What's Wrong With Kansas?

[kalm]

What's the matter with Oklahoma?

Republicans who control state government successfully pushed to reduce the top income tax rate, slash the oil and gas production tax rate from 7 percent to 2 percent, and give more tax incentives to industry.


But the boom ended, and the money dried up.

Now, the once-unwavering confidence in the wisdom of lower taxes has given way to a growing panic over how to pay for basic services, including schools, health care, and public safety. Revenue has fallen about 20 percent short of budgeted needs — for the third year in a row.

The situation has deteriorated to the point where Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers have been warned not to fill their fuel tanks, and drunk drivers have been able to keep their licenses because there are not enough administrative workers to revoke their driving privileges. Nearly 100 of the state’s 513 school districts have moved to four-day weeks. .........................

‘‘We’re not running the state based on a plan and a strategy. We’re trying to operate it on a philosophy,’’ said State Auditor and Inspector Gary Jones, a former Oklahoma Republican Party chairman who’s among a growing number of Republicans and Democrats calling for an about-face. ‘‘It seems like we’re afraid to admit we’ve made mistakes and correct them.’’

It’s not clear that some in Oklahoma’s GOP are ready to see taxes as a two-way street. The party holds more than three-quarters of the Legislature’s seats.....

Lawmakers are weighing drastic steps, such as reducing Medicaid payments, which officials say could cause hundreds of nursing homes to close..........

‘‘I think we need to . . . make sure we’ve squeezed every nickel, dime, and penny out of every corner that we can before we just start raising taxes,’’ said Republican Mike Schulz, the Senate leader.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/ ... nt=event25

There is a bit of good news for my supply side friends. According to the article North Carolina has at least managed to cut taxes without taking a big budgetary hit.

[cx500d]

Kansas Republican primary voters to Brownback's conservative allies in the legislature:

Supply side economics fail....



Turns out SSE sucks when you're required to balance a budget but sacrifice infrastructure and education spending in the hope that tax cuts on the rich will create growth and jobs.



http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/04/us/ka ... .html?_r=0

It's because the middle class voter has been sold a classic fairy tail
and there are a lot of them for sale (more on that later)

This one ^ the one they fell for says that if you lower taxes on the top 5%
Jobs will spring up out of thin air

What they neglect to share with you is - and Baldy can confirm this - or deny
The very last thing (the very last resort) for any well run corporation is HIRING a new employee

Employees in the new world are very very expensive
and making companies MORE profitable at the top with reduced taxation
does not ever (ever) simply generate new jobs

Jobs are a byproduct of something else (more on that later)
they are not a byproduct of less taxes

Sure, when you can outsource operations to Indian it companies importing cheap labor with h1b visas why keep it in house?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[kalm]

Update:

Some reasonable Republicans are waking up in Kansas. Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore continue their 3-decade march of failure....

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. – Kansas was at the heart of the tea party revolution, a red state where, six years ago, a deeply conservative group of Republicans took the state for a hard right turn. Now, after their policies failed to produce the results GOP politicians promised, the state has become host to another revolution: a resurgence of moderate Republicans.

Moderate Republicans joined with Democrats this week to raise state taxes, overriding GOP Gov. Sam Brownback’s veto and repudiating the conservative governor’s platform of ongoing tax cuts. The vote was a demonstration of the moderates’ newfound clout in the state Republican Party. Brownback was unable to successfully block the bill because many of the die-hard tax cut proponents had either retired or been voted out of office, losing to more centrist candidates in GOP primaries.........................

Jeff Glendening, the state director for Americans for Prosperity, pledged retaliation. The conservative organization, funded in part by the wealthy Koch brothers, will campaign against Republican lawmakers who voted to raise taxes, he said.

“We’ll be busy with our activists holding those legislators accountable for raising those taxes,“ Glendening said. “This issue is not going to go away.”

“What happens in Kansas breaks so significantly with Republican orthodoxy on taxes,” said Stephen Moore, a former adviser to both Trump and Brownback.

“There’s one thing that unifies the Republican Party today more than anything else. We are a tax-cutting party. We are not a tax-increasing party,” Moore said. “I think Republicans across the country have to be paying attention to this.”

The return to more centrist policies could foreshadow trouble for Trump’s tax plan, which is based on the same concepts that guided Brownback’s overhaul beginning in 2012. Trump has proposed reducing the number of different rates on marginal income and setting all of them at lower levels, as Brownback did.

