 Originally published at Kansas Policy Institute.
Kansas cannot treat trade as a talking point. Trade is a pillar of the state’s economy, from Wichita manufacturing to rural agriculture. The state’s Kansas International Trade Summary shows how closely Kansas jobs and incomes are tied to global markets, and the Kansas state profile from the U.S. Trade Representative highlights the scale of exports and trade-supported employment. That is why the Supreme Court’s recent decision overturning President Trump’s broad “Liberation Day” tariffs matters for Kansans. Coverage captured the split reaction among lawmakers, but the economic implications are clearer: limiting unilateral tariff power reduces the policy whiplash that hits trade-heavy states first. Here is the basic economics. Tariffs are taxes on imports, paid by American businesses at the border and then passed through supply chains as higher costs and prices. They apply to both final goods sold to consumers and intermediate goods used to make other products. When tariffs hit intermediate inputs like machinery parts, chemicals, packaging, or equipment, they raise the cost of producing goods in Kansas. That makes Kansas firms less competitive at home and abroad. Kansas agriculture shows this more clearly than any white paper ever could. The Kansas Department of Agriculture underscores the importance of export markets to the state’s farm economy, including major products such as beef and wheat. When tariffs trigger retaliation, foreign buyers don’t wait around. They shift suppliers, and those markets can take years to rebuild. A vivid Kansas example is sorghum. Reuters reported how the trade war dried up sorghum sales to China, with China sharply cutting purchases and U.S. inventories swelling as a result. That’s the unseen cost that never shows up in the tariff press release: farmers losing demand, prices falling, and production plans getting thrown into chaos. Kansas Policy Institute has already warned that the return of tariffs threatens Kansas agriculture and jobs for this exact reason. Farmers don’t need “managed trade.” They need stable rules and open markets so they can sell what they grow. Kansas manufacturing, especially around Wichita, depends on global supply chains and long-term contracts. When tariffs raise input costs, that does not just “hurt foreigners.” It makes Kansas-made products more expensive relative to competitors. Even beyond aerospace, the spillover hits local suppliers and contractors that are sensitive to material costs. The Beacon reported that new steel and aluminum tariffs could raise costs for Kansas highway construction, with state officials warning that higher metal prices squeeze budgets. Translation: taxpayers get fewer projects, slower repairs, or higher bids. Again, the “seen” is the tariff announcement; the “unseen” is every inflated bid that shows up later. The Court’s ruling could reduce uncertainty and ease some cost pressure for Kansans. That matters because businesses do not hire and invest confidently when trade taxes can swing overnight. The ruling also matters because the pivot is already underway. After the Supreme Court setback, the administration and allies are openly discussing other pathways to keep tariffs alive, even if the original approach was struck down. Kansas should be skeptical of this whack-a-mole approach. A bad policy does not become a good one because you found a different statute to cite. Kansas’s broader global footprint strengthens the case for stability, not tariff theatrics. The Kansas state fact sheet from the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition emphasizes that international engagement and exports directly connect to local growth. Kansas wins when markets are open, rules are predictable, and supply chains are reliable. The takeaway is simple. This Supreme Court decision is good for Kansas because it reduces the chance that sweeping tariffs can be imposed quickly and broadly without accountability. Meaning, even if you agree with the need to increase tariff taxes the uncertainty of how President Trump enacted many tariff taxes should give you pause. Congress and President Trump still have the authority to impose new tariff taxes, it will simply be using other, less arbitrary means. That stability is not a gift to foreign countries. It is a benefit to Kansans who produce, export, and compete.
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 Originally published at Kansas Policy Institute.
