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I know we have plenty of opportunities to analyze the flaws of American Conservative financial policy. However, the Kansas economy is such a financial disaster that I think it bears its own thread and analysis, especially since it's a really unique case in which a whole state has been taken over by the purest far-right fringe. Normally on the Federal level the worst excesses of the GOP are tempered somewhat by the opposition party. However, since 2012 Kansas has been a primary example of a policy experiment gone horribly, horribly wrong. You might remember 2010, the glorious age of the Tea Party Revolution. Much like the original Tea Party, the modern Tea Party was a revolt against a government trying to do the fiscally responsible thing: levying reasonable taxes in order to pay for a massive and costly war that the Americans themselves started. Thus, Sam Brownback rode into the Gubernatorial office of Kansas on the Tea Party wave like a beautiful porpoise, with strong fiscally conservative plans to help rocket the state's economy into prominence. And much like a porpoise stuck in landlocked Kansas, Brownback is left flopping around uselessly, slapping any bystander with his fins who's trying to get him under control so they can toss him back into the sea. With Arthur Laffer has his financial advisor (yes, that Arthur Laffer), in 2012 Brownback signed into law one of the most extreme tax cuts in Kansas' history, Kansas Senate Bill Substitute HB 2117. This was essentially the Tea Party conservative's dream bill: it eliminated business taxes for 191,000 businesses, and drastically cut income taxes on the upper bracket by ¼ (6.45% to 4.9%), with the intention of phasing out income taxes entirely. Referring to this bill as “an adrenaline shot to the arm,” Brownback and his supporters believed this would attract new businesses and stimulate job growth by pouring more money into the hands of the affluent. Trickle-down economics, yo. Sam Brownback posted:“I want to continue that move. You’ve got to fund your government, but I want to fund it off the consumption side instead of the income side. So we’ll get more growth and ultimately have more money.” This... didn't happen. Financially, HB 2117 has been a disaster: *When the bill was signed into law, state had a budget surplus of $700 million *Right now the state's budget is $15 billion. Their general fund for discretionary spending is $6 billion *As of now, Kansas is suffering a massive revenue shortfall: estimated to be $600 million deficit by July. Currently it's at $400 million. *The spending gap is gobbling up Kansas' reserve funds, forcing Brownback to divert funds away from highway projects, schools (cut of $100 million), and Medicaid (cut of $50 million). *Kansas' credit rating has been downgraded by S&P. Twice. Even worse, HB 2117 didn't help in the job growth sector either. Now granted, average weekly earnings do seem to be increasing slightly. Yet Kansas has lagged behind in job growth (1.9% instead of the national average of 3.1%). While unemployment is relatively low in the state, compared to its neighbors it's still the second-highest. In fact, things got so bad that in the 2014 election 100 Republican officials urged voters to vote for the other guy.    Now unlike the federal government which can leave deficits on its books, state governments have to keep their budgets balanced from year to year. So the fact that they have such a massive deficit is incredibly bad. Brownback & Co. have thus been floundering for the last few months desperate to plug the spending gap. A couple of the expected responses include sales taxes and taxes on alcohol and tobacco (which, barring the negative impact on the poor, might work if the entire state became binge-drinking smokers). Another measure that popped up in April would place dozens of new directives on how the poor should spend their welfare money: LA Times posted:Some of these are just stupid (no "cruise ships"!), some are intrusive (no movies, no swimming pools), and some are stupid, intrusive and counterproductive (no ATM withdrawals of more than $25 a day). As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities stated CBPP posted:“Kansas is a cautionary tale, not a model. As other states recover from the recent recession and turn toward the future, Kansas’ huge tax cuts have left that state’s schools and other public services stuck in the recession, and declining further — a serious threat to the state’s long-term economic vitality.” Currently though the biggest problem that Brownback is facing is their educational system. Since 2008 Kansas has been cutting spending on schools. It spent $4800 per pupil in 2008-2009. Now it spends $3800. Schools across the state have already had to close 1-2 weeks early. For the State Supreme Court, this was much too low to meet the standards mandated by the State Constitution. In December of 2014, the Kansas State Supreme Court gave Brownback another huge kick in the balls, declaring that he'd have to fund the state educational system with another $550 million.  