The Star editorial board recommends Governor Laura Kelly
The Kansas City Star via Yahoo News
In 2018, we said Laura Kelly was the clear choice for Kansas governor, pointing out her practical yet determined plan to repair the fiscal damage of her predecessors.
She executed that plan. Today, we strongly endorse Kelly, a Democrat and the incumbent governor, for the second term she now seeks.
Kansans should not forget the disaster Kelly inherited when she took office in 2019. The state was still reeling from the tax cut experiment of former Gov. Sam Brownback, which led to cratering revenues and underfunded schools.
Remember endless special sessions? Last-minute budget transfers? Plummeting state credit ratings? It was pretty dire, Kelly said in September, during an hourlong grilling with The Stars editorial board. We were suffering under a huge debt. We werent able to pay our bills without robbing every bank account we had.
As governor, Kelly ended the chaos by rightsizing the budget, repaying debt and shoring up the states credit.
She had help, of course. The federal government has provided billions for COVID-19 relief. The states economy has also rebounded, pouring hundreds of millions of additional dollars into state coffers.
She resisted repeated attempts to squander some of that money on tax cuts for businesses and the wealthy. She wasnt always successful, but her efforts helped limit the damage.