The priorities of the Kansas chamber in the legislative session opening Monday includes applying a chunk of the state's revenue surplus to slashing personal and corporate income taxes. The organization also seeks to bolster the workforce with a tax credit for companies hiring apprentices. The chamber wants to put heat on lawmakers to make energy costs more competitive between Kansas and nearby states. Then another goal block cities and counties from adopting a patchwork of bans on plastic bags and other materials used at many retail stores. With Kansas reflected today are two of the Kansas chambers workhorses. Chamber President Alan Cobb, and the Chamber's Chief State House lobbyist Eric Stafford, welcome.
Thanks for having thanks for having us.
Okay, your mission is to help us wade through your expansive lobbying agenda. But first, I want Mr. Cobb just kind of describe the landscape at the Capitol heading. Starting with Democrat Lord Kelly, having starting your second term and retention of a Republican supermajority just kind of give people a sense of of that tension.
I don't think it's changed much there was tension over the last four years in some issues. But the governor and the legislature worked together on a number of things. Several chamber priorities passed with huge majorities. So I think it's going to be pretty status quo. That's my guess. The question is, does Governor Kelly tack a little left? I don't think she will. I wouldn't be shocked if she did. But you still have the super majorities. And it's an interesting balance. Are you super Georgia Republicans who temper the governor and the governor tempers the super majorities of Republicans? So I don't think the tension is going to be much different. I, I would guess that the Kansas house will be a little bit more unified. They lost one or two. But I feel like they're probably more cohesive, but it's sort of supermajority. That's my sense, that I'm always an optimist or
Stafford anything to add? No, I would. I would agree with that. Governor Kelly, by the way, said in an interview that she's going to be much like she has been in the past no reason to change. She says she's a centrist and wants to be there. Which means I think she's going to make Democrats unhappy in a legislature occasionally, and she'll make Republicans unhappy occasionally in the legislature. So yeah, that's my guess. Yeah. All right. So let's talk Texas, let's start with your the Chamber's idea of reducing the rates for personal and corporate income taxes. So first, why don't you start, Mr. Stafford? And what's the argument for that?
Well, the argument is we need to become more competitive, we need to grow. We need to attract more business investment, we need to attract individuals here. And it's not just necessarily income taxes. I tweeted last night, the Tax Foundation released How does your state rank on cell phone taxes were the sixth highest cell phone tax burden in the nation? That is an outrage. It is an asset on your agenda. lowering taxes is on our agenda doesn't matter what it is.
All taxes must go down. Yes.
So yeah, I mean, property taxes pulled very high. In our CEO poll this year, 72% of business owners surveyed. And that's not a member poll, that is a scientific blind random survey of Kansas business owners. 72% said the property tax burden is too high and needs to go down on the corporate and personal income tax side, really, when you look at state receipts, and we're not alone are unique in the state of Kansas. And the amount of money that we're actually pulling in now is about 20 25%, higher than it was two years ago, three years ago, largely from the Federal just influx of cash that's coming in through the stimulus packages. And every state when I talked to my counterparts, every state is in the same boat. A lot of states have taken those revenues and used it to lower their tax rates, Kansas has not yet done so we will be asking that the legislature do that this year.
Okay. On COVID. Just think about this for a second. There's a big surplus. And that's really what's at play here is that legislators in the government are trying to decide how to spend the surplus and you can you can invest in new programs, which would be an ongoing expense, or you can reduce taxation, which affects the what comes into the treasury. One of your ideas is to actually lower the statewide sales tax, which is at six, the state's part is six and a half percent. Why would that be a good idea?
We are either seventh or eighth and combined highest combined state local tax rate in the country. I mean, it's good to be in the top 10 Generally, that's not one of them. So cities
and counties can add sales tax. And so once you get it all combined together, you could do would be purchasing something and it'd be a 10% or 11. Breland is
here here in Shawnee County. We're Eric and I live. And there's certain sales type districts I think maybe close to 11. Sales tax is a part of commerce. Not all businesses are exempt from sales tax b2b is sales is exempt. But it certainly has an impact on the economy and then the personal economy, the ability to purchase things, whether it's Large ticket items like, like automobiles or other things you need for your home. But that's certainly a part of the economic driver. There are states like Colorado that I believe are relatively relatively flat 4.2 4.5 sales tax overall. And we're where you're at 10%. That starts impacting businesses, but it also impacts individuals, probably more so, and particularly lower income folks, you want to go buy a $5,000 car, which is not a great car, though, you're gonna be socked with the $500 and can maybe not afford a $5,000 car. But now you have a $500. Tax bill,
sir, because you want to lower sales tax income tax property taxes, those are the three legs at the taxation stool. So how do you do that and maintain government services?
