfully, for treason – and the nation a few years later amended the Constitution to avoid a replay of the Jefferson-Burr situation.

In the 1850s, the issue of slavery not only tore apart the nation, but ripped its political parties into ineffectual pieces. The Republican Party was born amid the turmoil, and President Abraham Lincoln was its first nominee to become president.

Lincoln garnered only about 40 percent of the 1860 popular vote. Political alliances were so fragmented that candidates from four different parties won Electoral College votes. Lincoln had the most, nearly 60 percent.

Lincoln was inaugurated March 4, 1861, and five weeks later, rebel Southerners fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina, marking the start of the Civil War.

Even though Lincoln won in 1860 with relatively few votes and war ensued, most historians consider him the nation’s greatest president.

As the 20^th century dawned, unrest again brewed. There were race riots and labor violence. Women demanded the right to vote. There were calls to outlaw alcohol nationwide. Others denounced the economic system that favored the wealthy.

Republican Theodore Roosevelt was among those who advocated economic reforms, and he was selected to be William McKinley’s running mate in 1900. When McKinley was assassinated in September 1901, Roosevelt became the nation’s youngest president at age 42.

Roosevelt left the White House in 1909, but unhappy with his Republican successor, William Howard Taft, he decided to run again in 1912.

He won wide support on the state level but was denied the nomination at the Republican convention, so he formed the Bull Moose Party. His third party effort split the Republicans and Democrat Woodrow Wilson won easily.

Other dramas, including the 2008 election of the nation’s first black president, have been woven into our presidential history over the last 100 years.

With about six months to go to this year’s Nov. 8 election, many voters already have made up their minds. Many have made up their minds but will change them. And many are trying to decide how – or whether – to cast their ballots given their dislike of the candidates.

Their decisions – as much as the words and actions of the candidates – will determine how history writes the story of the 2016 election.

 

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are both anti-trade, as measured by their opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The proposed trade agreement, which includes the U.S. and 11 other nations, languishes in Congress, another victim of congressional leaders who put politics before people.

TPP appears to have few friends. Predictably, labor unions oppose the trade pact, and they have successfully leaned on Democrats in Congress to oppose President Obama’s calls for ratification of the deal.

Republicans would normally be expected to support free trade and proposals that get the U.S. and its trading partners closer to that goal, but not this time.

Many, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, say they have reservations about TPP and will wait until after the November election to consider legislation needed to enact the agreement.

Hillary Clinton has caved to the pressure applied by unions, which think the way to protect U.S. jobs is to oppose trade agreements.

Donald Trump, exploiting people’s mistrust of all things foreign and anger with government, also is against TPP. He has said it would be bad for American business and cost jobs.

So who other than Obama thinks TPP is a good deal?

Among its supporters are the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Small Business Association and the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Also lobbying for passage of the deal is a group of former U.S. Defense secretaries, including Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Robert Gates and Chuck Hagel.

Many Republicans are standing silent simply because they don’t want to give the president a win. They would rather hurt Democrats politically than help their constituents economically.

That lowers the odds that TPP will gain congressional approval – leaving other participating nations to reap the benefits that the United States helped negotiate through more than six years of talks.

It’s not as if the rest of the world will walk away from trade agreements if the United States fails to act. International trade won’t disappear if the U.S. refuses to sign on.

Countries such as Australia, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Vietnam, Singapore, Peru and Malaysia will move forward, facilitating more trade among themselves.

TPP would be of particular benefit to Kansas because the nations involved have a lot of potential for products and services that our state exports. Those products include grain, agricultural equipment, beef, aviation parts and planes.

If the U.S. isn’t part of the pact, and other nations are, Kansas and the U.S. will lose export opportunities.

Of course, TPP could hurt some U.S. manufacturers and lead to job losses, as it makes it easier for other nations to send their goods to our highly desirable consumer market.

That’s what happened with NAFTA in the 1990s, as much of North America implemented the trade deal that was supported by a coalition of moderate Democrats – including Bill Clinton – and Republicans.

