Let's Keep Doing It Because Kansas Is the Heartland!

What do you mean it was never about an economic boom? What do you mean
it was only about lowering taxes on the rich? We can raise the sales tax! Sure
that hurts the poor, not the rich. What do you mean it looks like we planned it?

Kansas elected its former senator Sam Brownback to the governorship in 2010. He then launched a program to use all the junk economics he could find to lower state taxes to record lows. You go, Kansas!

Two years ago Kansas embarked on a remarkable fiscal experiment: It sharply slashed income taxes without any clear idea of what would replace the lost revenue. Sam Brownback, the governor, proposed the legislation — in percentage terms, the largest tax cut in one year any state has ever enacted — in close consultation with the economist Arthur Laffer. And Mr. Brownback predicted that the cuts would jump-start an economic boom — “Look out, Texas,” he proclaimed.

But Kansas isn’t booming — in fact, its economy is lagging both neighboring states and America as a whole. Meanwhile, the state’s budget has plunged deep into deficit, provoking a Moody’s downgrade of its debt.

Yes, the latest poll has Brownback losing the governorship to Democrat Paul Davis by six points, mostly because of his tax cuts. Does that mean if Brownback loses, we'll see tax rates return to what they were before the state was broke? Of course not. Republican legislature!

Following the GOP down the rabbit hole. Sounds like a plan. Good luck, Kansas.

Kansas in the future. But they're free!