(Alexandria, VA) – A new candidate agenda analysis from National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF) reveals the hard numbers behind the political rhetoric in the Kansas Senate race featuring Senator Pat Roberts and businessman Greg Orman – finding a $22.6 billion annual difference between their agendas.
According to NTUF’s research, incumbent Pat Roberts has outlined policies that would combine to cut $17.8 billion from the federal budget each year. His opponent, Independent Greg Orman, has described and supported plans that would result in a spending increase of $4.8 billion annually.
All proposals that could have fiscal implications are considered in the analysis, though only those with an impact on federal outlays that can be accurately quantified are included in NTUF’s bottom-line agenda estimates.
There were 30 statements or proposals whose costs could not be tallied out of 40 total that were examined – the majority of these unknowns came from Orman who offered 4 proposals clear enough to have their cost estimated out of 25 total.
The highlights of Kansas’ Senate candidates’ campaign proposals (annual figures):
- Senator Roberts would accomplish the majority of his proposed savings through repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA or “Obamacare”), an estimated savings of $63.9 billion.
- Roberts also supports the Fair Tax, whose implementation would save $19.3 billion per-year by replacing the tax code and eliminating the IRS.
- It’s not all spending cuts for Roberts whose support for additional border security and enforcement would cost $8.6 billion.
- The Senator would also seek to undo the sequester’s limits on military spending, his most major budget-increasing proposal at $52.1 billion each year.
- Greg Orman articulated clear support for just four proposals whose costs could be properly estimated, all would increase spending, while supporting 21 policies that could not be quantified.
- Orman’s most fiscally significant proposal – streamlining costs for the immigration system and increasing funding for border security – would add $3.7 billion to the federal budget annually.
“Our analysis shows a mixture of proposals from Senator Roberts that would ultimately lead to budgetary savings in large part due to supporting repeal of the Affordable Care Act,” said NTUF Research and Outreach Manager Dan Barrett. “Mr. Orman has spoken about a variety of policies, but did not offer enough concrete language for analysts to provide costs for most of his ideas.”
NTUF is the research affiliate of the 362,000-member National Taxpayers Union, “The Voice of America’s Taxpayers.” More information is available at ntu.org/foundation.