HERE WE GO AGAIN!

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“IF YOU KNOW THE ENEMY AND KNOW YOURSELF

YOU NEED NOT FEAR THE RESULTS OF A HUNDRED BATTLES.”

Sun Tzu

 

Well, the time of year has arrived once again and it is the most dangerous time we know. The Legislature is back in session. There have been meetings all over the state, with our Representatives and Senators, about what each group wants and needs from Topeka, again.

We can look forward to a lot of bloviation from both sides of the aisle about what is good and right for the state and again the major issues will be left to the end so that more money will be spent on the session that should be.

There will be much wrangling and hand-wringing over the funding of schools. At between $13 and $14 thousand dollars per kid spent, we know that the Supreme Court will once again say that it is not enough and threaten to close down the schools again. The threat gets a little more meaningless each year. Is it not the time for the court, legislators, and governor to set down and agree on what it takes?

We are waiting for the big infrastructure programs to be enacted by the Federal Government and it will be, again, anybody’s guess on how the funding for highways and bridges gets diverted into funds that have nothing to do with either.

Again the Legislature will not put their part of the funding into the Public Employees Pension funds to move them up from the second worst ranked pension system in 50 states. And again the Police, Firefighters, and EMS retirees that were part of the Brazleton Lawsuit will not receive a COLA. The last one being in 1998. One more year the KP&F fund will count on the recipients to die to solve the problem.

We can count on Democrats to be outraged and Republicans to act like everything is going to be alright. Let’s hope we see someone in the Legislature that works for something that is for the good of the state and not the party.

We can pretty well count on the issues of Western Kansas being left on the floor again this year. Rural development will again go the way of conjecture and will fall short on substance.

I try to put a positive spin on things when I can but when a highway project is still unfinished after twenty years and no end in sight, it is hard to be positive. What I can be positive of is that there are more people who believe in Kansas that are ready to turn off the light switch on their way out.

I issued an invitation the other day on my Facebook page for all the companies that are sick to death of the Peoples Republic of California to come to Kansas. We have a lot of trained people, a work ethic, and a generous tax structure compared to their state. Transportation wise, Kansas is in the center of it all and has a greater variety of conditions to live in.

So in spite of the dangers posed by the annual legislative swarm in Topeka, Kansas is a great place to come and grow a business and raise a family.

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