On the whole, NAFTA was good for the entire hemisphere, and it was good for the United States. But there is no question that as nations’ economies evolve worldwide, the dynamics change. Some jobs are created, some are moved overseas and many more are lost to automation.

Simply saying no to trade agreements won’t stop the dynamics from changing.

For example, manufacturing jobs were leaving the United States long before NAFTA was approved.

With or without trade agreements, businesses are going to place manufacturing plants and other facilities where it makes economic sense. And that sense doesn’t just factor in labor costs, but also proximity to markets, incentives from developing nations that want to create jobs for their own citizens, and costs for materials, energy and shipping.

Those decisions change as the world changes. Trade agreements provide a framework for managing the changes.

Presidential candidates who promise to save U.S. jobs by opposing trade deals might as well promise to make time stand still – or make clocks run backward to that mythical era in which the U.S. called all the shots.

The best opportunities for creating U.S. jobs and expanding the economy won’t be found in rejecting any deal with a possible downside but in building more trade relationships with more of the world.

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In Kansas, if you want to have a voice in the kind of state government we elect in November, then you have to vote in August.

And to vote in the Aug. 2 primary election, you have to be a Republican or Democrat.

Like a growing number of Americans, I prefer not to affiliate with a political party. Candidates’ ideas, records and opinions are more important than whether they are Republican or Democrat.

Our political system, however, is controlled by the two major parties, and some states, including Kansas, require formal affiliation with one of them to vote in primaries. I recently made a trip to the Sedgwick County election office to change my political registration from unaffiliated to Republican.

Now I’ll be allowed to vote Aug. 2, when Kansans will determine which Republican and Democratic candidates win spots on the general election ballot.

Kansas is so dominated by Republicans that primary races are often more competitive than the general election races. Republicans who win in August will win in November in an overwhelming majority of Kansas races.

And this year it appears there will be more than the usual number of Republican primaries.

It’s up to voters to make wise choices by paying attention to campaigns and candidates. They also need to make sure they are eligible to cast a ballot in the primary election.

Kansas doesn’t make that easy.

Many states have rules that encourage people to participate in elections. Kansas is moving in the opposite direction, making it harder for voters to take part in the process.

According to the law passed a couple of years ago, I could have waited until I went to vote to declare that I was Republican. But I don’t trust that officials won’t make the rules even tougher between now and then.

Still, Kansas is far from the worst state when it comes to limiting citizens’ participation in primaries. That crown goes to the state of New York.

Like Kansas, New York has a closed primary. Registered voters who wanted to declare or change their party affiliation for the April 19 presidential primary in New York would have had to switch by Oct. 9, 2015.

Why do some states make it so hard to be a part of the political process?

That’s what Kansans should be asking their elected officials.

Republicans here not only pushed through the more demanding party affiliation rules, but they continue to push laws and make up regulations to make it more difficult to register to vote and cast ballots.

They claim they are concerned about voter fraud, and about people who aren’t real party members sabotaging their primaries.

That’s just a cover for their fear. Politicians who try to limit who will participate in elections are afraid their records and ideas won’t win the support of citizens, so they try to keep them from the polls.

When it comes to primaries, every registered Kansas voter should be able to cast a ballot.

After all, the taxpayers of Kansas pay for the primaries – not the major political parties that write the rules.

Sure, it’s on borrowed money now that state government has bonded everything it could make a deal for, but taxpayers still cover the costs of holding elections.

Ultra-conservative lawmakers defend their budget-busting tax breaks by claiming tax money is not the government’s money – it’s Kansans’ money. Well, the money used to conduct Kansas’ primary elections is not Republicans or Democrats’ money. It’s Kansans’ money. And we all should get a say.

Until that happens, Kansans have to play by the rules lawmakers keep changing as they maneuver to hold on to their jobs.

To do that, you need to make sure you’re eligible to vote Aug. 2.

You have until July 12 to register.

However, if you already are registered with a party and want to change your party affiliation for the primary, you must do so by June 1.

If you are not affiliated with a party, you should be allowed, according to state law, to fill out a form and affiliate on the day that you vote.

Don’t worry, you can switch back after the election.—