You'll find out in 2023,
we're gonna we're gonna drive off a cliff when a lot of that money is gone.
No, what we're looking at is modeling on the income tax reduction, and two, and I'll say let's, let's go back to last year when they voted to eliminate food sales tax, we were neutral, we believe that it was tax relief, and we were supportive of tax relief. But to Alan's point, and your first question was, we believe that it's better to lower the sales tax rate on everything, not just one thing, and then talking recessionary. What's the one thing people buy in a recession, and you're going to eliminate that from the intact income tax base, or from the from the state revenue base? By taking food off the table of from sales tax, it's better to lower the overall rate versus exempting big items from that. So how are we going to do that? The bill that we're working on, we've researched, really one of the states that lowered taxes the year after the Brownback tax cuts, and they're getting close to fully eliminating their corporate income tax, and then their personal income tax is very low. Now in North Carolina, what they have done is they've taken a growth trigger that says whatever the consensus revenue estimate group, they call it something else in North Carolina, whatever they set for what they think revenues will be anything over that is going to be used to buy down income taxes. So it's not saying that you have one and a half percent growth, some states have done it that way. They limit growth to one and a half percent. Anything over that can be used, it's whatever consensus revenue estimating group comes back with. If they say we're gonna have $8 billion of revenue, and we have 8.5, then that extra half a half billion dollars, $500 million can be used to buy down income tax rates.
Okay, so what I've heard some talk about a flat tax going from three individual income tax brackets to one or two, were too. So what does that do?
It just gets you more competitive. It's when we talk about fairness, if everybody's paying the same rate than what's more fair than that.
So the guy making $30,000 pays the same rate as somebody making 30 million. So you'd have
some Well, the guy pours, you'd have some floors to
a minimum threshold where you don't pay any
say like, sorry, I hear people say it's like Colorado habit.
Yeah. And their voters they put on the ballot this year to lower their income tax rate. I think they're four or five, five, and they lowered it to four to five or four, two, and the voters approved it in Colorado. So it is the guy who's making $30 million is paying equitable share 5% of 30 million on income taxes versus 30,000. It's still 5%. So, you know,
so what is your proposal on?
finalizing that? Okay, literally, what do you guys we're coming over
to political buoyancy, whatever, but I tend I have to address the I want to be very polite here about the three legged stool. Yeah, it is an absolute myth, and I am so tired of it. I've been dealing with cancer politics for 30 years. Property taxes are 98% driven by local government. So Kansas government does not have a three legged snow. We have two legged stool sales and income, plus a whole bunch of little pedestals like sin taxes, taxes on intangibles, taxes on cell phones, Amy. So
at the state level, it's really income. But
you should have a whole podcast on the three legged stool myth.
Well, the property taxes I get I know they're real. acts as a taxpayer.
All three of the legislature has very little to do with it other
they'd like to have more control of property taxes. I actually don't. What do you think about Governor Kelly's idea of immediately rolling back the food sales tax? Do you think that'll actually happen? Rather than wait two years to phase it?
I think that it is conversations that we've had so far with legislators just in prep for the session. I think it's a very realistic possibility it could happen. But I also think it'll be part of the bigger tax conversation. You know, Governor Kelly ran on commercials that she's in the middle of the road. Well, you know, there's going to be a time where, you know, the art of compromise isn't getting only what you want. It's giving up some things that you might not be crazy. that either. Right. I think I
think there's some optimism in the Republican led House and Senate that a negotiated tax bill.
That's the point you're getting to I think part of
the huge thing. Yeah, I
think that there's probably better
though I would think, to lower it over a couple of years, just because let's face it, we saw the shock of the Brownback tax cuts where the state was not able to absorb it, they should have been able to absorb it.
And you're talking about the food sales tax there. And I heard that let, if you stair step, a tax reduction that's really big, it's probably a safer proposition than it is to immediately jump off the
what Eric just mentioned in North Carolina, like it happened. It's happening over time, and it allows the system lets
the politicians get credit for a tax cut every year. I think it's genius. Yes. Okay. Let's get to your agenda on workforce and education. There's a proposal here for a new tax credit for employers who participate, it would go to companies that participate in hiring and having an apprenticeship program this is trying to develop a workforce in various fields. You want to explain that, Eric?
