Dear Kansan elected official,
First I would like to thank you for the
sacrifice and dedication you give to Kansas, a state we both love and want to
make better. I am writing you today to express concern as a citizen about
population growth, a possible zero income tax policy, and how education
intertwines with these two. I believe in Kansas and at age 25, bought a house
in Salina, Kansas that I hope to retire in. Kansans deserve a strong
economy, job growth, and a future with as much or more opportunity as today.
One of the challenges facing in building our economy is building positive
and strategic population growth. In the long term outlook of economic
growth, our Kansas government needs to consider and strategically plan for
positive population growth.
Governor Brownback has a strategic plan in
creating "Urban Opportunity Zones" using incentive to try to have
families move to economic depressed urban regions. One of the benefits is
possible student loan repayment, attracting those who have pursued higher
education to these areas. This plan seems prudent in bringing new
workers, and possibly workers with college degrees, into economically depressed
areas to try to bolster the economy. (http://www.kansascity.com/news/government-politics/article8424306.html)
In Kansas we also have rural housing
incentive districts and programs to try to bring families to small towns to
help maintain and bolster those economies (check these population projections
for rural areas: (http://www.ipsr.ku.edu/ksdata/ksah/population/2pop17.pdf)
. These two plans represent strategic
underpinnings trying to create purposeful and positive population growth to
strengthen the local and state economies.
Kansas needs plans like this to fight the rural exodus and urban decay
that can devastate citizens and economies without strategic interventions.
When I research ‘states with no income tax’,
I find websites listing states as great retirement areas, or good places to
live to keep more of what a person owns in the person’s pocket. A zero income tax policy could be a factor in
some states to create an economic impetus to drive new citizens to a state,
citizens who could then pay property or sales tax and help bolster the
economy. States like Florida have
tourism to allow for income, or Texas has an abundance of an oil economy. States like Wyoming or South Dakota are also
on this list, perhaps trying to draw in new citizens (http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2014/04/26/these-states-have-no-income-tax/8116161/
). In beginning the economic experiment
of ‘marching toward become a zero income tax state, I imagine building the
economy through purposeful and beneficial population growth through offer tax
break incentives seemed like a good idea.
However, I’d now like to point out some confounding variables and
perhaps unseen situations as to why a no income tax policy would not benefit
the Kansas economy and instead could prove disastrous.
People will often move for jobs or
educational opportunities for the adults or the children in the family. Becoming a zero income tax state must come at
a cost, and right now the biggest budget losses are aimed at lowering education
budgets. A loss of government investment
in education would also create a loss in human capital. In looking at population growth, it is
important to also look at ‘human capital’, or what the population of a state
can contribute beyond a simple number count.
If Kansas creates a zero income tax state by slashing funding to
education, people will be less likely to move to Kansas (http://www.census.gov/prod/2014pubs/p20-574.pdf). Having higher levels of education in higher
percentages of the population increases human capital, strengthens the economy,
and makes communities more vibrant with opportunity and growth (http://www.newyorkfed.org/research/current_issues/ci17-6.pdf). If Kansas wants Urban and Rural opportunity
incentive programs to work in building population and economy in those areas,
adequate education funding must also be in place or the programs will fail to
meet their desired goals. A locality is
threatened in terms of economic growth if quality education is not provided (http://educationnext.org/education-and-economic-growth/).
Another possible benefit of being a no
income tax state is that individuals will potentially have greater freedom in
making personal choice rather than have the government make choices for the
individual by taxing income before the money even goes to the bank. However, if having no income tax also greatly
reduces the level of education, the effects on the person’s ability to choose
will be deleterious rather than beneficial. Education is the best long term anti-poverty
plan: those who are well educated are less likely to have their freedoms taken
away in jail and experience overall better rates of good health (http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2012/p0516_higher_education.html)
. People have less freedom of choice
when in the throes of poverty, when incarcerated, or when sickness forces
budget decisions or poor health restricts options. The push for less government involvement is
tied to a person desiring higher personal freedom, but less funding for
education would not increase the overall personal freedom of Kansans, but
decrease the opportunity to choose and the rational ability to make productive
choices. A less educated populace, or
even a reputation as a state not supportive of education will drive down our
economy, greater more urban decay and rural exodus, eliminate opportunity and
choice for many citizens and decrease our human capital even as population
rates increase.
We cannot afford a decrease in human
capital. The word ‘afford’ is
purposeful. This argument is not about
what is best for the child in the classroom, or some argument from human rights
on how children deserve well-funded education.
Afford is literal. Our economy
cannot afford a decrease in human capital; financially our budget cannot
withstand the effects of marching toward becoming a zero income tax state by
torching the education budget. We are
not soldiers who ‘burn the boats’ in conquest of reaching our goal. Kansas citizens do not wish to fly kamikaze into
a future as a no income tax state at the cost of our future, our economy,
creating population exodus of educated individuals, and greatly reducing our
available human capital by lowering the priority on education as our population
numbers will continue to go up without strategic education and guidance. This cannot be. We cannot afford education cuts. It will wreck our economy, stifle the future
growth of our economy and potentially send us on a march towards a bankrupt
state government. We cannot afford this ‘march’,
and Kansas citizens are not conscripted soldiers forced to march to the beat of
the drum of elected officials whose plans do not match the public good or
general consensus.
I personally do not believe our future is
best with massive cuts to education funding now. Becoming a zero income tax state may be a
worthwhile goal, but the timing is not right and the initial efforts have had
widespread deleterious effects and we cannot afford to continue this forced
march. I believe in the benefits of
education and know how research supports the correlation between education and
economic growth. Please, do not allow
our growth to be sought through the false paradise of becoming a zero income
tax state and advocate for a brighter future through funding education and
building human capital through purposeful and strategic investment. I am willing to invest in the future of my
son and my own future; I am willing to pay income tax. Please help Kansas down the right, researched
and proven path to economic growth by continuing to invest in education.
No comments:
Post a Comment