Nick Gosnell: Bob Fee is running for Kansas Senate District 34, and so we're glad to have him with us. Mike Murphy will join us later on this morning. Good morning, Bob.
Bob Fee: Good morning, Nick.
Nick Gosnell: All right. Let's talk a little bit. First of all, just why are you running for the state Senate?
Bob Fee: Nick, we need to have effective, conservative, common sense leadership in Topeka. About a year ago, a little more than a year ago, I was approached by several leaders in our community, and they asked if I would consider running. I've run a successful business, helped run a successful business, I should say, for 37 years, and we solve problems every single day. There are a lot of problems that we need to solve in Topeka, and I think I'm a good person that can get up there, use common sense, work with other people, and get some problems for our state solved. So what is the most important problem the state needs to address? I believe right now spending is our biggest problem, and I'm going to couple spending and taxes. At the doors, the number one issue I've heard is obviously property tax, but it goes beyond property tax. It's all taxes, and our taxes and our spending policy have put Kansas in an uncompetitive advantage when it comes to bringing business and bringing families into our state, and keeping them in our state. So I think the most important thing that we have to focus on is our spending, and it's simple math, really. If you spend it, you've got to tax to have it. If you can cut back on your spending, you can also begin to look at where we can reduce our taxes.
Nick Gosnell: So what are the core functions of government that you feel the state does need to fund that these things come first?
Bob Fee: Well, certainly education is number one. That is a constitutional mandate. Human services, infrastructure, agriculture and water. I heard you all talking a lot about water yesterday on the morning show, and that is certainly a concern that we should all be thinking about. The judiciary, that's another mandated funding. So those are the things that we have to fund. I will say that with education taking K-12, roughly 45% of the state general fund, tack on another roughly 15% for higher education, that's 60% of our state general fund funding going to education. That only leaves 40% for all the rest. So we've got some serious issues to consider.
Nick Gosnell: All right. Is there anything specific that you say to yourself after talking to people, this is something the state is doing, but the state shouldn't necessarily be doing that?
Bob Fee: Well, that's a good question. I really haven't heard that in talking to people at the door, that the state should not be doing something. I do believe that what the local units of government can do, they should do, where we can help, where the state should help is when a county has got to do some overlays, for example, on county roads, is there state funding available? Is that there? Have we budgeted for that? We did the Eisenhower Transportation Program a number of years ago, I think in 2022 is when that was passed, $9.9 billion infrastructure program across the state over a 10-year period. I think that is an excellent example of how we can work across the state and with our local units of government to do what we should be doing.
Nick Gosnell: Well, and just as a follow-up to that, Bob, there's been by statute, and forgive me, I don't know the number off the top of my head, and I wouldn't expect you to either, so it's okay. There's a certain amount of lane miles that are state highways. So when you have a redesign of a road like what we've had up through Nickerson and up towards Sterling here lately, then the road that was the highway becomes a county road. And that's where they're doing work now to get everything back up to where it was, up to snuff, before they hand it over to the county. But when that doesn't happen, that's when we have issues like the one that we have with the Woody Seat Freeway here is because years and years ago, that was state highway, and then it got handed over to the county and then handed to the city and so on. So from a policy perspective, how do you set legislation to say, if we're going to give it back, it's kind of like when you have an Airbnb on vacation. You want to be sure that it's as nice when you left as it was when you came in.
Bob Fee: Yeah. Well, very difficult question. That would be one we'd need to get with the Department of Transportation and really work to solve those issues. Now I would say, you know, we could talk about old K61. Did we have to keep it? No. We wanted to keep it. So the option was that the state could have torn it up and we wouldn't have had it. But we decided we wanted to use it for bicycling and walking. When a local community or local county decides that they want to keep something, then it is up to them to maintain that. And I think that that is where local units of government need to be very careful about how much they're doing and understanding what they should be doing or what they shouldn't be doing. Really difficult question, though, when you're talking about rural areas and particularly farm roads, but the number of farm roads that are not maintained as asphalt is also a, you know, that's a that's a big number, too. That's a hard question. I don't have full answers for you, Nick.