Yeah, absolutely. So one of the recommendations we released, I think it was last October a workforce study and recommendations for the legislature to consider we actually provided that to the interim Workforce Committee this this fall early winter. With I think there's 20 or so 25 recommendations that this legislature can do to help improve the workforce climate in the state of Kansas. One of those is this apprenticeship tax credit. Kudos to Governor Kelly for creating an Office of Apprenticeship. Alan has been heavily involved in that. I think that goal, based on what she has said, and the conversations that we've had with the administration is to elevate the role and importance of apprenticeships, they've largely been viewed as you know union only in the past, but keeping your employees well trained and up to date with technology not only helps production and output of the business but also increases the level of safety of the employees. The the apprenticeship tax credit is many states have those in place ours that we recommended would be based off of Alabama or South Carolina, from our from our report, that that recognizes those employers who are paying for the investment of that training for those employees, but then also apprenticeships to be registered and recognize there are steps once the employee achieves certain objectives, then their salaries increase. And so they have benchmarks that they basically have built in motivation to go through the apprenticeship program as well because it's financially better for them to do so. So it's just to help offset the cost. The proposal that we offered was $1,250 per apprentice up to 1010 apprentices. So 1200 $12,500 a year for
Kansas and Kansas ranks very low. We may be 47, the number of apprenticeships per capita. why that is? I don't know. I'll give like Eric said, I'll give Governor Kelly a lot of credit for creating the office hired a firebrand, Shonda Atwater, who's doing a great job and and the apprenticeships are not all traditional trades, which are very important. But they're also they can be teachers, they can be it they can be healthcare, so they're not all just
not Allama as an electrician, which are very linked. Yeah, they
can be well beyond that. And there's no reason Kansas can't improve shaqab If
you want to just touch on an education issue, I know it's on the agenda. It suggests that y'all the chamber supports basically public spin public dollars devoted to private education, vouchers, whatever you want to call it. Why would the chamber be endorsing such a thing?
Because we're for all of the above, we need better students. I don't we don't care whether they're homeschooled private school. parochial school religious schools or public schools. We need all of them to succeed. And I certainly will disagree with some of those that oh, if you have private school funding that hurts the public schools, like competition works everywhere. And we're all of the above. It's not terribly complicated. Well,
children are not widgets, you know, you're when you're trying to make the best highest quality widget at the lowest cost. That's not exactly what so
let's focus on the students then and not on the institution. So what is best for the student and sometimes it's public education. Sometimes it's private, sometimes it's homeschool. And it's all said all of the above and that
I think your agenda also included something about making sure we had good teachers in all of these classrooms. So Do y'all have an idea about how to go about that?
Not any specific proposal. I will look at our language and see what it says see what you're referring to but real quick on this
I thought I saw that in your recital. Well, if it's not maybe it was just an oversight.
Yes, we need better and more teachers and so there's a teacher shortage some of you but there's a shadow workforce of everything. Shortage of air. Yeah. And is it does it it's like I maybe I spent too much time on Twitter on the Case led feed. It's there's a whole bunch of reasons that our teachers different than welders or anything else about as far as why there's a shortage, shortage of everything.
Yeah, we see that I see that bullet point that you're talking about. Yeah, I know there has been some efforts in the past to recognize teachers. There has been some efforts in the past under Governor Brownback to relax the standards of certification requirements for teachers to come in that. Because if you were a successful business owner for 50 years, because you didn't have that certificate, you couldn't bring in your world real world business experience and teach a business class in high school, you had to go through an education program certified by the state. So those standards were were relaxed. So yes, do we need to have more support and do what we need to do for teachers? Absolutely. What what does that entail? There are times
your income tax, cut money and and put it into public education? Or maybe they got enough money that just needs to be reallocated? Well,
I could argue that reallocating dollars would would be one way to do it. But But to your point, there was a on vouchers and school choice. There was a report that came out this past fall from Florida that shows that school choice in Florida has actually increased outcomes for public school students as well. So a rising tide raises all boats, competition raises all outcomes. So I think there are there are signs that it's definitely working and post COVID that pulling numbers on that issue are higher than they've ever been Republican and Democrat,
maybe it's just the rhetoric in the capital. They hear that when people are talking about these issues, they they oftentimes speak in negative terms about public schools, they just slam public schools and hold up private education. Sure, that's the answer
or slam private schools saying they didn't bottle public education. It's interesting summer polling indicates, and this is part of that analysis. But one of the conversations has been well, if you have in rural Kansas, you're not going to your choice, because there's not enough students. But there are some polling data that indicates that the public in the rural Kansas support school choice because they feel like some of their folks have moved away to go to better schools and the way they can to respond to that is to have school choice. So it should be a broad base conversation. Again, I don't know how else to say it. It's all of the above. Let's have better public schools better. More choice.
