
Kansas runs one of the most secretive state governments - tboyd47
http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article184179651.html
======
koenigdavidmj
And the end result isn't even the advertised low-tax state, at least for
normal citizens. Topeka's sales tax rate (including the city portion) is over
9%, which is right up there with me in Seattle (about 10%). Plus an income tax
(Washington has none). Plus property taxes that are higher than mine. Plus
personal property tax on vehicles, so car registration in Kansas costs
basically the same as in the transportation benefit district I live in.

Corrupt as hell, and actively lying about the reason the state has no money.

~~~
ModernMech
> And the end result isn't even the advertised low-tax state, at least for
> normal citizens.

That's the point. It's playing out again on the national stage. When they say
"tax cuts" they don't mean tax cuts for you, silly. Tax cuts are for people
who meet the minimum threshold for being able to take advantage of pass-
through rates. Not for the mother of 5 working two jobs just to get her kids
through a school that's only open 4 days a week.

~~~
komali2
A mother of 5 because her state has restrictive, non-factual or non-existent
sex education, and won't support free access to birth control.

Working two jobs to get her kids through school because of a lack of childcare
social services and a high burden of education cost on teachers and families.

Schools only open 4 days a week because of Republican refusal to invest in
education, which has been demonstrated to be the best long-term investment a
country can make.

I personally have abandoned all faith in anybody with an (R) next to their
name, and anybody that bubbles in an (R) on a ballot.

~~~
rayiner
I live in a (D) State. My tax rate is comparable to what it would be in the UK
or Germany. We’re among the highest spenders nationwide in education (and by
extension the world). But the roads are still terrible, the trains don’t run
on time, the schools are just okay, and our largest city has a murder rate
about 20x that of big Western European cities. There’s few public services—no
child care, no health care, no labor protections, etc.

~~~
wvenable
It amazing that the US spends almost as much taxes on health care as Canada
but don't get any free health care for it!

~~~
briandear
Medicaid is a massive program. And it's "free" to the legitimately poor. It's
a myth that the poor don't have health care in the US.

~~~
wvenable
That doesn't really change the point -- The US pays more to give the poor
health care than most countries pay to give everyone care.

~~~
wolco
It makes up for it by providing many insurance related jobs that otherwise
wouldn't exist.

~~~
komali2
Jobs for jobs sake is not exactly where I want my country to be heading.

------
conductr
On the topic of the 'suicide curve' freeway. I watched the video of those
wrecks. It's all people driving too fast for that curve. Instead of seeking
funds to completely rebuild the freeway, maybe they could liberally implement
rumble strips and serious looking signage/flashing lights. These are cheap
fixes.

~~~
niftich
I was surprised to find that the Kansas City Star's recent article on the
'Suicide Curve' [1] (also linked from the topic's article) fails to mention
the fact that in Kansas City, Kansas, there is a perfectly good alternative
route to the 'Suicide Curve' 1 mile away, built in 1990: Interstate 670 [2].

In fact, both eastbound (in Kansas) [3] and westbound (in Missouri) [4], the
leftmost three lanes channel drivers to I-670. In this area, I-670 is a
straight-line through route, while I-70 is a meandering mess [5][6].

[1]
[http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article145534779.html](http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article145534779.html)
[2] [https://www.interstate-guide.com/i-670_moks.html](https://www.interstate-
guide.com/i-670_moks.html) [3]
[https://www.google.com/maps/@39.0918284,-94.6332342,3a,75y,9...](https://www.google.com/maps/@39.0918284,-94.6332342,3a,75y,96.47h,88.44t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sOedKEIr_iYu8xbPQphByMA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)
[4]
[https://www.google.com/maps/@39.0962355,-94.5667216,3a,60y,2...](https://www.google.com/maps/@39.0962355,-94.5667216,3a,60y,280.35h,92.31t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1skpCZzx4Zpa85QOXhl-50IA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)
[5]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_70_in_Kansas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_70_in_Kansas)
[6]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_70_in_Missouri](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_70_in_Missouri)

------
macintux
I don't know how you pivot a deeply-entrenched cultural problem like this.
Pass more laws, if you can get the legislature to act against what's typically
their own self-interest, but of course the same bureaucrats who don't want to
share the information have to enforce those laws.

And when it's always been done that way, nearly everyone still left in the
system has the same negative reaction to transparency.