Trump has also proposed slashing taxes for small businesses. Brownback exempted small-business income from taxation entirely, opening what analysts described as a loophole, in which individuals represented themselves as small businesses to qualify for the tax break.

Trump has not issued a detailed proposal since taking office, but in April the White House released a one-page document on tax policy that reiterated these basic principles.

A plan put forward a year ago by House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), contains some similar provisions. The resemblance points to the connections between Brownback and the conservative establishment in Washington. Before becoming a congressman himself, Ryan served on Brownback’s staff when the governor represented Kansas in the Senate.

Trump and Brownback have relied on the same advisers, including the conservative economist Arthur Laffer, who famously laid out the principle of supply side economics on a cocktail napkin. Laffer argued that excessive taxation could slow the economy by discouraging people from working. His signature theory was that the government, by cutting taxes, could encourage people to earn more, maintaining or increasing overall tax revenue. Yet most economists believe that U.S. tax rates are already far too low to benefit from Laffer’s curve.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/won ... dd544a0771

[BDKJMU]

The problem with Kansas is they cut taxes, but they didn't cut spending, but basically flat lined it. Kansas spending in FY 2012, the year the tax cuts were passed, is virtually the same as it is slated to be in 2017, 4 years after the tax cuts began taking effect.
Kansas state spending by fiscal year.
11' 12.48 B
12' 12.79 B (Year tax cuts passed)
13' 12.38 B
14' 12.92 B
15' 13.19 B
16' 12.93 B
17' 12.76 B
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/sta ... g_2017KSbn

[houndawg]

The problem with Kansas is they cut taxes, but they didn't cut spending, but basically flat lined it. Kansas spending in FY 2012, the year the tax cuts were passed, is virtually the same as it is slated to be in 2017, 4 years after the tax cuts began taking effect.
Kansas state spending by fiscal year.
11' 12.48 B
12' 12.79 B (Year tax cuts passed)
13' 12.38 B
14' 12.92 B
15' 13.19 B
16' 12.93 B
17' 12.76 B
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/sta ... g_2017KSbn

What do they have left to cut?

[BDKJMU]

The problem with Kansas is they cut taxes, but they didn't cut spending, but basically flat lined it. Kansas spending in FY 2012, the year the tax cuts were passed, is virtually the same as it is slated to be in 2017, 4 years after the tax cuts began taking effect.
Kansas state spending by fiscal year.
11' 12.48 B
12' 12.79 B (Year tax cuts passed)
13' 12.38 B
14' 12.92 B
15' 13.19 B
16' 12.93 B
17' 12.76 B
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/sta ... g_2017KSbn

What do they have left to cut?

Include local spending, using above link, and that figure grows to 26.7 billion. With a population under 3 million, that's about 9k a person (and that doesn't even include fed spending). I'm sure they could find something.

[kalm]

What do they have left to cut?

Include local spending, using above link, and that figure grows to 26.7 billion. With a population under 3 million, that's about 9k a person (and that doesn't even include fed spending). I'm sure they could find something.

I'm sure they could gain efficiencies and find reasonable cuts, but they've clearly struggled with this.

$9k per person might not be such a bad deal compared with the standard of living and wages earned compared to the rest of the world.

[Chizzang]

Who cares about Kansas..?
it provides an uninspiring 0.83 % of the Nations GDP - ponder that for a moment

Kansas could go bankrupt and fail outright, literally go dark
Every citizen in the state could move away
and be absorbed by California alone
and literally have zero effect on the Nation

The End...
The real question isn't what's wrong with Kansas
It's: Is it possible that a state could matter any less than Kansas

And the answer to that question is: Yes, Vermont

[kalm]

Who cares about Kansas..?
it provides an uninspiring 0.83 % of the Nations GDP - ponder that for a moment

Kansas could go bankrupt and fail outright, literally go dark
Every citizen in the state could move away
and be absorbed by California alone
and literally have zero effect on the Nation

The End...
The real question isn't what's wrong with Kansas
It's: Is it possible that a state could matter any less than Kansas

And the answer to that question is: Yes, Vermont

I read "Undaunted Courage" and according to the Lewis and Clark journals, Kansas was a Garden of Eden where the sky was filled with birds, and wildflowers and the great herds of animals stretched as far as the eye could see.

