Issue Position: Transportation/ Infrastructure

Issue Position

Kansas needs to protect the funds in KDOT and use them for their intended purpose. This will create thousands of private sector jobs and save Kansas taxpayers in the long run.

Over the last six years, Kansas politicians have robbed the KDOT funds of over $2 billion and continue to sweep $1 million dollars a day from the road programs. This foolishness costs Kansas thousands of private sector jobs that have ultimately gone to bordering states. Those businesses need work and they can't find it in Kansas. The loss of these jobs resulted in a loss of revenue for Kansas. Proper funding of the road programs will bring these private sector jobs back to Kansas. Doing this will generate revenue for other Kansas businesses. The construction workers that come back to Kansas will pay income tax and will spend money on hotels, food and other expenses. By bringing these jobs back to Kansas, we affect both sides of the revenue solution for Kansas (income taxes and consumption taxes).

The future of the Kansas economy is uncertain. We continue to sweep funds away from road programs to allocate for other expenses. As a direct result, companies are afraid to hire new employees or increase any of their spending budgets. If we protect the KDOT funds, we will bring back the confidence these companies need to begin to grow again. The resulting revenue will positively affect the entire state of Kansas.

Finally, Kansas is missing an excellent opportunity to save money with cheap raw materials such as the price of oil. Kansas should have maintained 1200 miles of roads this year, but because of cuts, only maintained about 200 miles. The lack of maintenance will cause greater road issues in the future. This means it will cost more to maintain the same stretch of road. When you consider the cost of oil and raw materials increasing, the costs compound quickly. We need to protect these funds and maintain our great roads and bridges.

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