TOPEKA – The free-market grassroots group Americans for Prosperity-Kansas released the following statement in response today’s budget update:

“While we applaud Governor Parkinson for directing additional reductions to state agencies today, it’s important to note that our excessive spending – not our revenue stream – put the state in this multi-million dollar hole,” said AFP-Kansas State Director Derrick Sontag. “State General Fund spending increased 48 percent from 2004 to 2008, while population growth during that same time averaged less than one-half of 1 percent per year.

“This staggering clip in spending saw us go through a surplus of $934 million just 24 months ago to a situation today where the goal is to have an ending balance of zero. If as a state we would have simply spent what we took in, just as Kansas families and businesses do, we'd have a surplus of nearly $1 billion.

“The Legislature had an opportunity to place the state in a better situation for the 2010 Fiscal Year and beyond, but a coalition of fiscally liberal Republicans and Democrats chose to avoid making further cuts to state government in the hopes that taxpayers would bail them out by sending more revenue to the state coffers. Their avoidance of making tough decisions on budget cuts has placed the entire state in a situation where the Legislature will begin work in January on a Fiscal Year 2011 budget that is already estimated to be more than $500 million in the red.

“With this kind of financial picture, and with the assumption that tax revenue will not improve any time soon, it’s our concern that some lawmakers during the 2010 legislative session will attempt to ask Kansas taxpayers for more in the form of tax increases. The drop-off in income tax collections is a signal that Kansas families and businesses are taxed enough already. Now is not the time to be increasing their tax burden.

“Again, the economic truism that the more you tax something, the less of it you’ll get, should serve as a warning sign for our state lawmakers during these difficult times,” Sontag said.