~~~
rhcom2
One method would be what Tonganoxie did in the article. Get pissed and keep
making noise until the blowback is unmanageable, if that doesn't work vote
them all out.

~~~
macintux
You can't vote out the bureaucracy.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
You _can_ fire them. Differentiating between a cleaning of house and heartless
cutting of services, however, is difficult.

~~~
nikanj
Firing people protected by government contracts and strong unions is
surprisingly hard.

~~~
vkou
C-level people in those organizations are not protected by strong unions or
government contracts. (Although they may come with golden parachutes.) They
are also the people who can institute meaningful change.

------
tasty_freeze
Also, Kris Kobach is their Secretary of State. He campaigned on and won
special powers to stamp out the rampant voting by dead people and illegal
aliens. 20,000 dead people were voting. He personally knew of hundreds of
cases of illegal aliens voting. After two years he found nine verified cases,
with no clear pattern to them (some were confused old people, some R's some
D's).

Unrepentant, he is Trump's boy in pushing for voting "reforms" nationally.
Although he supported Trump's claim that 3,000,000 illegal aliens voted for
Hillary Clinton, he hasn't explained why none have been found.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kris_Kobach#Voter_fraud_claims](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kris_Kobach#Voter_fraud_claims)

------
crushedpeanuts
There's The Kansas Open Records Act they could use.

Not once, not twice, not ten times. Bury them in them. Use the ones they
fulfill as data to inform the public, the ones they don't, well make them sink
time and funding into defending why they won't.

It's only secret because the media and public is apathetic. Hammer down the
doors and sooner or later they'll have to seriously consider whether not being
open with the public is worth it.

~~~
Induane
Not true. They sent KORA requests for that exact states reason. They say the
staffing isn't sufficient to handle the current volume of KORA requests and
thus the request is dismissed. This is apparently legal.

~~~
crushedpeanuts
Yeah, after looking at a couple of agencies pages discussing it, it's like you
can ask, but 400 things are exempted, we're not going to compile for you
(already has to be a record of note, not a new data point), and basically
reserve the right to tell you to fuck off.

sad, really.

A proper FOI approach would give the constituents a reasonable chance to be
informed, but I guess that's the whole idea.

------
jwilk
It times out for me. Here's an archived copy:

[https://archive.is/4fep5](https://archive.is/4fep5)

------
pmoriarty
Is this lack of transparency a big concern to Kansas voters?

~~~
MBCook
Compared to the state basically going bankrupt and ruining some of the highest
rated public schools in the country?

There are a lot of issues. I’m not sure how high this is. I’m not sure many
people even know about it.

~~~
utexaspunk
...are those not related to the State being corrupt?

~~~
MBCook
The schools are a result of the budget.

The budget is a result of the Republican idea that extreme tax cuts bring
revenue gains.

Neither of those is actual corruption. Corruption may have made things worse
(I don’t know), but it’s not actually corruption. Just bad policy.

I think Louisiana is having similar issues for the exact same tax-cut reason.

NPR’s Planet Money covered the Kansas plan in January:
[https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/01/11/509378842/epis...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/01/11/509378842/episode-577-the-
kansas-experiment)

~~~
Spooky23
I would disagree. All of the alternative school movements are about greasing
the palms of private entities with state dollars.

Most charter schools are real estate developments that happen to house school
kids.

~~~
briandear
So how do you explain charter school achievement?

~~~
0xcde4c3db
Has anyone demonstrated that charter schools actually have better processes?
Last time I read up on this, it was a pretty hotly debated topic. If I recall
correctly, the big anti-charter argument was that charter schools' improved
outcomes were almost entirely explained by some combination of more school
days, higher funding, and increased ability to kick out problematic students
(e.g. no requirements to handle remedial or special education students,
expedited expulsion processes because students are only being "expelled" back
to the regular school, etc.).

