When prices rise, or resources become scarce, politicians face enormous pressure to “do something.” The temptation is understandable. Cap a price. Offer a subsidy. Restrict a business. Create another program.
But good intentions do not guarantee good results.
The better question for Kansas policymakers is simple: Are we actually solving the scarcity, or merely suppressing the signal telling us there is a problem?
That distinction matters because Kansas faces challenges in healthcare, energy, water, taxes, and economic growth. In each case, the temptation to expand government can make the underlying problem worse.
Consider prices. A price ceiling does not eliminate scarcity; it hides it. A lower government-imposed diesel price may look helpful, but unseen effects can include diesel shortages, reduced investment, and costs shifted elsewhere. The same basic economics applies whether policymakers are talking about fuel, prescription drugs, housing, or other essentials.
Healthcare provides another example. Expanding a government payment system does not create more doctors, nurses, hospital beds, or competition. Kansas should instead focus on pathways to work and private coverage while preserving assistance for those most in need. The broader goal should be to empower patients and doctors through more transparent prices, competition, personal control, and fewer third-party distortions.
The same lesson applies to Kansas’ emerging data-center economy. Artificial intelligence requires enormous amounts of real infrastructure: land, electricity, fiber, water, and capital. Kansans deserve clear facts about data-center costs and benefits, but the answer is neither blanket subsidies nor rules designed to keep investment away. Projects should bear their own costs, property rights should be protected, and markets should determine where development makes sense.
Water may be the clearest example. Western Kansas has a real scarcity problem, but more bureaucracy does not create more water. Better market incentives can reward conservation by giving users stronger opportunities to retain, lease, or transfer the value of what they save. That can encourage conservation more effectively than mandates alone.
Energy policy works the same way. When fuel costs rise, the answer is not another subsidy or restriction. Kansas families benefit most from more supply, less inflation, and fewer government-made costs.
And none of these reforms works if the Kansas government keeps getting more expensive. State spending has grown far faster than population growth plus inflation over the long run, which is why the Responsible Kansas Budget calls for a sustainable spending limit, effective performance-based budgeting, and greater accountability for taxpayer dollars.
Kansas also cannot afford to settle for average. The state has lagged stronger-growth states in jobs, wages, gross domestic product, and domestic migration over long periods while remaining only middle-of-the-pack on tax competitiveness.
That is the common thread.
Don’t subsidize scarcity. Don’t hide prices. Don’t manage decline. Fix incentives, remove unnecessary barriers, increase competition, and let Kansans prosper.
Public policy should not aim to engineer every outcome. It should establish clear rules, protect liberty and property, and allow individuals to discover better solutions than government planners ever could.