And this is where we are now: In an apparent attempt at retaliation against the Supreme Court, the State Legislature passed an administrative law that stripped certain powers from the Judiciary, like its authority to appoint local chief judges and set district court budgets. Brownback also threatened the Justices with other reforms (recall elections, splitting the court in two, lowering the retirement age, and subjecting judges to elections instead of appointments). Even more perverse however, in the sort of warped negotiation pioneered by Marcus Licinius Crassus, the law also stipulates that if it is declared unconstitutional and struck down, the entire state judiciary would be defunded. Basically, “Agree to my terms or we'll let your house burn to the ground.” Except Brownback was the one setting the fire in the first place. Also, Brownback apparently cried in a public meeting recently. Like a pregnant 14 year old rape victim who can no longer get an abortion without parental consent in his state. So without further ado: 
ShadowCatboy fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Jun 13, 2015 |
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Jun 13, 2015 20:04
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I remember a story in Kansas about how a rural elementary school shut down, and that any potential benefits the local businesses may have seen by not having to pay taxes were more than counterbalanced than all the teachers having to leave town to find work elsewhere and parents having to drive their kids 40 minutes over and back to the nearest elementary school.
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Jun 13, 2015 20:17
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Since this has been coming up lately in our latest round of "You Region Sucks" in the 2016 primary thread, how likely is any sort of political remedy for this nightmare? Were America a sane nation I could at least argue that, having been such an unmitigated disaster, surely the far-right proponents of all this nonsense would be swept out of office, but it isn't and Brownback won re-election (albeit narrowly) last year.
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Jun 13, 2015 20:18
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That's a loving rockstar of an OP. I'd thought Brownback was #2 on the "Worst Governors in Modern Times" list behind Skeletor Scott of FL, but then I remember Skeletor's not literally crying and begging for someone to save him from the (gleefully!) self-imposed total destruction of his entire state. The image of that scumbag sweating and crying in front of legislators is pure political schadenfreude porn. Ye reap, ye sow.
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Jun 13, 2015 20:38
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What are the typical excuses on the right for why trickle down is failing?
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Jun 13, 2015 21:03
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tsa posted:What are the typical excuses on the right for why trickle down is failing? "It needs more time to work!" Is one I've heard. That, or straight-up denial that it's failing at all.
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Jun 13, 2015 21:06
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Brownback 2020
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Jun 13, 2015 21:11
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Holy moley that's bleak. Isn't this really a super-charged application of Starve the Beast?
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Jun 13, 2015 21:17
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Captain_Maclaine posted:"It needs more time to work!" Is one I've heard. That, or straight-up denial that it's failing at all. Where is Norquist getting that 57,000 private sector jobs number, and how much of that is the unavoidable result of population growth?
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Jun 13, 2015 21:39
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So did the budget that was passed yesterday account for the Judicially mandated increase in Public Education? I read that what was passed still required Brownback to come up with $50 million in budget cuts on his own, is that the case? I don't know how the Courts can sit by and allow a law to stand that intentionally strips them of power. That's just a direct assault on the separation of powers doctrine and the U.S. form of government. If Kansas is allowed to get away with that, every poo poo-hole gulf state will follow suit and then try to take that to the Federal level as well.
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Jun 13, 2015 21:44
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Awful Sandwich posted:Holy moley that's bleak. Isn't this really a super-charged application of Starve the Beast? Not quite, Starve the Beast is when you cut funding in order to make something not work right, in order to say "Hey government can't do $GOVERNMENT_FUNCTION, so abolish the whole department of child welfare services" or whatever the poo poo. In this case they've already won that argument and skipped straight to the actual extermination of the beast. Turns out, to stretch the analogy, that the tribute of gold the beast demanded to keep us safe was a lot better than the things it was keeping us safe from.