[Chizzang]

Who cares about Kansas..?
it provides an uninspiring 0.83 % of the Nations GDP - ponder that for a moment

Kansas could go bankrupt and fail outright, literally go dark
Every citizen in the state could move away
and be absorbed by California alone
and literally have zero effect on the Nation

The End...
The real question isn't what's wrong with Kansas
It's: Is it possible that a state could matter any less than Kansas

And the answer to that question is: Yes, Vermont

I read "Undaunted Courage" and according to the Lewis and Clark journals, Kansas was a Garden of Eden where the sky was filled with birds, and wildflowers and the great herds of animals stretched as far as the eye could see.

[kalm]

I read "Undaunted Courage" and according to the Lewis and Clark journals, Kansas was a Garden of Eden where the sky was filled with birds, and wildflowers and the great herds of animals stretched as far as the eye could see.

I win...again!

[Chizzang]

I win...again!

That son-of-a-bitch Harry fritz made us all read Journals of Lewis and Clark just to pass his Montana History class back in what must have been 1988 That's a f*ckload of reading for a state that appears in the book for about 4 pages

[OL FU]

It's fucking kansas

[kalm]

Brownback is leaving the governorship to head up the federal Office of International Religious Freedom...another great example of limited government that I'm sure most conservatives are outspoken against.

Kris Kobach sums it up nicely in the article stating that Brownback was the first truly conservative governor Kansas has had in the last 40 years.

Conks





https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/26/us/p ... eedom.html

[∞∞∞]

Brownback is leaving the governorship to head up the federal Office of International Religious Freedom...another great example of limited government that I'm sure most conservatives are outspoken against.

Kris Kobach sums it up nicely in the article stating that Brownback was the first truly conservative governor Kansas has had in the last 40 years.

Conks



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/26/us/p ... eedom.html

I was talking to a friend's father this weekend who apparently was a staunch Republican his whole life (and became a Democrat a little after the Iraq war). He said something interesting (non-verbatim): "I used to love the party because we'd help people, but made sure programs were fiscally responsible, even if it meant raising taxes. Now Republicans neither help people nor understand how to be fiscally responsible."

[OL FU]

Who cares about Kansas..?
it provides an uninspiring 0.83 % of the Nations GDP - ponder that for a moment

Kansas could go bankrupt and fail outright, literally go dark
Every citizen in the state could move away
and be absorbed by California alone
and literally have zero effect on the Nation

The End...
The real question isn't what's wrong with Kansas
It's: Is it possible that a state could matter any less than Kansas

And the answer to that question is: Yes, Vermont

Kinda what I said before when I said it is fucking Kansas.
The problem here is Kalm is deriding an economic philosophy based on a state that obviously did it wrong. IT would be very much like throwing higher taxes and spending totally out the window because Connecticut is now failing when states like New York and California seem to be doing fine (at least for now ). Connecticut succeeded largely because it was a lower tax state geographically situated between high tax major metro areas. in the 70s and 80s people worked in New York City but the sure didn't want to live there so, Connecticut. Now Connecticut has taxes as high as surrounding states but people and companies now want to be back in New York City. So bye bye Connecticut.

Kansas is Kansas. Nothing wrong with it. Nothing wrong with living there. But cutting it's tax rate to zero isn't going to drive business into Kansas when business can go to Florida or Texas.

[kalm]

Who cares about Kansas..?
it provides an uninspiring 0.83 % of the Nations GDP - ponder that for a moment

Kansas could go bankrupt and fail outright, literally go dark
Every citizen in the state could move away
and be absorbed by California alone
and literally have zero effect on the Nation

The End...
The real question isn't what's wrong with Kansas
It's: Is it possible that a state could matter any less than Kansas

And the answer to that question is: Yes, Vermont

Kinda what I said before when I said it is fucking Kansas.
The problem here is Kalm is deriding an economic philosophy based on a state that obviously did it wrong. IT would be very much like throwing higher taxes and spending totally out the window because Connecticut is now failing when states like New York and California seem to be doing fine (at least for now ). Connecticut succeeded largely because it was a lower tax state geographically situated between high tax major metro areas. in the 70s and 80s people worked in New York City but the sure didn't want to live there so, Connecticut. Now Connecticut has taxes as high as surrounding states but people and companies now want to be back in New York City. So bye bye Connecticut.