Let's get to the legal part of your agenda. Sure. I don't know if there's anything you guys want to emphasize. But one of them was about reinstating financial caps on non economic damages for pain and suffering. I think this is a Kansas Supreme Supreme Court decision you guys dislike? And so this would limit business liability.
Yeah. When when your non economic damages are typically your pain and suffering, your non economic loss, you're not your wages, it's your it's your the economic loss that you would suffer. It's
the agony, it's not real dollars you missed out on your income,
all that. So you know, you might have a oftentimes you'll see the, you know, the big settlements, somebody receives $20 million. And it's $750,000 in damages, but you know, 19.25, and pain and suffering, right. And the legislature felt it was the best public policy for the state to have that in place. And our Supreme Court came in and said, Nope, those are unconstitutional. You can't do that. And so yeah, we do support reinstating caps on economic damages about the only approach that we have left at this point is a constitutional amendment on that. But we, we are the states that are pro trial lawyer, you look at the insurance premiums, you won't talk about your property taxes being high, wait till your insurance premiums start going up as these cases start kicking in which they're now starting to go through the court system. We're hearing from our attorneys on this one, that you're it's starting to become an issue. So yeah, we do, in our opinion, feel that we need to have limits on, on the non economic losses for individuals.
Under human resources. There are a couple items that caught my eye, one of them was about supporting criminal justice reform that offers people an opportunity who have a criminal record to reenter the workforce that could that could help with the workforce shortages. Another one was to encourage federal immigration reform and oppose any penalties for businesses that maybe accidentally hire an illegal worker. So you want to you guys want to touch on those?
Sure. Yeah. Like if you accidentally hire somebody, should you in the
say, accidentally in air quotes, because come on, how do you accidentally do that?
Yeah, well, I think because of this gets into identity, identity theft, and a bunch of other things. But if you're particularly let's say some of the larger employers in Kansas that hire a lot of immigrants, do you think they're going to take a chance on shutting their whole thing down? Sure. hiring illegal. They're not now they're not going to take
that show. And hackers the Packers aren't gonna they look go in there and it could be very persuasive fake IDs, I guess. Yeah. Well,
that's the thing should they be held? held liable for it in criminal justice reform? We'll go go back to that, like,
trying to get people with it maybe have a felony record from 20 years ago. And their opportunity to get a drunk
look at expungement. And other things. I just learned the other day that if you get convicted of driving while suspended, the snare, DUI, driving while suspended five days in jail, we got to change that. I mean, five days in jail if you're convicted, driving while suspended.
It does sound harsh. Yeah, we submitted a letter for representative Feeny a year ago, a little over a year ago, on that issue, to help relax those types of standards. I mean, did it get any traction? It was an interim. I don't I didn't hear anything last session about it. So it was the fall of I guess it would be 21 and didn't really hear much about it last year. But yeah, when you look at people that are incarcerated, the opportunity for their lifetime earnings dropped significantly. I think the statistic I remember is 35 40%. And especially on the non violent criminal side, like why are we ruining people's lives? For Finem?
They paid their debt. Hopefully, they're reformed, etc. And I think it's an ongoing conversation that actually connects the right and the left where I think there's an argument on it,
and they've done a lot.
A bipartisan bill, you know,
no question in Kansas is actually a leader with the workforce center that was created the Lansing correctional facility to create a job training program there, that we were supportive of one another. A number of local chambers were,
let's talk about regulatory affairs. One of them I know you guys have talked about this in the statehouse in the past is that you're irritated with cities and counties, perhaps banning those plastic bags that seemed to blow around every town in the country. You know, the billions and billions of skinny little plastic bags. And you don't want to ban those, although I could see merit in getting rid of them. Right? So what's up? What's US Chamber of Commerce,
right? You think that it's the case, I might even prefer now I decided I don't want a paper bag when I go to the grocery store. But you need
to bring your own satchel, we can have chamber commerce, which then but
COVID is all over those those things. So you can't have those. And those,
what was the I don't know what you're talking about? Let's get back on point. Why do you hate? Why do you want to keep these plastic bags?