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Jun 13, 2015 21:46
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Mister Adequate posted:Not quite, Starve the Beast is when you cut funding in order to make something not work right, in order to say "Hey government can't do $GOVERNMENT_FUNCTION, so abolish the whole department of child welfare services" or whatever the poo poo. In this case they've already won that argument and skipped straight to the actual extermination of the beast. The hilarious part is its their own party leading the charge down the pit, and in the end, the Tea Party may gloat that they achieved their goals, but then they'll turn to each other and say '....now what?'
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Jun 13, 2015 21:52
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http://m.thenation.com/article/208977-life-and-death-red-america A good snapshot of how the Medicare cuts are hurting Kansas' poor, not just in terms of the difficulties in getting help but also in how some of these people are conditioned into turning their anger toward other poor people instead of Brownback and his constituents. Is it true that part of his re-election campaign was "I've funded our schools more than any other governor because I was legally mandated to do so by the Supreme Court after massive cuts  " Because 
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Jun 13, 2015 21:57
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ShadowCatboy posted:And this is where we are now: In an apparent attempt at retaliation against the Supreme Court, the State Legislature passed an administrative law that stripped certain powers from the Judiciary, like its authority to appoint local chief judges and set district court budgets. Brownback also threatened the Justices with other reforms (recall elections, splitting the court in two, lowering the retirement age, and subjecting judges to elections instead of appointments). Even more perverse however, in the sort of warped negotiation pioneered by Marcus Licinius Crassus, the law also stipulates that if it is declared unconstitutional and struck down, the entire state judiciary would be defunded. Basically, “Agree to my terms or we'll let your house burn to the ground.” Now, I may not be some big city lawyer, or even a lawyer at all, but it strikes me that the courts could also find the stipulating clause unconstitutional as well, no? 
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Jun 13, 2015 22:01
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Mo_Steel posted:Now, I may not be some big city lawyer, or even a lawyer at all, but it strikes me that the courts could also find the stipulating clause unconstitutional as well, no? Sorry about that, but I forgot to include the source: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/06/08/kansas_governor_sam_brownback_threatens_to_defund_judiciary_if_it_rules.html I really have no idea how things would work out if the Judiciary stuck to its original ruling and Brownback decided to slash their funding. I suppose the last recourse is for the entire Judicial Branch to sue the Legislative and Executive branches in a Federal court, which strikes me as rather insane. Has there been any other instance in American history where one branch of government tried to gut all power from another? I'd like to think we've moved past the era where politicians would solve their problems by beating each other with canes, but right now a good old-fashioned caning seems more civilized.
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Jun 13, 2015 22:11
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ShadowCatboy posted:Sorry about that, but I forgot to include the source: I'm not expert, but I suspect defunding the judicial branch of their government may not be entirely legal....
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Jun 13, 2015 22:13
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Wulfolme posted:Where is Norquist getting that 57,000 private sector jobs number, and how much of that is the unavoidable result of population growth? It's the number Brownback's office touted as part of his re-election bid, and does in fact match up with Bureau of Labor Statistics data. And you might want to sit down because this next part is shocking, it turns out Norquist is bragging up performance that is, in fact, anemic as balls. Gosh fellas, I wonder if maybe slashing public services, education, and infrastructure maintenance to the bone has something to do with businesses not flocking to Kansas like Brownback et al told us they would?
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Jun 13, 2015 22:16
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After he was first elected, I was sitting on the 50 yard line as he gutted a lot of important state workplaces so that he could install his cronies (with pay raises). Not just the usual kinds of "my people in charge", either, deep, swift changes in every department. It didn't matter if you tried to keep your head down or even buddy up; the best you could do is delay the inevitable before you were replaced. It's no surprise he's doing everything he can to do the same to the judiciary.