Kansas families feel the squeeze. Prescription drugs are expensive. Credit card balances are heavy. Rents and groceries are up. When people are hurting, it’s understandable that lawmakers reach for a simple-sounding fix: cap the price. But that’s where good intentions collide with bad economics. Milton Friedman’s warning applies perfectly here: don’t judge policy by its stated goal, judge it by its results. And Frédéric Bastiat’s “seen and unseen” is the cheat code every legislator should keep on their desk: the “seen” is the lower posted price; the “unseen” is the shortage, the quality drop, the access loss, and the costs pushed into other corners of the economy. ECON 101: A cap doesn’t remove scarcity; it hides it. Prices are signals. They tell producers what to make more of and tell consumers what’s scarce. When the government sets a price ceiling below what supply and demand would produce, sellers respond rationally: they supply less, invest less, or change the product to cut costs. The result is predictable: shortages, waiting, rationing, fewer choices, and lower quality. That’s not ideology. That’s how incentives work. The political appeal is obvious: a cap looks like instant relief. But the “unseen” shows up later, and it hits real people. “Upper payment limits” for drugs are price controls In Kansas, one proposal (introduced in 2025 as SB 212) would create a prescription drug pricing board and allow the state to set “upper payment limits” for certain medications. That is a textbook price ceiling, just written in bureaucratic language. Supporters likely mean well. But if you cap what can be paid, you change the incentives for manufacturers, wholesalers, pharmacies, and insurers. The “seen” is a headline claiming lower prices. The “unseen” is what follows: tighter formularies, fewer covered options, delayed availability, and supply pulled toward higher-paying areas. Scarcity doesn’t vanish; it’s managed—usually through paperwork and gatekeeping. Federal example: the 10% credit card rate cap idea A federal proposal to cap credit card interest rates at 10% is being sold as consumer-friendly. But interest is the price of unsecured credit. Cap that price below the risk-based level, and lenders will protect themselves in the only ways they can: tighter approvals, lower credit limits, fewer rewards, more fees, and less access for people with thinner credit files. The “seen” is a lower APR for some borrowers who still qualify. The “unseen” is credit drying up for those who need it most. This is the same pattern as any other price control: if you force the price down, you get less of the thing. In this case, that “thing” is credit availability. Local example: Rent control is a cautionary tale Rent control is one of the clearest “seen/unseen” examples in economics. The “seen” is a tenant paying below-market rent today. The “unseen” is fewer rentals over time, less maintenance, less new construction, and higher prices for everyone who isn’t lucky enough to get one of the controlled units. Kansas law wisely prohibits local governments from enacting rent controls or controlling real estate purchase prices. Housing is the same story: prices fall when supply rises. Kansas should encourage local reforms like accessory dwelling units, smaller minimum lot sizes, and fewer parking mandates because fewer zoning restrictions actually reduces housing prices rather than subsidies or caps. That same logic should guide the state and federal levels, too. If rent control is bad economics in Wichita or Kansas City, it doesn’t magically become good economics when moved to Topeka or Washington. The consistent rule for lawmakers: avoid price caps everywhere Whether the policy comes from a city council, the statehouse, or Congress, the economic mechanics are the same:
That’s why Friedman’s point matters: you can have noble motives and still cause harm. Bastiat’s point matters because the harm is often delayed and invisible until families are stuck with fewer options. What Kansas should do: free up supply and competition If the goal is affordability, focus on reforms that expand supply and competition rather than trying to command prices:
Price controls feel compassionate. But real compassion means choosing policies that work in the real world, not just in press releases. Kansas should keep its policy compass steady: don’t cap prices—free markets so supply, competition, and innovation can push prices down the right way.  Originally published on Substack. If you only look at Kansas’s unemployment rate, you might think everything is fine. That’s the political trap: point to a low number, declare victory, and move on. But the latest state labor and economic output data show a more complicated truth. Kansas has real strengths, but it’s also leaving growth on the table because Topeka keeps flirting with bigger-government drift instead of locking in a durable, rules-based pro-growth agenda. The newest state labor-market table shows Kansas’s unemployment rate at 3.8% in December 2025, below the national 4.4%. That’s a competitive advantage, especially when the federal policy environment is highly erratic. But the last 12 months reveal why “steady” is not the same thing as “surging.” Over the past year, Kansas’s labor force grew from 1,554,666 in December 2024 to 1,572,551 in December 2025. That’s an increase of 17,885 people, which is a healthy sign that Kansans stayed in, or entered, the workforce rather than sitting on the sidelines. Meanwhile, the number of unemployed Kansans edged up from 59,082 to 59,742, an increase of 660, while the unemployment rate stayed flat at 3.8%. Here’s what that combination usually means. Kansas absorbed a larger labor force without letting joblessness rise much. That’s good. But it also suggests job growth is not accelerating fast enough to pull the unemployment count down meaningfully even as more people participate. In other words, Kansas is holding its ground, not separating from the pack. And Kansas is very much in a pack. In December 2025, Kansas’s 3.8% matched Colorado at 3.8%, came in slightly better than Missouri at 3.9%, and remained above Nebraska at 3.0%. Kansas can’t build a growth strategy around “we’re about average for the region.” Now zoom out from jobs to output, because this is where Kansas has a real bragging right. In the latest state GDP release, Kansas posted the fastest real GDP growth in the country in the third quarter of 2025: 6.5% at an annual rate, versus 4.4% nationally.  Kansas also led the nation in personal income growth at 6.3%, versus 3.3% nationally. That is not normal performance. That is Kansas leading.  BEA also notes that agriculture was the leading contributor to GDP growth in Kansas, and that durable-goods manufacturing increased in every state. Translation: Kansas didn’t “win the quarter” through a government-spending sugar high. It grew through production.
