TOPEKA, Kan. – After its Republican-dominated legislature passed massive tax cuts in 2012, Kansas is so broke that state government has started auctioning vibrators and blow-up dolls as a means of reducing a budget deficit expected to reach $238 million by 2016.
According to the Topeka Capital-Journal, a recent raid on five adult stores in four cities resulted in seizure of thousands of items of inventory in payment for an alleged state tax delinquency of $163,000. Negotiation with the stores’ owner resulted in a deal under which the owner will auction off the merchandise and use the proceeds to pay the debt.
Democrats got a chuckle out of that, considering Republican Gov. Sam Brownback is an outspoken opponent of adult entertainment.
“Brownback is so desperate to fill the massive hole in the state budget caused by his reckless income tax cuts that the state of Kansas is now in the porn business,” state Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley [D] noted in a public statement. “This is the same governor whose supporters spent this past week attacking his [gubernatorial race] opponent for a strip club incident.”
Brownback responded that a state’s gotta do what a state’s gotta do. Morality sometimes must fall by the wayside in the service of truth, justice, and keeping Republicans out of hot water with voters.
“While we do not agree with the type of business involved here, it was nonetheless a legal business that was closed due to failure to pay taxes,” Brownback’s office noted in a statement meant to counter Hensley’s.
If hypocrisy gets any deeper in Topeka, maybe the state can auction that, too.
Image: Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (official photo).
