Kansas
GOP lawmakers, Democratic governor in Kansas fighting again over income tax cuts
TOPEKA, Kan. — Top Republican legislators in Kansas have renewed a fight with the Democratic governor over income tax cuts that have drawn bipartisan criticism as favoring the wealthy, with no sign of a break in an impasse that thwarted tax relief last year.
The House was scheduled to vote Thursday on a GOP plan for cutting income, sales and property taxes by a total of $1.6 billion over three years. The Senate approved it Wednesday, 25-11, but with four members absent, it appeared that Republican supporters were at least a vote short of a two-thirds majority in the 40-member chamber needed to override an expected veto from Gov. Laura Kelly.
Top Republicans want to impose a single personal income tax rate of 5.25%, replacing three rates that top out at 5.7%, starting in 2025. Kelly strongly opposes the idea, and projections from the state Department of Revenue have shown that with a single rate, the largest savings in raw dollars would go to people with incomes exceeding $250,000 a year.
The dispute over the single-rate or “flat” plan blocked a large tax cut in Kansas last year, when a dozen other states cut taxes, according to the conservative-leaning Tax Foundation. Kansas now expects to have nearly $4.5 billion in surplus cash at the end of June, equal to 17% of the state’s current $25 billion budget.
“We need to give the money back,” said state Sen. Mike Thompson, a conservative Kansas City-area Republican.
GOP lawmakers who drafted the plan included provisions that would exempt the first $20,300 of a married couple’s income from state taxes — more if they have children, with the amounts rising with inflation after 2025. Backers noted that all income groups would see cuts and that some poor families would see their tax burdens erased.
Republican leaders married the income tax proposals to a proposal from Kelly to eliminate the state’s 2% sales tax on groceries starting April 1 and proposals she embraced to exempt all of retirees’ Social Security income from taxes and to lower homeowners’ property taxes.
“We gave her a lot of stuff in this legislation,” said Republican Sen. Caryn Tyson, the Senate tax committee’s chair.
Lawmakers were acting in the first 14 days of their annual 90-day legislative session. GOP leaders treated the tax issues involved as familiar and expedited up-or-down votes on a plan in each chamber.
Kelly outlined her own proposals for sales, property and Social Security taxes last week. Her income tax proposal would increase the standard deductions that all individual filers claim. Her entire plan would cut taxes by a total of $1.1 billion over three years.
Kansas is debating tax cuts at a time when the nationwide tax-cutting trend may be slowing as a revenue surge fueled by federal spending and inflation recedes. Backers of Kelly’s plan argue that it’s more affordable for the state in the long term, eventually costing $324 million a year in revenues, compared with $583 million under the Republican plan. GOP lawmakers dispute that, but neither side has made their longer-term projections public.
Kelly still cites an aggressive tax-cutting experiment in 2012 and 2013 under Republican Gov. Sam Brownback that was followed by large, persistent budget shortfalls until most of the cuts were reversed in 2017.
“Kansans have seen reckless tax experiments that hurt our schools, roads, and economy before, and they don’t want to go back,” Kelly spokesperson Brianna Johnson said in an email.
Neva Butkus, a state policy analyst for the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, said the GOP package would widen the gap between the poorest families, who already pay a higher percentage of their incomes in taxes, and the wealthiest.
Butkus said while provisions of the package would help poor families, “It is definitely not capable of counteracting the giant tax cut that you’d be seeing at the top.”
But some Republicans argued that a simpler income tax system is fairer and said Kansas needs to become more competitive with other states. The Tax Foundation said in a 2022 report that Kansas residents pay more of their incomes in taxes than residents of most surrounding states.
In 2022, Iowa moved to a flat tax, initially set at 4.4% but scheduled to drop eventually to 3.9%. Now, GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds is pushing to cut the rate to $3.65% for this year.
Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson, a Wichita-area Republican, said retaining an income tax with multiple rates would keep Kansas “behind the eight ball” economically.
“It’s not the future,” he said.
In the last four years, the University of Arkansas has gotten the better of the Kansas Jayhawks in postseason play.
In 2022, the Razorbacks defeated KU football 55-53 in a triple-overtime thriller in Memphis during the Liberty Bowl. A year later, No. 8 seed Arkansas upset No. 1 seed KU (and reigning college basketball champions) in the NCAA Tournament by a single point (72-71) to end Kansas basketball’s chances of a repeat. In 2025, Arkansas pulled off another upset in the Big Dance when the No. 10 seed Razorbacks defeated No. 7 KU 79-72 to advance to the Sweet 16.
