Thanks to efforts by Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, Kansas is a black hole where dreams go to die. The state is broke. Families are struggling. Schools are failing. With so many people on the verge of destitution thanks to Gov. Brownback’s trickle-down economics “experiment,” one would think the state government would be scrambling to fix the intensifying existential threat that is living in Kansas. However, one would be wrong to assume that, since it has come out that while Kansas continues to look more and more like a post-apocalyptic wasteland, Gov. Brownback and his ilk have been using taxpayer money to finance private plane flights.
According to information gathered by the Associated Press, Kansas Republicans have been using the state’s executive aircraft, a nine-seater Raytheon King Air 350, to fund trips to out-of-state sporting events and personal excursions with family and friends, often mixing political, family, and religious interests with official business. Among these taxpayer-funded trips was an 834-mile, one-day jaunt to Memphis, Tenn. so Gov. Brownback and his family could attend the 2015 Liberty Bowl. It cost taxpayers $1,251.
Another $465 was spent by Gov. Brownback to attend the Kansas-Wichita State match-up during the 2015 NCAA Tournament. He brought some friends and family, as well as Senate President Susan Wagle, R-District 30, State Rep. Gene Sullentrop, R-District 91, and their spouses.
It appears collegiate athletics, involving universities hurt by Brownback’s trickle-down economics experiment, mind you, are important state functions while Kansan lives are wrecked through the state government’s arrogance.
Unfortunately for the people of Kansas, state law contains a statute that enables Gov. Brownback and his cronies to make such trips, so long as they reimburse the state for plane ticket costs. But the statute is vague, failing to outline who can be taken on the plane and for what purpose.
According to Gov. Brownback’s office, he hasn’t taken any reimbursable trips, even though he, himself, has flown 17,348 miles in the last 15 months for ribbon-cuttings, community meetings, and tours, which also involve meeting with religious groups around the state while traveling on government business.
Smells like potential First Amendment violations, doesn’t it?
While many in Kansas and beyond have criticized Gov. Brownback for his trips, Eileen Hawley, one of his spokespersons, defended the governor in an email to the Associated Press.
“Kansas Governors have long attended sporting events of Kansas teams as part of their official duties and have used the state aircraft for travel to those events. There is no additional expense incurred by the State when other Kansans are on the plane for an official trip with the governor.”
Sporting events are all fine and wonderful and good, but even though attending these events is some kind of “official duty” for Kansas governors, the state is dying. Attending a goddamn football or basketball game does nothing to help the people in Kansas whose lives are falling apart because of an ill-conceived trickle-down economics experiment by an inept governor. It does nothing to improve the quality of education. It does nothing to help the economy get back on track. It only puts Brownback’s face on ESPN and stuffs popcorn down his gullet.
Gov. Brownback, along with Republican state senators, House members, and agency heads, have been using taxpayer dollars to fund private trips, despite trickle-down economics turning Kansas into an 82,278 square-mile human rights violation with a $1.1 billion budget hole.
But, go Jayhawks, right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xliMwipXoiA
Featured image by Gage Skidmore, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.
h/t Raw Story
