Campaign season produces plenty of promises. Candidates tell us what they will spend, cut, subsidize, protect, and deliver. Voters should ask a harder question: What limits will you put on yourself once you have power?
Washington Post columnist George Will recently offered three questions voters should ask congressional candidates. His questions concern runaway federal deficits, presidential emergency powers, and Congress handing regulatory authority to unelected agencies.
Different issues, same problem: Government grows when politicians face weak incentives to restrain themselves. Kansas should learn from Washington’s mistakes.
Lest anyone be confused, this isn’t a partisan point or to support anyone for office – something KPI is prohibited from doing. This is an attempt to ask readers, and all Kansans, to cut through the campaign rhetoric and demand actual answers to real questions.
Make Politicians Face Tradeoffs
George Will starts with federal debt. Washington routinely spends far more than it collects, pushing the cost onto future taxpayers. He highlights Warren Buffett’s provocative idea: make members of Congress ineligible for reelection whenever the deficit exceeds 3% of GDP. The details are debatable. The economic lesson is not.
Politicians respond to incentives just like everyone else. Spending creates visible beneficiaries today while taxes and debt spread the costs across millions of people and future generations. Kansas cannot print money or accumulate Washington-sized deficits. But the same spending incentives exist in Topeka.
That is why KPI’s Responsible Kansas Budget matters. Its basic principle is simple: government spending should not grow faster than the average taxpayer’s ability to pay, measured by population growth plus inflation.
A responsible budget should establish an appropriate baseline, restrain spending, and use surpluses for broad-based tax relief instead of permanently expanding government.
Put Power Back
Will’s second concern is presidential emergency power. Temporary powers have a remarkable habit of becoming permanent. His solution is straightforward: require Congress to approve presidential emergencies after 30 days.
Kansas policymakers should embrace the broader principle. Legislatures exist to legislate. Major decisions about taxes, spending, regulation, and individual liberty should not migrate toward governors and administrative agencies simply because voting on difficult issues is inconvenient. This is may prove difficult in a state with nearly 300 school districts, 105 counties, a constitutionally-established Board of Education, and other complications. But the principle is remains: delegate less, vote more.
Make Lawmakers Own Regulation
Will’s third idea may be the most important. Congress delegates enormous regulatory powers to federal agencies and then complains about what those agencies do.
The (federal) REINS Act would require congressional approval of major federal regulations. Kansas should consider the same philosophy.
Regulations impose real costs even when those costs never appear in a government budget. Businesses spend money complying. Workers lose opportunities. Entrepreneurs face barriers to entry. Consumers ultimately pay more. Kansas has taken important steps in recent years along these lines (HB 2291 in 2025) but more should be done.
If a regulation carries major economic consequences, elected lawmakers need to be in the drivers seat. That is accountability.
Ask Who Will Say No
Will’s three questions point toward a larger principle.
Candidates naturally tell voters what government will do for them. Voters should ask what politicians will refuse to do to them.
Kansas can lead by adopting a Responsible Kansas Budget, requiring legislative accountability for major regulations, limiting emergency powers, and reducing delegation to administrative agencies.
Then ask every candidate one final question: When spending more money or exercising more power would be politically popular, what will stop you?
The answer may tell voters more than a hundred campaign promises ever will.