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Jun 13, 2015 22:18
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I wish I could say part of me wants Brownback to continue doubling down with cuts to education, infrastructure, and healthcare just so the rest of the country can have an object lesson about how dangerous it is to keep people like this in power, but the kids in Kansas don't deserve to suffer because their elders are loving stupid.
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Jun 13, 2015 22:21
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CommieGIR posted:I'm not expert, but I suspect defunding the judicial branch of their government may not be entirely legal.... More importantly, doing so would make all the money freak the gently caress out. No Judiciary makes everyone mad, and invokes panicked calls to anyone with any sort of power to fix that poo poo. Though Reconstruction in Kansas with Federal Governor Sebelius might be kind of funny.
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Jun 13, 2015 22:21
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ShadowCatboy posted:Sorry about that, but I forgot to include the source: Florida attempted a similar attack on the judiciary in 2011 but a handful of Republican dissenters managed to shut the worst parts down. There are various instances throughout U.S. history of challenges of authority between the branches, such as stripping court's jurisdiction to hear certain cases. However the defunding provision is particularly egregious and I'm aware of no precedent for that.
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Jun 13, 2015 22:22
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Captain_Maclaine posted:It's the number Brownback's office touted as part of his re-election bid, and does in fact match up with Bureau of Labor Statistics data. And you might want to sit down because this next part is shocking, it turns out Norquist is bragging up performance that is, in fact, anemic as balls. To put the number in perspective, in the mayor's race earlier this year our mayor was partially campaigning on bringing 33,000 jobs to the city. Kansas' population is about 3.3 times larger than that of Duval County/Jacksonville, and they only gained 24 thousand more jobs. They are bragging about their entire state slightly out performing a minor city.
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Jun 13, 2015 22:33
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Jerry Manderbilt posted:I remember a story in Kansas about how a rural elementary school shut down, and that any potential benefits the local businesses may have seen by not having to pay taxes were more than counterbalanced than all the teachers having to leave town to find work elsewhere and parents having to drive their kids 40 minutes over and back to the nearest elementary school. Is this what you're referring to? quote:Smoky Valley superintendent Glen Suppes expects the district to save more than $400,000 by shuttering Marquette Elementary. Still, he told The Salina Journal, there were “no victories” in the board’s vote.
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Jun 13, 2015 22:34
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MeatwadIsGod posted:I wish I could say part of me wants Brownback to continue doubling down with cuts to education, infrastructure, and healthcare just so the rest of the country can have an object lesson about how dangerous it is to keep people like this in power, but the kids in Kansas don't deserve to suffer because their elders are loving stupid. That's how I feel as well. I want to lasciviously revel in the schadenfreude, but I just can't due to all of the innocent victims that will be hurt by these disastrous policies. They don't deserve this.
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Jun 13, 2015 22:42
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To be fair, Michigan is heading the same way as Kansas. Practically one in the same at this point. Even better, they purposefully tried to defund higher ed in Michigan at the insistence of far right ring religious groups. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Jun 13, 2015 |
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Jun 13, 2015 22:48
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The reason this train wreck is so fascinating to me is because Kansas is the Koch brothers backyard and what they are doing there is a template for exactly how the Kochs want the entire nation to be run. Then you couple this disaster with the internal fight between the Kochs and the RNC for donor and support information. Not hard to envision American democracy circling the drain.
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Jun 13, 2015 23:44
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ShadowCatboy posted:Sorry about that, but I forgot to include the source: Roosevelt's attempt to expand the supreme court is fairly analogous. CommieGIR posted:To be fair, Michigan is heading the same way as Kansas. Practically one in the same at this point. Man that would just destroy the state completely, a solid university system and the ability for Detroit (metro) companies to recruit from them is the only reason the state hasn't completely imploded. Not to mention all the Federal cash they pull in.
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Jun 13, 2015 23:59
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MeatwadIsGod posted:
yes. me and my brother (we both live in rural KS) lol'd pretty hard at that commercial.