Why do you hate? Why do we want to keep them? We want consumers to choose. And it's a government intervention of business practices to decide what whether we have plastic cups, plastic straws, plastic bags, whatever. If you have one city that bans them, and then one city that doesn't or my competitors outside of the city limits in the same county and doesn't have to comply with those restrictions. It can put me at a competitive advantage add more cost to my business if I'm held to those standards, but also the bill that we're working on this year, we've had a redrafted that's more broad on cities and counties banning consumer merchandise, because city of Wichita is trying to close pet stores that are legally operating businesses on behalf of people who feel bad that these puppies might be raised in puppy mills with no evidence that they are and so they're gonna go close. Multiple pet stores. Are
you just making that up, Mr. Staff? No.
You gotta say citizen Council will do it. But there's been incredible folks.
That's the emphasis on other businesses mandating? Well, you know, okay, so cities and counties can, can, can can ban strip clubs, right?
They can regulate them. I don't think they can ban in mind
First Amendment. strip clubs are officially not a chamber issue.
Okay. All right. Good deal. That was such a relief.
But you've seen cities in other states go out and say you can't buy gas powered lawnmowers. Why? So,
with so much liberals, right? That's not going to happen. And
what's your next question? It's
not going to happen. We talking about regulatory affairs, one of them was to oppose government competition with the private sector. What can you can you offer some examples of what we're talking about? Yeah,
the most recent one, honestly. It was actually a recommendation in the Alvarez and Marsal efficiency study, review, your second the Department of Corrections training program, but what the Department of Corrections has been doing, they introduce a bill that allows them to sell all products and services that they might make. Well, it just so happens in the process of training their inmates, they are wanting to manufacture or build manufactured homes and then sell them which competes with the private sector. So we've had to go in and opposition to the Department of Corrections. There's a difference between training and competition and pre creating a product with labor that's being paid at inmate rates. When you're not held to the same standards as businesses are, and you're going out and directly competing with them. Why couldn't
there be a middle ground of say, trailer manufacturing company has a site across the street from a prison and the inmates come over there,
or it's happening on an
edge We have those companies as members where it is this combination of training. They go to the facility manufacturing facility during the day go back to a medium to minimal correctional and then
they're hiring. They would pull out the profit model from the Department of Corrections. It is
a public service. It's like when you get to the extreme, kind of the Shawshank Redemption extreme where did he got a problem?
The other that movies where the guy dug through the wall? I think it is yes, we don't we definitely don't want that. Don't
tell me you haven't seen that 100 times. Probably the best example is more in the urban areas where sometimes you have nonprofit government owned health centers like workout center now it's in the private sector. Like is that the right use of taxpayer money when you've got a private sector alternative if you're in a smaller town and there is no market alternative? Okay, yeah, let's have the community center with some you know, weight weightlifting machines.
There's a very nice taxpayer.
Let me let me get this straight. Let's go back to fitness clubs. Hang on. We're you guys are taking sides with Genesis fitness club, perhaps the largest chain of fitness clubs in Kansas, which does not want the YWCA he wants breaks that YWCA
government vert not that I thought you're talking about
competition, yes. A nonprofit
government nonprofit competition is an issue but the bigger issue is probably government when the city of Shawnee decides we're going to have a work has a rec center. Yeah. And well, you've got not just Genesis look at downtown Lenexa look into peak
Genesis fitness clubs are the people that have spent gazillions of dollars trying to lobby the legislature for a special tax break. And so that always seemed odd to me. But if what if Lawrence wants to build a community center where people can come and jog around a track or go lift some weights? That is a type of competition with the private sector that the Chamber might object to? It
might object to the rock?
Chalk is a good example. I mean, you have a fitness center that if you live in Lawrence, you can have access to but what about the fitness? And are they paying property taxes on Rock Chalk? No. So you
mean the facility are they paying I'm paying taxes as a warrants resident to fund that operation.
And the business is paying a bit private business, a private gym is paying property taxes to keep their facility open, that's relying upon membership dues at a reload be
more competitive environment.