~~~
bluesroo
If I remember right, it's also due to the fact that the type of parent that
will spend the money and time to enroll their child in a charter school is
much more likely to be the type of parent that takes an active role in their
children's education.

There's an argument that a charter school's real advantage is that it attracts
a higher proportion of parents who want to push their kids for achievement and
have the resources to do it as well.

------
jorblumesea
I'm always confused as to how the Koch-funded candidates did so well on almost
comically evil platforms. It seems the referendum on "Obama" policies in 2010
did nothing but damage the states they were elected in and did little to solve
any real problems. People thought they were sticking it to the feds but really
just shot themselves in the foot. Massive cuts in every department, even
things like transportation which shouldn't be a hyper partisan issue. I get
that abortion clinics or healthcare is a hot button issue, but building roads?
Who looked at that platform and said, you know, I wish we'd stop spending so
much money on maintaining our crumbling roads?

Populist anger did little to improve anyone's lives and you also saw this in
the 2016 election. For as angry as everyone was at the status quo, what do we
have now? Even worse status quo, vis a vis the new tax plan which is just a
oligarchic power grab and a president who literally cannot govern to save his
life.

~~~
stevenwoo
People vote on party lines a super high rate in most areas on the US, it's
close to 90% except in unusual cases. Contemporarily it's the reason GOP
voters have a tough time choosing between a sexual predator and a Democrat in
the Alabama special Senate election, one side thinks the other side is so evil
they feel this is a difficult choice.

Also gerrymandering for districts make it so once it's guaranteed to be a
party seat, the primaries can skew towards the extreme of that party.

~~~
rbritton
Allegations of sexual misconduct and an actual conviction are two very
different things, though modern society tends to treat them as equivalent. I
don't know what actually happened, but it's dangerous to ever let go of that
legal right.

~~~
rayiner
> Allegations of sexual misconduct and an actual conviction are two very
> different things, though modern society tends to treat them as equivalent.

A court determination isn't possible in the Moore case. In Alabama, the
statute of limitations for a civil claim of sexual abuse of a minor is just
years past the victim's 19th birthday. Roy Moore could still in theory still
be prosecuted criminally because one of the victims was under 16 and the
statute of limitations for sexual abuse of a minor is unlimited, but really
there is no chance of that.

But just because allegations don't rise to the level of imprisoning someone
doesn't mean that's the end of it. Reputations typically are mediated by non-
legal means. If someone writes a blog post: "don't invest with <X> he ripped
me off," nobody demands to see the civil judgment for fraud.

------
ringaroundthetx
This is what "land of opportunity" means to many people, 50+ sovereign
jurisdictions to shape the legal framework however you want with no outside
pressure possible.

Everyone else is playing by a less effective set of rules.

~~~
vkou
Markets require informational symmetry to be efficient. Secrecy is anathema to
all forms of opportunity other then graft and corruption.

~~~
anigbrowl
The point is that many people who claim to want beautiful markets actually
liked rigged ones in which they can practice the graft and corruption you
refer to. Put another way, some people who say things you find agreeable are
hypocrites who are trying to exploit your good will.

------
dsfyu404ed
A lack of transparent government somewhere like Kansas is a much smaller
problem for the governed than lack of transparency in a state with a larger
government bureaucracy.

edit: It's still a problem, I'm just pointing out that the per-capita harm of
a state like NY or CA playing by the same transparency rules as KS would be
much greater. This may be why the people of KS are more willing to put up with
it, the net harm to them is low because the government's involvement in their
lives is low.

~~~
jechamt
For a citizen and their family that live somewhere, it's either 100% or 0%.
It's of marginal benefit to say a 'problem is much smaller' than somewhere
else; this is similar to telling those citizens and their families they can
solve it by moving, which has its own issues.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
I meant more along the lines of a terrible government that mostly stays out of
your way is no worse than a mediocre one that involves itself in your daily
life.

