Jim Bar­nett lays out his plat­form in the Kansas Gov­er­nor’s race. Tax cred­its to busi­ness, cut­ting tax­es on rich peo­ple’s estates, mak­ing the income tax much less pro­gres­sive in the upper brack­ets, and:

A freeze in state spend­ing, with an allowance of $400 mil­lion in new spend­ing over four years for K‑12 edu­ca­tion, an allowance for expect­ed growth in Med­ic­aid, and a 2.5 per­cent annu­al increase for regents universities.

Set aside the fact that his tax plan is a mas­sive give­way to the rich­est Kansans at a time when the state can bare­ly afford to keep up with its cur­rent fis­cal obligations.

I want some­one to explain how increas­ing spend­ing by $100 mil­lion per year, and guar­an­tee­ing growth in the sec­ond largest class of expen­di­tures could pos­si­bly qual­i­fy as “a freeze in state spending.”

When Sebe­lius won, it was because, con­front­ed with the like­ly neces­si­ty of bud­get cuts, she made it clear that she would­n’t cut edu­ca­tion spend­ing. She also said she would­n’t raise tax­es, and most peo­ple found that an implau­si­ble combination.

She won on val­ues. She val­ued edu­ca­tion, and peo­ple knew she’d fight for that. Bar­nett is mak­ing it clear he’ll fight against the boost in edu­ca­tion spend­ing that two inde­pen­dent reports have now made clear are nec­es­sary. Cut­ting tax­es on very rich Kansans, peo­ple con­cen­trat­ed not just in wealth but in geog­ra­phy is his priority.

Kath­leen Sebe­lius won against a more vig­or­ous ver­sion of the same thing once before. She’s pop­u­lar, which is impor­tant, but her val­ues click with peo­ple, which is more important.