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Jun 14, 2015 00:01
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If they want to burn the state to the ground in their tantrum instead of raising taxes, then godspeed to them. I guess it's easy to say because I don't live in Kansas, but the bigger a flaming disaster this is the worse it makes conservatives look
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Jun 14, 2015 00:04
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icantfindaname posted:If they want to burn the state to the ground in their tantrum instead of raising taxes, then godspeed to them. I guess it's easy to say because I don't live in Kansas, but the bigger a flaming disaster this is the worse it makes conservatives look Well, they did just raise taxes. Sales and sin taxes, specifically, for the sake of screwing the poor most. I can't imagine these failures will make any more difference than the rest have in deterring future stupidity.
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Jun 14, 2015 00:16
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icantfindaname posted:If they want to burn the state to the ground in their tantrum instead of raising taxes, then godspeed to them. I guess it's easy to say because I don't live in Kansas, but the bigger a flaming disaster this is the worse it makes conservatives look Why are you making the assumption that no matter how hosed Kansas gets, and no matter how obviously it's the fault of conservative ideology, that that's going to dissuade anyone? Like what's new here other than it being a more recent example.
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Jun 14, 2015 00:39
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Plague of Hats posted:Well, they did just raise taxes. Sales and sin taxes, specifically, for the sake of screwing the poor most. fringe taxes are sort of drop in the buck compared to a income tax increase.
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Jun 14, 2015 00:39
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Will there ever be a means for the states to wake up from the Tea Party mass hysteria going on or will states like Kansas and Michigan just keep death spiraling until federal intervention is required? How does the public keep re-electing such utterly incompetent people? Campaign funding by the Kochs and others can only go so far, ultimately people are intentionally deciding to vote for people who make no effort to hide their incompetence.
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Jun 14, 2015 00:41
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etalian posted:fringe taxes are sort of drop in the buck compared to a income tax increase. Well yeah, but that would hurt job creators.
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Jun 14, 2015 00:47
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Buffer posted:Why are you making the assumption that no matter how hosed Kansas gets, and no matter how obviously it's the fault of conservative ideology, that that's going to dissuade anyone? In fact, it has already affected decisions by the GOP in other states to not follow Kansas down the drain. Also, this from Gov. Nikki Haley in South Carolina quote:Some Republicans have backed away from using Kansas as a tax-cutting example now that the state faces a fiscal crisis.
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Jun 14, 2015 00:57
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LookingGodIntheEye posted:Will there ever be a means for the states to wake up from the Tea Party mass hysteria going on or will states like Kansas and Michigan just keep death spiraling until federal intervention is required? White Midwesterners really really really hate the poor black people who inhabit most rust belt cities
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Jun 14, 2015 01:00
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LookingGodIntheEye posted:Will there ever be a means for the states to wake up from the Tea Party mass hysteria going on or will states like Kansas and Michigan just keep death spiraling until federal intervention is required? You know how you would never under any circumstance vote for a Republican candidate because you know they're evil? There are a lot of Kansans (and other Americans!) who are like that, but for Democrats.
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Jun 14, 2015 01:00
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quote:Some Republicans have backed away from using Kansas as a tax-cutting example now that the state faces a fiscal crisis. "Unlike how the GOP in Kansas cut their own heads off with a chainsaw, we plan on the much more sensible route of slowly sawing ours off with pocket knives over the course of several years."
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Jun 14, 2015 01:00
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Nikki Haley: "We aren't going to get on the express elevator to Hell, we're taking the scenic route!" Which is a diabolically evil plan, because just like the frog in the pot, people won't realize it until it's too late. Really we should kind of thank Brownback and the good (stupid) people of Kansas; they have made a whole lot of arguments on the right invalid in three-dimensional physical reality. Of course, this is only useful in talking to the 60-ish percent of the U.S. that believes in three-dimensional physical reality... It is 60-ish percent right guys? Right? 
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Jun 14, 2015 01:10
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icantfindaname posted:White Midwesterners really really really hate the poor black people who inhabit most rust belt cities lol there's no black people in KS bro
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Jun 14, 2015 01:11
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