So why isn’t Kansas clearly pulling away in the labor market if output and income were that strong? Because one great quarter is not a long-run strategy. Hiring responds to what businesses expect next: taxes, spending growth, regulation, energy costs, and whether future lawmakers will treat surpluses like a shopping spree. That’s where Kansas policy has been too weak, especially under Gov. Kelly. Instead of using this moment to harden Kansas’s competitive edge, the default posture has too often been to expand government, defend the status quo, and call it “investment.” That approach may buy headlines, but it doesn’t buy long-run growth. Kansas needs a different model: rules that restrain government automatically and reward work automatically. First, Kansas should adopt a strict spending limit tied to population growth plus inflation. No gimmicks. Without a cap, any tax relief is temporary because spending pressure always comes back. Second, Kansas should use its surplus buydown trigger: every dollar collected above the spending limit should go to buying down income tax rates until Kansas reaches zero. Surpluses are not “free money.” They’re evidence the state collected more than it needed under a responsible budget. The best use is permanent rate reduction, not permanent spending. Third, Kansas should stop pretending property tax pressure can be solved with carveouts (i.e., Panasonic, Integra, Chiefs, homestead exemptions,etc.). The real driver is spending growth. If lawmakers want lasting relief, they must restrain the spending that drives local levies. Kansas can lead. The data prove the state has the capacity. But Kansas won’t lead on autopilot, and it definitely won’t lead by drifting toward bigger government while hoping one more strong quarter bails everyone out. The playbook is clear: cap spending, buy down taxes with surpluses, and let Kansas producers and workers keep more of what they earn.  Originally published at Kansas Policy Institute.
Kansas lawmakers are weighing a proposal that would require new age-verification measures for online platforms, part of a growing national effort to address concerns about children’s safety in digital spaces. The goal is understandable. Parents across Kansas want their kids protected online. The harder question is how far government should go—and whether mandates aimed at technology companies end up displacing parental judgment rather than reinforcing it. That question has taken on new urgency after a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision. In Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, the Court upheld a Texas law requiring certain commercial websites dominated by sexually explicit content to verify users’ ages. Importantly, the Court applied intermediate scrutiny, concluding the law primarily regulated material that is obscene as to minors while only incidentally burdening adult access to protected speech. But the ruling was narrow—and that distinction matters for Kansas. The Court did not decide whether similar age-verification mandates could be extended to app stores, social media platforms, or mixed-content digital services used daily by both adults and children. Those environments host vast amounts of lawful speech, and any requirement that users verify their age by submitting sensitive personal information raises unresolved questions about privacy, speech rights, and implementation. Kansas’s current debate sits squarely in that unresolved space. At its core, the debate isn’t really about technology. It’s about who we trust—parents or bureaucrats. What the Kansas Bill Is Trying to Do The proposal would require platforms and app stores to verify a user’s age to prevent children from accessing harmful content. These types of bills are often argued as a necessary response to concerns about social media, online safety, and minors’ mental health. The goal sounds reasonable. Every parent wants their kids to be safe. But policy doesn’t operate on intentions alone. It operates on incentives, trade-offs, and unintended consequences. The Real Problems With Age Verification Mandates Concern starts with privacy risks. Age verification typically requires users to upload government-issued IDs or sensitive personal data. That creates massive new databases of information that are prime targets for hackers and misuse. In other words, in the name of protecting kids, the policy could expose millions of Kansans—adults included—to identity theft and data breaches. There’s also the constitutional question. Forcing users to verify their age before accessing lawful content raises First Amendment concerns, especially when adults face new barriers to speech simply to avoid liability. A supposedly child-focused policy ends up restricting adult behavior. Then there’s enforcement. These mandates do not just affect large technology companies. Compliance costs and legal uncertainty can also deter smaller platforms and startups, reducing competition and leaving families with fewer choices. Mandates vs. Parents Age verification laws assume that government mandates can replace parental judgment. They can’t. Parents already have tools—device settings, content filters, account controls, and direct supervision—that are far more flexible and effective than one-size-fits-all regulation. These tools allow families to make decisions based on age, maturity, and values, not legislative guesswork. Parents could also just not let their kids go online or on certain apps until they are ready. As I’ve written about similar proposals in Texas, blanket restrictions often look decisive but end up crowding out parental responsibility while delivering little real protection. Once lawmakers