It's local governments trying to create broadband things like that. It's it's like an ongoing conversation, ongoing view of things. And it's it's unfair competition. I hate to use the word unfair with the council legislate, but
I think too, it might be good to back up here. Just as a broad overview, you've asked a couple questions about some of the items in our legislative agenda. They're intended to be in some cases broad, to give us flexibility on what of our what are our principles, knowing that issues might arise? Like, say, for example, there's there's a regulatory bullet point in here that prevented the imposition of burdensome state and federal regulations on business and industry. That's very broad to be a bullet point dealing with the Lesser Prairie Chicken back when that was an issue back in what 2012 2013. And here we are, under the Biden administration, all of a sudden, it's now listed as an endangered species of bird, poor bird poor people that have to comply with the regulations at the EPA is going to try to impose on them and the impact on their land and the costs associated with regular being regulated by that. So we do, but the banking industry, financial industry, credit unions, like the regulations that they have to comply with, whether it's Dodd Frank or other areas, that item was that bullet point was changed to be more broad. So we do try to have some flexibility under all those sections HR energy, because there are so many policies that impact the business community that that are introduced every every year. And what is
your final two final issues here? I one of your agenda items is to try to get the powers that be to better regulate utility costs, to make those rates for I guess, for industrial and residential more competitive with surrounding states. So can you just touch on what the problem is? And why Why isn't a solution more at hand?
Yeah, good question. I think there's been three independent studies, one of them funded by the legislature to determine exactly what the problem is and what the potential solutions are, and there aren't really any clear answers. So but Kansas is the highest in the region in terms of our residential, industrial, commercial and industrial costs for electricity. Our study that we had conducted this past fall as well as the legislative study have largely blamed it on excessive transmission build out. You know, we have abundant wind energy being produced in the state we're producing nearly 40% more energy than what we're using. A lot of that infrastructure is built into our rate base, but we're exporting the energy. The wind power to Chicago? Yes. And where else? Why should we pay
for it? That's a beneficial thing let's let the folks in Chicago pay for it's
an excellent question. So the sub question would be the Kansas Corporation Commission regulates this. What is the problem with having the KCC? Say, Okay, you're building that $800 million transmission line in Southeast Kansas, that's going to be of some benefit to Kansas residents will say that the consumers in Kansas, have to pay 25% of that, but the investor owned utilities that are putting up that line and want that line have to pay for the rest.
Not nothing, necessarily. But why should Kansas pay for any of it? If we're not going to use it? Well, if you're getting there,
that's whatever that percent of the complication
is, and this is going to be kind of a non answer is it is complicated, because you've got the Southwest Power Pool, which don't want to get into that on the podcast, you got the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the KCC. In some things, the the jurisdictions overlap, some things KCC can have a say about sometimes they don't, they can have an opinion. So this is partly a federal state and regional issue, probably with the Southwest power.
And I will say one, one change that FERC just approved in SPP.
Too many and came from
Kansas, Southwest Power Pool. Yeah, Southwest Power Pool, sunflower energy here in Kansas, most FERC to adopt a waiver process that if it shows that a project, like a wind development project in southwest Kansas, is going to provide greater benefit to the whole region versus just the state that a waiver can be applied for. And the cost of that project associated with associated with that project can be divided up among the participating states of the in our case, Southwest Power Pool, pretty big, multi state regions. And that should address some of the issues that we have, but the stuff that's already been done, that's already built into our costs. So there are efforts to try to alleviate that. But as Alan said, it's very complicated. A lot of that is regionally regulated and federally regulated. So it's kind of tough to get through
last question. The chamber opposes expansion of eligibility for Medicaid. Mr. Cobb, please explain yourself?
Well, we have a very large Medicaid program. Now, Medicaid is generally not viewed very favorably by much of anybody, including the recipients why expand something that's doesn't seem to have been working very well, and does the emphasis and it's not all just dollars, but the emphasis on expanding a program that doesn't work? Does it take away political energy from actually making a Medicaid program that works better? And the answer is yes. And there's lots of studies out there about expanded Medicaid almost always cost overruns. And it does take people off the private insurance market, which most public health officials would say the private health insurance provides a better insurance product. Betting Medicaid is not healthcare Medicaid is a way to pay for health care. So are there other ways to provide health care for those that need it on the lower income scale? It's, it is like most things, whether it's school choice, like there's a black and white, the way that it works out on Twitter or in the legislature and it's not that easy. Yeah.
All right. I think we're have to leave it there. I want to thank the Kansas chambers, two influential employees. Alan Cobb, the President, and Eric Stafford, a lobbyist. Look forward to good policy debates and the 2023 legislative session and I'll see you there.
Thank you, Tim. And thanks for the work that Keynes has reflected as I appreciate it, I'll have to pay a fee.
