Greetings from the 85th Legislative District!
It continues to be an honor and a privilege to serve the 85th district as your State Representative.
Having previously served as the Majority Whip of the Legislature, I have now finished my second year as Chairman of the House Commerce and Labor Committee. I have used that position to promote a basic belief … that we need more taxpayers, not more taxes.
A good deal: It is essential to create a low-tax and stable regulatory environment, so businesses will locate in Kansas and create good-paying jobs. The Aviation Reinvestment Act is a perfect example of helping to create those jobs. The legislature provided an incentive measure causing Cessna to build the new Citation Columbus plant in Wichita, creating over 1,000 new direct jobs and an estimated 3,000 new indirect jobs.
Wichita wins: Wichita and South Central Kansas benefited from this year’s legislative session. We were successful in promoting and providing for The Wichita Center for Graduate Medical Education, the National Institute for Aviation Research, the new Center for Aviation Training at Jabara, the new Citation Columbus, the Water Restoration Project, Impact Fund Act, School Medicaid Payment Plan, and other measures that benefit our area.
Top issues: The dominant topics of this legislative session included Illegal alien laws, additional health care policy reform, energy policy, budget control and budget transparency, economic stimulus, and voter ID reform.
Mixed results: The results are mixed. The illegal alien bill died before making it into the conference committee. The energy and efficiency bill (containing the coal plant) was vetoed, and two other compromise bills were vetoed. The Governor also vetoed the voter photo ID bill, and vetoed the abortion-reporting bill. The entire economic stimulus package creating $6 billion dollars of investments (including the new coal plant) was vetoed.
Health Care Policy moved forward, providing a mix of state funding for low income families and certain clinics, and incentives to promote private health care funding.
The budget increases dropped from a staggering 8%-9% increase, to about a 5% increase for this year’s budget, including new school funding for 2009 and 2010.
I invite you to contact me if you have questions or comments about these or other issues of importance to you. My home phone is 744-2409 and the email is sbrunk@cox.net .
Again, thank you for the opportunity to serve you.
Thanks and God Bless,
HomePage