start down the road of deputizing platforms as age police, it becomes easier to justify more controls, more mandates, and less family autonomy—all under the banner of “safety.” Better Ideas Exist Critics aren’t saying “do nothing.” They’re saying do better. Real solutions that focus on empowering parents rather than regulating everyone else—clear disclosures, robust parental controls, education tools, and enforcement of existing laws against actual criminal behavior. That approach respects families, protects privacy, and avoids turning private companies into extensions of the state. The Question Kansans Should Ask The Kansas debate shouldn’t be reduced to whether lawmakers “care about kids.” The real question is whether mandated age verification makes families safer—or just makes government bigger, privacy weaker, and parents less empowered. Good policy starts with humility. Parents know their kids better than legislators ever will. Trusting families over bureaucratic mandates isn’t radical. It’s common sense—and it’s the foundation of a free society.  Originally published at Kansas Policy Institute. Kansas does not have a revenue problem. It has a spending discipline problem, and the state has learned this lesson the hard way before. Governor Laura Kelly’s proposed $10.8 billion state general fund budget for fiscal year 2027 spends roughly $640 million more than projected revenues. That follows last year’s budget, which administration officials acknowledged spent about $700 million more than the state collected, continuing a pattern of structural imbalance rather than restraint.  Supporters of the budget argue that spending growth is modest at about 1.6% year over year. That argument misses the point. The real problem is not the growth rate today. It is that spending was never brought back down after the pandemic-era surge. Emergency lockdown spending permanently inflated the budget baseline, and lawmakers accepted that excess as the new normal.
Basic Econ 101 teaches that governments do not create resources. They redistribute them. And unlike Washington, states cannot print money. When Kansas spends more than it collects, the bill comes due in only two ways: higher taxes now or higher taxes later. There is no third option. Kansas has been here before. A decade ago, the state attempted meaningful tax reform under Governor Sam Brownback without first correcting unsustainable spending; some may blame runaway courts and school finance litigation but the takeaway is the same. When revenues tightened, lawmakers chose to protect the government rather than reform it. Taxes were blamed. Rate cut were reversed. The wrong lesson was learned. The failure of that era was not tax relief. It was the absence of spending discipline, with part of it forced by court-ordered education spending increases. Regardless, tax relief without spending reform always fails, because government growth eventually overwhelms revenue. That history is exactly why Kansans should be skeptical when leaders expand budgets today while promising stability tomorrow. The data reinforce this concern. According to the Kansas Policy Institute’s 2025 Green Book, Kansas spends $5,428 per resident, ranking 23rd nationally, and collects $6,326 per person in state and local taxes, ranking 24th. Kansas is not a low-tax, limited-government state. It is a middle-of-the-pack spender with below-average population growth and weak competitiveness. Defenders of higher spending often point to strong revenues as justification. But recent revenue growth has been uneven. Individual income tax collections have surged while retail sales and corporate income taxes have softened. That is not broad-based growth. It is a warning sign. This is why responsible budgeting matters more than ever. The Kansas Policy Institute’s Responsible Kansas Budget framework provides a clear path forward. It limits spending growth to population growth plus inflation, reflecting what taxpayers can sustainably afford. But given past excesses, even that rule must be applied carefully. Kansas should first reduce spending back to fiscal year 2019 or 2020 levels, before lockdowns and federal relief distorted incentives. Only then does a growth cap actually restrain government rather than legitimize past overspending. This is not about austerity. It is about restoring balance. Kansas is already facing rising cost pressures from federal policy changes. Provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill shift more administrative costs for programs like SNAP to the states, adding roughly $21 million to Kansas’s budget. Kansas also faces potential penalties of $20 to $40 million due to elevated SNAP error rates, as detailed in legislative hearings reported by the Kansas Reflector. These costs are permanent. They compound over time. Lawmakers passed a tax trigger intended to gradually reduce income tax rates when revenues exceed inflation-adjusted thresholds. Yet even when revenues beat projections, taxpayers see no relief because spending absorbs the surplus first. This is not accidental. It is the inevitable outcome of a budget process that treats every surplus as permission to grow the government. Kansas cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the last decade. The path forward is straightforward. Cut spending first to correct the inflated baseline. Limit future growth to what taxpayers can afford. Then use surpluses for real tax relief, moving toward a consumption-based tax system that rewards work and investment rather than punishing them. Kansas learned this lesson once. It does not need to learn it again. |
Vance Ginn, Ph.D.
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