While it’s frustratingly apparent that most in the mainstream media have only seen Kansas via an airplane window, there’s one national publication that appears to have done some of its homework on the Sunflower State.
The Wall Street Journal recognizes there’s an attempt by progressives nationwide to rewrite Kansas history. They hope to kill tax cuts in other places now and in the future. In an editorial, the newspaper lays out the unholy alliance between teachers’ unions and so-called moderate Republicans.
“At bottom the Kansas tax vote was as much about unions getting even with the Governor over his education reforms, which included making it easier to fire bad teachers,” it reads.
The editorial notes, accurately, that the Kansas Legislature didn’t have the political courage to cut spending when it cut taxes. It also notes that much of the tax rate rebuke was personal payback.
“In 2012, Mr. Brownback campaigned against eight Republican incumbents who lost to more conservative GOP challengers. The losers had their revenge in last summer’s primaries, when the conservatives were ousted by Republicans backed by the teachers union. Because the GOP dominates Kansas politics, the big policy disputes occur among Republicans, and public unions support the state GOP’s liberal wing,” the editorial reads.
The Wall Street Journal, headquartered in New York City, gets it, but it leaves a burning question for reporters in Topeka, who have long ignored the personal part of the Kansas tax reform story: If writers in New York understand what occurred, why don’t writers on the ground?
“Democrats would love Republicans to abandon rate-cutting or reform… Meanwhile, don’t be surprised if Kansas voters punish the tax-raising Republicans in 2018,” it concludes.
