OVERLAND PARK -- Gov. Laura Kelly peppered the first town hall of her administration Saturday with unfavorable critiques of Republican legislative leaders who advanced a bill slashing tax revenue, opposed Medicaid expansion and engaged in political theatrics to erode support for a Cabinet nominee.

Kelly chose the moderate-voter stronghold of Johnson County to share with a friendly crowd of 400 people her insights and those of five House Democrats on major issues and political undercurrents of the 2019 legislative session. Republican lawmakers were invited to participate, Kelly said, but none accepted.

The governor declined during and after the forum at Johnson County Community College to declare whether she would veto Senate Bill 22, a move her Democratic allies in the House and Senate expect to occur in a matter of days.

Senate President Susan Waggley, R-Wichita, championed the bill because it promised $500 million in tax relief over three years by protecting Kansas families and thwarting “new barriers that suffocate job creation.” The bill favored multinational corporations in Kansas eager to avoid state taxes when repatriating foreign income. The bill would enable wealthy individual Kansans to itemize deductions on state taxes and claim the new higher standard deduction on federal taxes.

The bill on the governor’s desk also lowered the state’s sales tax on food by 1 percentage point and broadened application of a state sales tax on internet transactions.

Kelly said the tax legislation was a flashback to the “self-inflicted” budget crisis spawned in 2012 when Gov. Sam Brownback signed a bill eliminating state income taxes on 330,000 business owners and aggressively dropped personal income tax rates. Brownback’s cornerstone tax policy compressed state revenue by $700 million in the first year of implementation and ended up starving state agencies and the economy, she said.

“We did this in 2012. We’ve been through this,” said Kelly, who added the Brownback tax program was largely repealed two years ago