Needless to say, there were plenty of Jayhawk fans hoping for revenge this weekend when Arkansas was announced as the No. 2 seed in the Lawrence Regional – and KU baseball delivered in a big way with a sweep over the Razorbacks to reach the program’s first-ever Super Regionals appearance.
KU came from behind in both games to earn a 5-3 victory on Saturday and a 13-10 win on Sunday night at Hoglund Ballpark.
On Saturday, Arkansas took an early 1-0 lead in the top of the second before a Tyson LeBlanc RBI tied things up in the bottom of the third. Each team scored two in the fifth and remained deadlocked until KU pulled away late with a Dairel Osoria run in the seventh and a solo home run by Augusto Mungarrieta in the eighth to seal the win.
After Arkansas beat Northeastern in a narrow 10-9 contest on Sunday afternoon, KU and Arkansas met again on Sunday evening in a highly anticipated matchup that saw a lot of offensive firepower on display.
The Razorbacks jumped out to a 5-0 lead through three innings before KU had a monster performance in the top of the fourth. Osoria led things off with a solo home run before Brady Ballinger hit an RBI single to score Jordan Bach and Max Soliz Jr. had an RBI single to score Dylan Schlotterback. Then LeBlanc showed his All-American talents once again in a big moment by hitting a three-run home run to deep center field to put the Jayhawks ahead 6-5.
From there, KU would never relinquish the lead after scoring two runs in the fifth inning and three in the sixth. The Jayhawks tacked on two more in the top of the eighth to give the team its 13th score of the game.
The Jayhawks are now 45-16 on the season – tied for the most wins in a season in program history with the 1993 team that reached the College World Series.
KU will now move on to the Super Regionals which start Friday, June 5. If Oklahoma beats Georgia Tech tomorrow, KU will get the chance to host as they did this week. If Georgia Tech wins, the Jayhawks will head to Atlanta with a spot in the College World Series on the line.
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KSHB 41 reporter Olivia Acree covers portions of Johnson County, Kansas, including Olathe and Lenexa. Share your story idea with Olivia.
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If the motto to live by is to get 1 hour of movement a day, the Parkinson’s community in Kansas City is exceeding it.
Bob Zipse has been fighting Parkinson’s for 10 years. He said the diagnosis hit him hard.
Leawood’s Parkinson’s Exercise and Wellness Center expands services as diagnoses climb
“I was super depressed. I mean, I was in a chair. Did you want to move? Look around, just horrible. Because there’s no resources. Where do I go with the time?”
Zipse said the disease can be an isolating experience.
KSHB
“Parkinson’s, I say, is a very lonely, lonely disease. Either people don’t want to deal with you, or you’re embarrassing.”
He found the Parkinson’s Exercise and Wellness Center at his lowest point. Now, he sees people around him pushing past their limits.
“You see people out here, they’re in the mid-70s, they’re doing push-ups, sit-ups, lifting weights. I mean, it’s amazing, really,” Zipse said. “In here, we’re all the same.”
Sarissa Curry founded the center after seeing the power of healing through exercise and recognizing that diagnosis rates were increasing. An aging population and younger diagnoses are among the biggest factors driving that trend.
Kansas consistently ranks as having one of the highest Parkinson’s disease diagnoses and mortality rates in the United States, second only to Nebraska. According to the Parkinson’s Foundation, an estimated 20,000 people in the Kansas City metro alone are living with the disease.
“You see your neurologist once every six months to a year, and you see a physical therapist maybe a couple of months out of the year. Community-based programs are here every day to support this community,” Curry said.
Curry said the warning signs of rising Parkinson’s rates have been visible for years.
“They have been predicting this increase in Parkinson’s for many years. They were able to see the writing on the wall, they were able to see how the population was aging, and they knew that this was coming. We paid attention.”
She expanded the center to serve as an all-encompassing resource for people like Zipse.
KSHB
“I’d hate to wager what I would have been like. Life would have stopped for me, I think. This at least gives me hope, gives me some work towards and see some benefit of it,” Zipse said.
The PEWC will host a ribbon cutting on Wednesday, June 3, at 3:30 p.m. The community is invited to attend to learn more about the center’s services and the disease as incidence rates continue to rise each year.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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