Kansas is Kansas. Nothing wrong with it. Nothing wrong with living there. But cutting it's tax rate to zero isn't going to drive business into Kansas when business can go to Florida or Texas.

Part of the calculation here was that Kansas would steal businesses and jobs away from Missouri.

States are the laboratories of democracy.

[OL FU]

Kinda what I said before when I said it is **** Kansas.
The problem here is Kalm is deriding an economic philosophy based on a state that obviously did it wrong. IT would be very much like throwing higher taxes and spending totally out the window because Connecticut is now failing when states like New York and California seem to be doing fine (at least for now ). Connecticut succeeded largely because it was a lower tax state geographically situated between high tax major metro areas. in the 70s and 80s people worked in New York City but the sure didn't want to live there so, Connecticut. Now Connecticut has taxes as high as surrounding states but people and companies now want to be back in New York City. So bye bye Connecticut.

Kansas is Kansas. Nothing wrong with it. Nothing wrong with living there. But cutting it's tax rate to zero isn't going to drive business into Kansas when business can go to Florida or Texas.

Part of the calculation here was that Kansas would steal businesses and jobs away from Missouri.

States are the laboratories of democracy.

No argument there! and don't know enough about Missouri or Kansas to know if that was possible. But what I do know, even though I generally think supply side works, is nothing happens in a vacuum and supply side policies are just one of many things that might predict success or failure. And our states are different enough that failure of a badly implemented policy in one state doesn't mean failure in all states or the country as a whole.

Another good example of this is the national minimum wage argument at $15 an hour. $15/hr isn't the same in NYC as it is in Greenville SC.

[kalm]

Part of the calculation here was that Kansas would steal businesses and jobs away from Missouri.

States are the laboratories of democracy.

No argument there! and don't know enough about Missouri or Kansas to know if that was possible. But what I do know, even though I generally think supply side works, is nothing happens in a vacuum and supply side policies are just one of many things that might predict success or failure. And our states are different enough that failure of a badly implemented policy in one state doesn't mean failure in all states or the country as a whole.

Another good example of this is the national minimum wage argument at $15 an hour. $15/hr isn't the same in NYC as it is in Greenville SC.

Totally agree on the minimum wage. It's not the same in Redmond, WA as it is in Cheney.

It also should be tied to age. Higher paying entry level jobs for high school and college kids depress wages for those who truly need a liveable wage.

Also, id be interested to see some examples of where trickle down created sustainable growth for the entire economy.

[UNI88]

No argument there! and don't know enough about Missouri or Kansas to know if that was possible. But what I do know, even though I generally think supply side works, is nothing happens in a vacuum and supply side policies are just one of many things that might predict success or failure. And our states are different enough that failure of a badly implemented policy in one state doesn't mean failure in all states or the country as a whole.

Another good example of this is the national minimum wage argument at $15 an hour. $15/hr isn't the same in NYC as it is in Greenville SC.

Totally agree on the minimum wage. It's not the same in Redmond, WA as it is in Cheney.

It also should be tied to age. Higher paying entry level jobs for high school and college kids depress wages for those who truly need a liveable wage.

Also, id be interested to see some examples of where trickle down created sustainable growth for the entire economy.

I've never read anything conclusive on it but I suspect that you could find a relationship between Reagan's deregulation and tax cuts and the dotcom boom (and bust). Those changes helped to give people the incentive to walk away from a potential 40 years and a gold watch from IBM to starting their own businesses. To be fair, the foundation that they built their innovations on was laid by big government (DARPA, NASA, etc.).

[OL FU]

No argument there! and don't know enough about Missouri or Kansas to know if that was possible. But what I do know, even though I generally think supply side works, is nothing happens in a vacuum and supply side policies are just one of many things that might predict success or failure. And our states are different enough that failure of a badly implemented policy in one state doesn't mean failure in all states or the country as a whole.

Another good example of this is the national minimum wage argument at $15 an hour. $15/hr isn't the same in NYC as it is in Greenville SC.

Totally agree on the minimum wage. It's not the same in Redmond, WA as it is in Cheney.

It also should be tied to age. Higher paying entry level jobs for high school and college kids depress wages for those who truly need a liveable wage.

Also, id be interested to see some examples of where trickle down created sustainable growth for the entire economy.

