During a debate on a bill to remove obstacles from shifting Children’s Initiative Fund and Kansas Endowment for the Youth funds into the state general fund, it was revealed that the Brownback administration is contemplating selling future tobacco settlement funds to Wall Street for quick cash to prop up the crumbling state budget.
“Sam Brownback is literally mortgaging Kansas’ future to Wall Street on his way out the door,” said Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley. “He’s spending money we don’t even have yet and making sure that taxpayers and children will be cleaning up his mess long after he is gone. I find it offensive.”
“In yet another budget hoax, Sam Brownback wants the people of Kansas to follow the Wizard of Oz’s admonition, ‘Do not pay attention to that man behind the curtain.’ Clearly, Professor Marvel was a charlatan and so is Sam Brownback,” Hensley said.
If this plan moves forward, the steady stream of funding dedicated for children and early childhood programs for the next 15 years would be dismantled for a quick lump sum payment of $400 million into the state general fund. Once money is moved to the state general fund, there is no way to protect the funds from being used for anything the governor chooses.
“Sam Brownback and his allies have mismanaged our state so badly that they are stealing from our children’s future and selling everything that isn’t nailed down,” said House Minority Leader Tom Burroughs, D-33rd Dist. “If Sam Brownback is willing to double-cross toddlers and children, is there anything he won’t do? Just when you think the long-term damage that Sam Brownback and his handpicked legislators are doing to Kansas can’t get any worse, they come up with a plan like this. Kansas kids will pay for this governor’s actions for decades to come.”