Sam Brownback, who has faced a tough election cycle this year - one that has left him blanketing Kansans with mail and ads ran into an unexpected sideswipe today.
FairTaxKC, a "Fairtax" / Tea organization in the Kansas City Metro sent out their official endorsement letter, and in it there were few surprises - an endorsement of Lynn Jenkins, one for Pat Roberts.. but when it came to Sam Brownback, they sang a slightly different tune:
The Kansas GOP platform specifically identifies the FairTax as the desired tax policy for Kansas, yet Governor Sam Brownback gave no support for the Kansas legislature to implement a state FairTax. Representative Richard Carlson, Chairman of the House Committee on Taxation, refused a FairTax hearing last year even though 30-plus legislators had co-sponsored the Kansas FairTax bill. Mr. Carlson has since decided to retire from public office.
The Democrat party wants to lock in the Income Tax and derive more revenue from individual payroll taxes. Deducting from taxpayers' paychecks by the government based on their income is tantamount to legalized stealing.
The current Libertarian candidate for Governor of Kansas, Keen Umbehr, has made the FairTax his major economic goal for Kansas. Instead of a few Counties receiving favored enterprise zone status, the FairTax would give all Kansas Counties favored enterprise zone status without lobbyist's intervention. All of the business would be relieved of being state tax collectors instead of just a few of the favored ones. All corporations would receive a 100% tax credit and not have to file documents to get it. All wage earners would receive 100% of their earnings with no deductions for state income tax.
FairTax KC has been an organization of many minds - holding a convention statewide which was attended by Lynn Jenkins, Milton Wolf, Kris Kobach and others. This event is designed to highlight their issues.
http://www.fairtaxkc.org/...
Scheduling events around the state to help raise awareness of their issues, the decision to pay attention to the Libertarian Candidate - as well as take a swipe at Sam Brownback's failure to move with them on 100% of their tea party issues is an interesting problem for Sam.
Does he venture further to the right on tax issues in order to get the Tea Party to come home to him, or does he use this to say: see, I'm not as far to the right as some say I am?
Sam Brownback is more likely to ignore this issue and move ahead but this may provide numerous unhappy Republicans an 'out' providing them an opportunity to move to vote for Umbehr, the Libertarian.