Kansas Gov. Mark Parkinson’s plan to raise the state’s sales tax to help balance the budget has met a big hurdle.
The House Taxation Committee voted 13-7, down party lines, to recommend that the bill not be passed by the House.
Committee Democrats, including Rep. Julie Menghini, D-Pittsburg, said that it was simply posturing by the GOP.
“This is partisan politics at its worst,” Menghini said.
Parkinson proposed raising the state’s sales tax from 5.3 percent to 6.3 percent in an effort to raise revenue that helps close a projected $400 million shortfall in the 2011 state budget.
Democrats on the committee said that this was not the time to remove options from consideration just the third week of the session.
“We've got a number of revenue-enhancement bills out there and there are still budget cuts on the table,” Menghini said. “We discussed none of those but we were immediately ready to toss this one out the window.”
Committee chairman Rep. Richard Carlson, a St. Marys Republican, said that additional tax proposals will be considered as they are brought forward.
“I do think it is irresponsible and premature for us to throw this out as an option,” Menghini said. “We need to try to do what we can to prevent more damaging cuts to Kansans that need it the most.”
As for now, the governor’s tax increase plan is dormant, but Menghini said that there are additional tax issues still left for discussion.
“We have not heard the tobacco tax increase measure yet,” Menghini said. “We are going to meet Friday morning and talk about the sales tax exemption measure.”
Beth Martino, the governor's spokeswoman, said it still was early in the session and Parkinson was eager to hear legislators' plans for generating new revenue.
“The governor proposed the sales tax as one possible option for solving this budget crisis. As he said in his budget proposal, we can't cut our way out of this so we must find revenue somewhere,” Martino said.
The committee vote came on the same day that Republican Sen. Jeff Colyer of Overland Park said that he planned to offer a proposal to restore $22 million in cuts for Medicaid reimbursements that were earlier imposed by Parkinson.
The cuts by the governor amounted to a 10 percent reduction in the rate paid to health care providers.
Colyer said that restoring the cuts could leverage an additional $60 million in federal matching funds for Medicaid programs.
But Sen. Susan Wagle, a Wichita Republican, said legislators would be hypocritical to try restore cuts after promising Kansans they would make do with less.
Colyer’s bill does include items like reducing transfers in funds for highway maintenance.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
Matthew Clark can be reached at matthew.clark@morningsun.net or at 231-2600, Ext. 140
