It is not often that three legislators representing two different branches of state government, and two political parties, can agree on something. But Saturday morning there was agreement from the Harvey County delegation on one issue — sales tax on food.
New Governor Laura Kelly was elected after making lowering the sales tax on food a campaign issue. However, her first budget does not contain lowering that tax.
“If there is one thing that Senator (Carolyn) McGinn (R-Sedgwick), (Rep.) Tim (Hodge) (D-North Newton) and I all agree on is that we can do better with food sales tax,” said Rep. Steven Owens (R-Hesston) during a legislative breakfast March 2 in Newton. “There is no question. It was not in the governor’s budget, and so be it. Hopefully we can make some headway on that.”
Hodge has twice campaigned on the issue, and has supported an amendment to a tax bill this year that would reduce the sales tax on groceries by one cent. He said March 2 he was disappointed that a reduction of the sales tax on food did not appear in the governor’s budget.
“That is a big disappointment for me,” Hodge said. “I think we get something there this session and if not this session, next session. It needs to happen. We can not put the cost of government on the least of these. It is not right, it is not fair, it is not Christian — choose your adjective. It is not right. … It is as regressive as all get out.”
(Read more: Newton Kansan)