The head of the Wichita Regional Chamber of Commerce says the tax deal Kansas lawmakers struck Tuesday wasn’t exactly what the local business community was looking for.
Chamber President Gary Plummer says that they sought input from their members about how Kansas lawmakers should fix the state’s budget problem: either through revenue increases, spending cuts, or a combination of both. Plummer says more than 60 percent of the chamber's 1800 members were in favor of revenue increases through both taxes and spending cuts.
"This plan didn’t really meet that criteria in our view, and part of that is probably because of the Supreme Court ruling that there was additional pressure on the Legislature to come up with some additional funding for education, so our members were looking for something a little more balanced on spending versus new taxes," he says.
The bill -- which was passed over Gov. Brownback's veto -- got rid of tax breaks for about 300,000 small businesses in Kansas. Plummer says that it's probably too early to predict what will happen with the tax increases, but the chamber will continue to work with state lawmakers to try to reach that balance of cuts and new revenue.
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Carla Eckels is assistant news director and the host of Soulsations. Follow her on Twitter @Eckels.
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