After giving away the (revenue) farm, Sam Brownback tries to spackle together a budget

Gov. Sam Brownback boasted during his gubernatorial campaign last year about how much money he was pouring into K-12 education. It was a technically accurate but realistically dubious claim (he counted pension funding, which doesn’t reach classrooms) but one he made nonetheless.

With a second term safely in hand, Brownback is now treating K-12 education funding like the annoying stepchild he never wanted but is now stuck having to look after.

Brownback, during a speech to the Kansas Legislature Thursday night, blamed K-12 education on the state’s well-documented budget problems.

“A majority of the projected shortfall we face is due to increases in K-12 spending since fiscal year 2014,” Brownback said. “I want to repeat that. A majority of the projected shortfall we face is due to increases in K-12 spending.”

That statement reveals a sad state of affairs in Kansas politics. Barely a moon cycle since another Kansas court said the Kansas Legislature unconstitutionally and chronically underfunds its legal mandate to adequately fund K-12 education, the governor of the state treats that obligation like a nuisance.

Brownback also had his “read my lips, no new taxes” moment on Friday when he announced that he would try to stop the tax-cut bleeding with tax increases. Brownback wants to boost sin taxes, a palatable tax increase in his eyes.

By increasing liquor taxes to 12 percent from 8 percent and boosting the cigarette tax from 79 cents a pack to $2.29 a pack, Brownback thinks he can stabilize the Kansas budget.

Politicians like Brownback gravitate toward sin taxes when they realize that government does indeed need to exist and requires money to do its work. But sin taxes are not reliable sources of income. Just ask Missouri what happened to its gaming revenue, which was supposed to help support education.

Or, specific to Brownback’s proposal, just follow the logic. If you depend on a $1.50 increase in the price of a pack of Pall Malls, what happens when people start smoking less due to the cost? What about the Leawood smokers who drive to the gas station near Ward Parkway Mall to buy their smokes and Keystone Lights?

Regardless, it’s fun to watch Brownback painted into a corner, having to lobby for tax increases after he spent so much breath railing on about their evils.