Taking the example of the 1992 Clinton-Gore presidential campaign, the Kansas Democrats are busy trying to convince voters that our improving economy is terrible, and all because we’ve had a Republican governor for the last 4 years.
Brownback added that the liberal media is too focused on overall job numbers, and not private sector job numbers, which is what his administration is focused on growing.
"I think the left is just so desperate," Brownback said. "They want this model to fail so bad that they can't wait for it to and they just want to get me electorally before we get on through this and prove that this is working.”
A September 24, 2014 article titled Not in the same old Kansas anymore… by Mike O’Neal, President & CEO of the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, painted a picture of what the Kansas economy was like under its previous Democrat governors:
“…the state struggled to grow, ranking 10th worst in the country for out-migration from 2000-2009, losing over 15,600 taxpayers and 17,600 dependents during that time. Our great schools have been educating the rest of the country's workforce.
But while we were losing taxpayers, state government spending grew by $2 billion from 2003 to 2008, an increase of nearly 50% in six years. The fastest growing industry in the state from 2001-2012 was government. This path was unsustainable.
The status quo in Kansas wasn't working.”
On the contrary, the economy has continued to improve under Brownback since he has been Governor.
The Brownback
campaign accurately described it this way: “This year, there have been more Kansas working than ever before in the history of the state. Over 55,000 new private sector jobs have been created [since 2011]. We have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation. We are 4th in the nation in new construction. The Kansas economy is growing. Period.”
Responding to the Davis campaign’s assertion that Governor Brownback made the largest cut to Kansas schools in history, “we see that overall spending for education has gone up every year since Brownback was elected:
- “All Funds Total 2012 – $3,716,372,026
- “All Funds Total 2013 – $3,759,854,951
- “All Funds Total 2014 – $3,839,660,953
- “All Funds Total 2015 – $4,014,594,074”
The Brownback campaign also pointed out that the state of Kansas is at an all-time high on dollars going to education, with total All Funds Spending on Education in FY 2015 at $4.01 billion compared to $3.83 billion in 2011.
In reply to the Davis campaign that “He even cut arts and special ed,” it was pointed out that state funding for special education has increased from $428,133 in FY12 to $428,296 in FY15, and that “there are 281 more Special Ed teachers in Kansas classrooms now than when Governor Brownback took office.”
While the Paul Davis campaign keeps putting out the line that “the Brownback Experiment isn’t working,” the Brownback campaign asserts that “more Kansans are working than ever before in the
history of the state,” and that Kansas’ unemployment rate “is one of the lowest in the nation.” And looking at the August 2014 figures from the
Bureau of Labor Statistics, we see that is true, with Kansas faring quite well with unemployment at 4.9%.
The same for 6 month through August, 4.8 or 4.9%.
Some other things Brownback’s opponents would just as soon Kansas voters didn’t know about:
1)
a record number of new business formations in the state, 2) the Kansas side of the KC Metro area
is adding jobs 3 times faster than the Missouri side, and 3)
per-capita disposable personal income has increased by 10.8%.
Comments by Chris Brown in an article by Lauren Seabrook dated September 23, 2014 explained the difficult situation the state of Kansas was in under the previous administrations of Democrat governors:
“Take note that the taxpayers of this state bailed out teacher retirement plans in 1972 because it was under water $12 million at that time because teachers couldn’t handle their own plan. Also you never mention the “SEC” federal Securities and Exchange Commission filed fraud charges against Kansas for misleading investors about the health of KPERS. The fraud occurred in 2009 and 2010, during the Sebelius and Parkinson administrations and when KPERS was severely underfunded and mismanaged by the previous Budget Director. Since then, reforms and policy changes initiated by Republican legislators and
Gov. Brownback have made substantial improvements to KPERS, and there will be no monetary penalties imposed on Kansas do to those changes.”
