The news out of Kansas is highly amusing, as you can see in this report from the The Wichita Eagle:
Lawmakers rolled back Gov. Sam Brownback’s signature tax policy over his objections Tuesday night, forcing into law tax increases to fix a budget shortfall and provide more money for schools.
The legislation ends the “march to zero” income tax cuts that Brownback heralded for much of his time as governor…
…The Senate and House voted 27-13 and 88-31, respectively, to override Brownback’s veto…
…The override represents a blow to the legacy of one of the most unpopular governors in America, amid speculation that he may not serve out his remaining time in office but instead take a federal position.
Kansas is such a Republican state that even Brownback’s epic mismanagement hasn’t led turned the state purple or blue, but he’s done his best. He’s made Republicans sound like Democrats. For example, look at this:
Rep. Larry Hibbard, R-Toronto, said some residents would feel taxed too much and others would feel that certain services weren’t funded enough. But the compromise was good, he said.
Hibbard said the state had become a national laughing stock for its recent fiscal troubles, including a tax system that allowed situations where “the employee was paying the taxes and the employer wasn’t.”
“This tax bill starts us on the road to recovery,” he said.
Or this:
“It’s hard to celebrate because Kansas is in such shambles. The magnitude of the problems that we have to correct is so great,” Rep. Melissa Rooker, R-Fairway, said.
Here you have a one Republican highlighting the absurd injustice of a tax code in which employers pay nothing, echoing Democrats who complain about corporations like General Electric that contribute nothing to the treasury. And you have another Republican who wants to celebrate what the governor correctly called “a $1.2 billion tax hike, making it the largest in state history,” but is not quite able to pull it off because the state’s coffers are still so drained.
This isn’t just a humiliation for Sam Brownback, it’s a complete repudiation of his two terms as governor delivered by members of his own party who resent him for making the whole state “a laughing stock.”
And, apparently, Brownback’s next step is take a job working for Trump. Doesn’t that sound about right?
But this very same legislature was only too happy to pass all those things that they are now repudiating.
Sigggghhhh…….But none of this will fucking matter, because it’s KANSAS. I’m sorry, but it’s very hard for me to feel one iota of sympathy for the voters of Kansas.
Copy that. What sort of fools put up with this for so long?
I feel sorry for the ordinary citizen Kansans who (a) are Democrats; (b) have been opposing Brownback by whatever means they can, but (c) are hopelessly outnumbered. They didn’t put this nimrod into office but they are suffering all the effects of his disastrous reign.
Yes, I know some of them.
I feel pretty much the same about Ohio.
Yeah. Me too. We have a lot of the same kind of people that Kansas does. I don’t think Kansas is necessarily very unique among many Midwestern states. Political cognitive dissonance is not uniquely Kansan.
there’s been a lot of turnover in their legislature as a result of this, even Democrats have won a few seats
So can we consider the finances of Kansas as a controlled experiment? Like: this is what happens, if you do tax code according to Brownback? And now we seem to come into the recovery phase of the experiment, when the experimental influence is washed out of the culture – always an important control to perform.
Pray tell: what wonderful job will he have for Trump? The new tax plan one expects.
“delivered by members of his own party who resent him for making the whole state “a laughing stock.”
I call BULL SHIT.
If there is resentment, it is that they bought the Kool-Ade lock, stock, and barrel and rubber stamped Brownback’s agenda. Brownback was the leader – they were the all-too-willing partners in stupidity.
I think the problem was they never are supposed to pass their ideas because they know they’re stupid but they sound good.
Their tax ideas are a good campaign device not good policy and they’re pissed that they put it into policy and shown how awful it is.
This can’t be right, because after all Thomas Frank explained that Kansans only vote against their own economic self-interest because the Democratic Party has failed them.
Thought it was excellent. Don’t recall Frank offering the explanation you describe. (It’s been a while. Might not be remembering everything. Or maybe he offered that explanation elsewhere or later? Dunno. But that wasn’t my takeaway from reading it.)
OT: I’m curious how this piece fits into your idea that Democrats can somehow poach rural voters.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/7/15674380/obamacare-kentucky-trump-ahca
The Republicans will literally start killing their voters and it won’t cause them to shift allegiances.
There are seven states that don’t have an income tax and two others who only tax investments. Why can’t Kansas do the same thing? Or
To put it another way, how can those other states get away with no tax?
But all in all the new tax rates in Kansas don’t seem really terrible.
I used to live in Washington, one of those states without an income tax, and now live in Portland, Oregon, where we have income tax but no sales tax. Washington traditionally has had a high sales tax as well as high fees for, say, licensing a car. Anyway, here on the border of the two states, the radical difference in tax regimes leads to all sorts of gaming the system by Washingtonians. For example: making purchases of expensive consumer goods in sales-tax-free Oregon. For a long time there was also a popular fraud whereby Washingtonians would license their cars in Oregon and thereby pay greatly reduced licensing fees. The response of the State of Washington was to have the state patrol randomly conduct sting operations. That worked well until Washington voters decided to lower vehicle-licensing fees.
Anyway, both Oregon and Washington state governments wind up having revenue streams that can vary a lot from year to year. The obvious fix is to have both income- and sales tax in both states, but we have the initiative system in both states: Oregon voters have rejected every attempt to create a sales tax, and Washington voters have rejected every attempt to create an income tax. Oh yeah, one more thing: Oregon has a so-called “kicker” law such that if actual tax revenue exceeds the prediction of the state economist by more than 2%, the excess is “kicked back” to taxpayers. Of course this removes the state’s most obvious means of creating a fiscal cushion, but voters have rejected every attempt to modify or get rid of the kicker law.
Kansas has a sales tax and an income tax. The recently enacted income tax increased the top rate to 5.7%.