When members of the House GOP caucus recently rejected their leaders’ proposal to put a brief moratorium on members’ requests for earmarks, the special spending projects often referred to as “pork-barrel,” it was following the lead of Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, who had “offered an amendment to strip the requirement for an earmark moratorium,” reported CQ Politics, characterizing Tiahrt as a “staunch defender of earmarks.”
Good for Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Hays, for continuing his fight to reform the outdated U.S. trade policies with Cuba, and especially to free up agricultural and food exports tightened under the Bush administration. In a letter sent last week to President-elect Barack Obama, Moran wrote: “Reform of U.S. trade policy with Cuba can facilitate new markets for U.S. goods and provide a means for our country’s democratic principles to reach Cuban citizens. Development of more practical trade rules will also deter Cuban purchases from other more oppressive governments like Venezuela or China. This is especially the case with nonluxury items like food and medicine.”
As we said in an editorial last week, you know the budget outlook is bad in Kansas when there is talk of closing prisons and canceling road construction. Cuts will be necessary, but they also won’t be enough. What is a conservative Legislature to do?
Well, House Speaker Melvin Neufeld, R-Ingalls, recently offered a surprising sign that at least one tax increase – the 75-cent-per-pack cigarette tax pushed by the Kansas Health Policy Authority – might fly at last.
“There’s a good chance it might pass this year, ” Neufeld told the Kansas Health Institute News Service. The thing is, he wants the dollars “dedicated to Medicaid,” freeing general fund money for other existing obligations. That would disappoint the health reformers who’ve pushed for such a hike to help bring more Kansans off the uninsured rolls.
There are good reasons to argue that Kansas should spend more promoting itself to tourists and building its $5.6 billion tourism industry. This just isn’t a very good time to make the argument, which is why the interim legislative Joint Committee on Economic Development recently declined to endorse a bill that would beef up the state’s $4 million annual tourism budget by $2 million a year and set up a new agency to market Kansas attractions. “My apologies to the tourism industry,” Chairwoman Karin Brownlee, R-Olathe, said after the panel voted against advancing the bill. One good thing came of the discussion, though: the panel’s stated support for Commerce Secretary David Kerr’s offer to better emphasize tourism by making the state’s tourism director a deputy secretary who reports to Kerr.
When members of the House GOP caucus recently rejected their leaders’ proposal to put a brief moratorium on members’ requests for earmarks, the special spending projects often referred to as “pork-barrel,” it was following the lead of Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, who had “offered an amendment to strip the requirement for an earmark moratorium,” reported CQ Politics, characterizing Tiahrt as a “staunch defender of earmarks.”
