Kansas’ Governor and G.O.P. Seek to End Income Tax [View all]

[ErikJ]

Source: NY Times

Kansas’ Governor and G.O.P. Seek to End Income Tax

By JOHN ELIGON

TOPEKA, Kan. — ..........................................

On Wednesday, lawmakers received a bill to inch the state closer to eliminating income taxes, a centerpiece of a broad legislative vision that many in the Republican Party here hope will serve as a model of conservative governance for other states, if not the nation, to follow.
While Republican principles of small government and low taxes have holds on large swaths of the country, Kansas provides perhaps the starkest view of the crimson ideology that could challenge Mr. Obama’s Inauguration Day rallying cry.

This month, the largest tax cut in Kansas history took effect, and most of its Medicaid system was handed over to private insurers. The bill introduced this week would pare taxes further, with the goal of eventually eliminating the state’s individual income tax. Mr. Brownback has already slashed the state’s welfare roll and its work force. He has merged government agencies and is proposing further consolidation. He is pushing for pension changes, to change the way judges are selected and for altering education financing formulas.

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Many here, including the governor, have characterized the state’s legislative endeavors as an experiment. Mr. Brownback, elected in 2010, and his supporters are betting that their agenda will show the rest of the country that conservatism provides a path to economic prosperity.
“I think the unique thing is that we’re applying the principles on how you get your cost down and still provide a high-quality product,” Mr. Brownback said in an interview. “That’s been in the private sector, but it hasn’t been in the public sector for 50 years.”

Skeptics, meanwhile, contend that Mr. Brownback is leading Kansas toward economic devastation that will leave many of the state’s residents without basic services and its children without a proper education. “It kind of eliminates a large group of Kansans out of that pursuit of happiness,” Senator Oletha Faust-Goudeau, a Wichita Democrat, said of the governor’s proposals. “They will still struggle. They’ll pay the highest taxes. They are already working jobs with no benefits or very little benefits.”

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Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/24/us/politics/gov-sam-brownback-seeks-to-end-kansas-income-tax.html?_r=0

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The race to the bottom continues. Koch Industries is located in Wichita Kansas. I smell ALEC