Second-term Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback will be named U.S. ambassador to UN agencies on food and agriculture in Rome, says Kansas Public Radio, based on information from “a former high-ranking government official.” There was no immediate comment from the governor’s office and KPR quoted an unnamed source as saying the appointment was “a done deal.”
The change in jobs would come “at a time when Kansas is facing a serious budget deficit and a court order saying school funding is inadequate,” said KPR. A former congressman and senator, Brownback was elected governor of reliably Republican Kansas in 2010. Backed by legislators, he inaugurated large cuts in taxes, followed by cuts in services, in the belief that lower taxes would be the seed for economic growth. “Though he won reelection in 2014, the governor has presided over one budget mess after another since then, and all but his staunchest conservative allies have blamed the crisis on reductions in personal tax rates and a provision that exempted 330,000 owners of small businesses from paying income taxes,” said The Atlantic.
Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer would become governor if Brownback is appointed by President Trump and confirmed by the Senate. He would become head of the U.S. Mission to the UN Agencies in Rome — the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Program and the International Fund for Agricultural Development. David Lane, who held the post during the Obama era, told KPR that Brownback’s “humanitarian work, his work on malaria and some of the other things he was associated with as a senator, would be as valuable or even more than his experience with agriculture.”