And that is where it gets complicated like with most things economic. For example, how many times have you hear that FDR's policies in the 30s saved the economy, even though we, not technically but from an economic recovery standpoint, stayed in a depression until the start of WW2 and our economy grew much slower than larger portion of the global economy. All economic discussions are laced with politics unfortunately. The classic example is Reagon's tax cuts but as I said nothing happens in a vacuum. Was it supply-side economics? Was it's Volcker's recession that crushed inflation? Was it the death of stagflation which kicked the economy in to high gear? Was it lowering the regulatory burden? My take would be that it was all of that including lowering tax rates, and, may be even more importantly, reforming the tax code away from loopholes that directed high income earners to invest in products that provided tax shelters instead of market based returns. There are plenty of statistics showing the increase in federal receipts after those tax cuts (yes I know as a % of GDP they actually fell but that's kinda beside the point in many respect) and the economic growth rate in the 80s. But let's be honest, one's interpretation of those statistics will be largely determined by the political answer for which one is looking.

[kalm]

Totally agree on the minimum wage. It's not the same in Redmond, WA as it is in Cheney.

It also should be tied to age. Higher paying entry level jobs for high school and college kids depress wages for those who truly need a liveable wage.

Also, id be interested to see some examples of where trickle down created sustainable growth for the entire economy.

I've never read anything conclusive on it but I suspect that you could find a relationship between Reagan's deregulation and tax cuts and the dotcom boom (and bust). Those changes helped to give people the incentive to walk away from a potential 40 years and a gold watch from IBM to starting their own businesses. To be fair, the foundation that they built their innovations on was laid by big government (DARPA, NASA, etc.).

Very intriguing example. Would it have happened anyway or elsewhere? Did the benefits outweigh the consequences of deficit spending, wealth inequality, market volatility and bubbles?

It would be a fascinating study...

[UNI88]

Totally agree on the minimum wage. It's not the same in Redmond, WA as it is in Cheney.

It also should be tied to age. Higher paying entry level jobs for high school and college kids depress wages for those who truly need a liveable wage.

Also, id be interested to see some examples of where trickle down created sustainable growth for the entire economy.

And that is where it gets complicated like with most things economic. For example, how many times have you hear that FDR's policies in the 30s saved the economy, even though we, not technically but from an economic recovery standpoint, stayed in a depression until the start of WW2 and our economy grew much slower than larger portion of the global economy. All economic discussions are laced with politics unfortunately. The classic example is Reagon's tax cuts but as I said nothing happens in a vacuum. Was it supply-side economics? Was it's Volcker's recession that crushed inflation? Was it the death of stagflation which kicked the economy in to high gear? Was it lowering the regulatory burden? My take would be that it was all of that including lowering tax rates, and, may be even more importantly, reforming the tax code away from loopholes that directed high income earners to invest in products that provided tax shelters instead of market based returns. There are plenty of statistics showing the increase in federal receipts after those tax cuts (yes I know as a % of GDP they actually fell but that's kinda beside the point in many respect) and the economic growth rate in the 80s. But let's be honest, one's interpretation of those statistics will be largely determined by the political answer for which one is looking.

There goes OLFU with a NY Times level response to upstage my USA Today level response

Seriously, OLFU brings up some great points and as usual I agree with him.

[OL FU]

And that is where it gets complicated like with most things economic. For example, how many times have you hear that FDR's policies in the 30s saved the economy, even though we, not technically but from an economic recovery standpoint, stayed in a depression until the start of WW2 and our economy grew much slower than larger portion of the global economy. All economic discussions are laced with politics unfortunately. The classic example is Reagon's tax cuts but as I said nothing happens in a vacuum. Was it supply-side economics? Was it's Volcker's recession that crushed inflation? Was it the death of stagflation which kicked the economy in to high gear? Was it lowering the regulatory burden? My take would be that it was all of that including lowering tax rates, and, may be even more importantly, reforming the tax code away from loopholes that directed high income earners to invest in products that provided tax shelters instead of market based returns. There are plenty of statistics showing the increase in federal receipts after those tax cuts (yes I know as a % of GDP they actually fell but that's kinda beside the point in many respect) and the economic growth rate in the 80s. But let's be honest, one's interpretation of those statistics will be largely determined by the political answer for which one is looking.

There goes OLFU with a NY Times level response to upstage my USA Today level response

Seriously, OLFU brings up some great points and as usual I agree with him.

you give me way too much credit

[OL FU]

Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2007 1:25 pm

and I just realized, I missed my 10 year anniversary party