Dennis McKinney’s replacement in the Kansas House, Kingman’s Pat Maloney, was cautious in what he said in his weekly letters last year, being careful not to overtly reveal his ideology lest the more conservative members of the 116th take note and exception. This year, however, it’s becoming increasingly obvious he is indeed a Democrat in more than name in a decidedly GOP leaning district.
The latest example is this quote from this current week’s comments emailed to newspaper editors (which you’ll find in context on page 2): “We are caught in serious times; in fact, there was a motion to do away with the corporate income tax this week. That alone is a $200-300-million tax exemption for corporations. We need revenue to stabilize the economy.” (emphasis mine)
Members of the Democrat party, for the most part, don’t truly appreciate how a market economy functions. They seem unwilling to acknowledge that coporations don’t pay taxes--consumers do. Whatever cost is incurred by a corporation paying taxes, whether it be on a state or federal level, is simply passed on to those who purchase its goods or services. This nation has the second highest rate of corporate taxation in the industrialized world, and to what effect. The consumers, again, in the end, pay those taxes. Taxing big corporations makes for good political rhetoric, as does the class warfare mantra of raising taxes “on the rich”. It, however, makes for flawed economic policy. It’s just one more way the “little guy”--read that the “working man” in the Dem’s playbook--gets squeezed in the end.
Further, ask yourself this question. Who is the “we” in Maloney’s statement, “We need revenue to stabilize the economy.”? The “we” is Topeka, the government. Now ask yourself another question...When’s the last time the economy was stabilized by government taking more of our money for itself? The state’s economy is a reflection of the national economy--an economy now the sole property of one Obama administration, an administration running up deficit spending at five times the rate of Mr. Bush, an administration about to raise taxes on us through the ObamaCare monstrosity and the sunsetting of the Bush tax cuts, an administration that’s tried to revive the economy with an $800 billion “stimulus” package and yet another government spendthrift “jobs” bill. And yet the unemployment rate hovers at near 10 percent, not to mention a 27 percent unemployment rate in the construction industry thanks to a record low in new housing sales.
Maloney was McKinney’s choice to replace him, much in the mold of McKinney as a personable, if not folksy fixture of the decidely rural landscape of the 116th.
But now that Maloney’s tax-first mentality is becoming more evident with each passing week, isn’t it time the people of this district consider replacing him with someone who truly represents the fiscal and social ideology of the majority of the voting residents of this area of the state?
