Sam Brownback’s failed ‘experiment’ puts state on path to penury

[Arkansas Granny]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sam-brownbacks-failed-experiment-puts-state-on-path-to-penury/2014/09/21/ded58846-3eb2-11e4-9587-5dafd96295f0_story.html

GOV. SAM BROWNBACK of Kansas says he has come to regret characterizing his policy agenda as a “real live experiment” that would test the efficacy of deep tax cuts to spur jobs and economic growth. In fact, Mr. Brownback’s choice of words was apt. Few if any governors have undertaken such an extreme trial-by-revenue-deprivation in a state so clearly lacking the economic means to withstand it.

Now, as the damaging social and budgetary impacts of his slash-and-burn fiscal measures have become apparent, Mr. Brownback, a conservative Republican seeking reelection this fall in a state where every statewide elected official is also a Republican, is in the disorienting position of trailing his Democratic challenger in the polls.

Mr. Brownback’s Kansas trial is rapidly becoming a cautionary tale for conservative governors elsewhere who have blithely peddled the theology of tax cuts as a painless panacea for sluggish growth. Most key indicators suggest that job creation and economic growth in Kansas are lagging those of its neighbors.

Mr. Brownback has cherry-picked the statistics to suggest that things aren’t as bad as they seem, while arguing that it’s still too early — more than a year and a half after his cuts were enacted — to gauge their full impact. Meanwhile, Wall Street’s bond rating agencies, taking note of plummeting tax revenue and a siphoning off of the state’s reserves to cover current and projected deficits, have weighed in with their own verdict: Moody’s cut Kansas’s credit rating last spring, and Standard & Poor’s followed suit last month.

more at link

[PeoViejo]

1. Superstitions are one of Brownback's prime movers.

What else could one expect from a member of a religious cult?

[Wellstone ruled]

2. Wonder how many years it will take to

repair this ALEC-Krotch Bros.-Rand disaster. Thought when the Funddies got squeezed,then things might change. Hope this is true. Libertarian forms of government only worked for one day in Somalia,and you know how that is turning out.