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The following is a message from Gov. Mark Parkinson, which also appeared as a blog entry on Gov. Mark Parkinson's Capitol Blog.

My last blog entry was a lengthy explanation of our state budget situation and the reasons I am proud of how the Legislature addressed the budget shortfall. Now, the political gamesmanship of campaigning is attempting to distort the truth in hopes of confusing the voters. I want to set the record straight.

We Cut Until We Could Cut No More

We cut approximately $1 billion over the last two years out of our $6.4 billion budget. The fact is that I made more cuts than any other governor in Kansas history. This isn’t something I am proud of; I just did what had to be done given the dire economic situation of the state and the country.

It was only after five rounds of cuts that we realized we could cut no more. To do so would have threatened education, public safety, and our most vulnerable citizens. You can see for yourself the impact an additional round of cuts would have had on various state priorities in the budget report released during the legislative session. This report lists the additional cuts we would have had to make to balance our budget. I concluded that these cuts were too harmful to the state.

A bipartisan majority of the legislature agreed with me – we could not cut any further without risking irreparable harm to our economy and families all across the state. Instead, we passed a moderate, temporary revenue enhancement package to ensure a quality education for our kids, safe streets in our neighborhoods and the opportunity for our elderly citizens and those with disabilities to continue to live with dignity.

But that additional revenue didn’t just protect Kansans from further cuts, it will fuel significant economic development and growth for decades through the biggest jobs bill I can remember. That is because we also adopted a new transportation plan. The transportation plan will build roads, maintain existing roads, work on railroad lines and airports all over the state, creating tens of thousands of jobs during the construction phases and lasting economic development once the projects are complete.

As Lieutenant Governor Findley mentioned recently in his video address:

“It took more than just supporting the transportation plan – it also required supporting the revenue that was needed to fund this ten-year investment. Because here in Kansas, we know it takes more than just saying you’re for something. We know that you also have to support a responsible way to pay for it.”

Preventing Permanent Local Tax Increases

And what did it cost to maintain these services and pass job-producing policies? A penny. What’s more, this one-cent sales tax will only last for three years as we recover from the recession and our state revenues begin to return to normal. Now, some critics may argue that this sales tax increase will not go away after three years and instead will become permanent. But we purposely wrote the law so that this would not happen. If the increase were to become permanent, that’s for another Legislature and another governor to decide.

What would have been a permanent tax increase was the budget proposal put forth by House Republican Leadership. Their budget proposal had further damaging cuts to our critical state services, not only dismantling our state’s infrastructure, but also requiring local communities to raise their property taxes in order to make up for the funding. This has been a pattern in Kansas over past years – cutting away the state’s support, passing out tax exemptions to special interests and forcing local communities to deal with the result. Fortunately, 64 members in the House and 23 in the Senate decided to reverse this troubling trend, recognize the importance of upholding our infrastructure and protect our local communities and local property owners from permanently shouldering the burden.

What the Future Holds

Already people are taking shots at the budget by saying that it is not in balance. This simply isn’t correct. We passed a plan that is not only in balance this year, but assuming normal economic growth, will remain in balance for many years. As I worked on the budget, I worked not just for a short-term solution, but for a solution that will work into the next administration.

The last time the Legislature passed a sales tax increase, it was under Republican Bill Graves in 2002. At the time, Governor Graves knew it was irresponsible to pass a deficit on to the next administration. But instead of Economic Armageddon as some suggested, we saw the opposite: our economy thrived, creating more than 40,000 jobs between 2003 and 2006.

Don’t Be Fooled

Large special interests groups are spending lots of money to try to convince you that the 64 House members and 23 Senators who supported this responsible budget were wrong. I wholeheartedly disagree. The price of doing nothing was too high. The price of decimating our economy through a sixth round of cuts was too high. The price of implementing permanent property tax increases across the state was too high. We solved our budget shortfall responsibly and with the future in mind.