Kansas Republicans raise taxes, rebuking their GOP governor's 'real live experiment' in conservative policy
Republicans in Kansas broke ranks with the state's conservative governor Wednesday night, voting to raise rates and put an end to a series of tax cuts. The GOP revolt is a defeat for Gov. Sam Brownback, who overhauled the state's tax system beginning in 2012, bringing down rates and
causing repeated, severe budgetary shortfalls.
Kansas's legislature is overwhelmingly Republican, but moderate GOP lawmakers joined with Democrats, overriding Brownback's veto of a bill they'd already passed once that would raise taxes again by $1.2 billion over two years. Eighteen of the state's 31 GOP senators and 49 of the 85 Republican members of the House voted against the governor.
The legislation undoes the essential components of Brownback's reforms, which he famously described as part of a "real-live experiment" in conservative governance.
Brownback had reduced the number of brackets for the state's marginal rates on income from three to two. The legislature will restore the third bracket, increasing taxes on the state's wealthiest residents from 4.6 percent to 5.2 percent this year and 5.7 percent next year.
Marginal rates on less affluent Kansan households will increase as well, from 4.6 percent to 5.25 percent by next year for married taxpayers making between $30,000 and $60,000 a year and from 2.7 percent to 3.1 percent for those earning less than that.
The legislation also scraps a plan to bring those rates down even further in future years, one of Brownback's promises to conservative supporters.
Finally, the legislature eliminated a cut Brownback had put in place to help small businesses. Analysts said that the provision had become a loophole, as many Kansans were able to avoid paying taxes entirely by pretending to be small businesses.
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