UPDATE 2/21/2017 7:11 P.M.: Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback announced Tuesday he vetoed the proposed income tax bill.
I am vetoing the largest tax increase in Kansas history. It is unfair and wrong to retroactively raise taxes on working Kansans. #ksleg pic.twitter.com/Vt9RK64oim
— Sam Brownback (@govsambrownback) February 22, 2017
ORIGINAL STORY 2/16/2017:
The Kansas House has approved a bill that would increase personal income taxes to help balance the state budget.
The vote Thursday was 76-48 and sends the measure to the Senate.
The bill would raise more than $1 billion over two years, starting in July. It would abandon core policies championed by Republican Gov. Sam Brownback.
“[It] is a very high number and voting for a tax increase is a little bit scary, but we know how bad it is here, we know that that is the path to the solution,” Rep. Stephanie Clayton, (R) Overland Park told 41 Action News.
Supporters had eight votes less than the two-thirds majority of 84 necessary in the GOP-controlled, 125-member House to override a Brownback veto.
The bill's backers also lost seven votes overnight. The House gave the bill first-round approval Wednesday on an 83-39 vote.
Brownback has said he would not sign the bill because he opposes broad income tax increases like those in the measure.
“We’re the body that is the closest to the people and so when we are sending that message to the governor and to the Senate that this is what the people want, so that is, that is what happened today,” said Rep. Clayton.
The Senate expects to debate the bill Friday.
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