Nick Gosnell: That's fair enough. Bob Fee. He's running for state Senate District 34. And a question that has been before the state legislature here for at least the last 10 years, if not longer than that, is the potential for Medicaid expansion in the state of Kansas. So where do you lie on that issue, Bob? Is Medicaid expansion a good idea or is it not? And why?
Bob Fee: I am not for Medicaid expansion, Nick. I have been studying this issue and I've heard both sides of it for some time now. If it's so good, if Medicaid expansion is so good, why not socialize the whole system? Well, because the system would collapse, and I've been told that. So we rely on private insurance. And yet we want to expand Medicaid, which is another social service piece. We've already talked about there's 40 percent of our budget now to handle all the rest. If we add even 10 percent of something and we don't know the numbers, we we have an idea of what the numbers might be in an expansion. But we do know that we're going to have to add dollars and that's going to increase our spending. I would also tell people, go take a look at Indiana. And I don't have all the specifics, but I read several articles at the beginning of this year, Indiana was nearly a billion dollars in the hole on their Medicaid. They expanded approximately 10 years ago. Their forecasters missed the numbers on how many people would actually sign up. But when you say something is free and people maybe are only paying $100 a month for their private insurance, why wouldn't they take free? They're going to all the time. So if you're just looking at, well, these people are already on private insurance, so they won't sign up. They might. And when they do, we have a problem. And all of a sudden, if you find yourself millions of dollars in the hole, how do you make it up? It's on the backs of somebody.
Nick Gosnell: Well, and let's be blunt. I think that there are a lot of folks who would do that in the areas of Kansas that are in your district and West, because those doctors are trying to keep their head above water. They can't not take Medicaid. Like maybe some in the urban areas can decide that they're going to do concierge medicine and they're going to get everybody to pay, just leave insurance completely out of it and get everybody to pay straight to them. But that doesn't happen in Wakeeney and in Medicine Lodge. And that's just not how it works.
Bob Fee: That's right. And Medicaid expansion could be a Band-Aid for some of those. I don't think it's an actual fix. I know the legislature passed some increased funding for some of those areas, rural areas. I do think we've got problems. I'm not saying that we don't have problems that we need to solve. And they may require more money. But to add a social service system, I don't know of one that has ever gone away, number one. Number two, if the federal government says, well, we're not going to reimburse it 90 percent any longer. We're going to do what we've done on everything else in Medicaid, which is 65 percent. Are we going to do away with the system? I doubt it. So I started out talking about spending. To add to spending, that just creates more problems than it solves.
Nick Gosnell: All right. Is there a way to restructure the tax structure in the state to make it not so much every time you walk into a place that you have to do a piece of government business, you're paying another bill? By that, I mean you've got property taxes and then personal property taxes on vehicles and income tax and so on and so forth, where they're all different pieces of the funding mix that funds government, but it sure feels like that happens all the time, is that every time you interact with the government, it's with your wallet open. Is there a way to structure things differently? Have revenue be either close to or the same as what it was and end up with a better system where people have more idea of exactly how much they're paying?
Yes, I'm sure that we can. I'll start once again with spending. If we can curtail spending, we won't have to have the exact same revenue that we've got now. Under Bill Graves, back in the 90s, we reduced significantly taxes on vehicles. Over the last 20 plus years, those vehicle taxes have just trickled straight on up. Why to get a vehicle registration, do you have to pay based upon the year make model of that vehicle is beyond me. Vehicle, some of our newest vehicles are the heavy. They're very, very heavy. They're heavier than a battery operated vehicles, heavier than a gas vehicle, but yet they'll pay maybe the same amount as that gas vehicle. It doesn't make sense. How about a $45 or $100 charge to register your vehicle every year and now you're registered. So I think there are things that we can do. We've got to get people working together. We've got to recognize the problems and then figure out the solutions and move forward.
Nick Gosnell: All right, so where can people find out more about your campaign? My website is kansansforfee.com. We are on Facebook at the same, Instagram and X also. They can also email me. I've been very responsive with emails and that email address is on, I think it's [email protected]. And, of course, I've been in business here for 37 years. If you can call me at work, I'll be there and I take all phone calls.