What Paul Ryan Needs To Learn About Kansas' Catastrophe

Last month we speculated that unless congressional Republicans stop him, Trump would do to the U.S. what Governor Sam Brownback did to Kansas. Stopping him, though, isn't what Paul Ryan and his members have in mind-- encouraging him is more in line with what they want to do. Kansas was a petri dish-- an experimental lab-- for a crackpot far right ideological theory about how a government could run by cutting taxes for the rich and depending on trickle down. Kansas was the perfect place to do it not just because no one was looking but also because the radical right controlled every single office in the state and the voters seemed ready to go along with the scam. Kansas' whole delegation to Washington is Republican The state Senate has 32 Republicans and 8 Democrats and the state House contains 97 Republicans and just 28 Democrats-- super-majorities in both houses. And Kansas hasn't awarded a Democratic presidential candidate its electoral votes since LBJ in 1964. Trump beat Hillary 671,018 (56.6%) to 427,005 (36.0%), winning 103 of the state's 105 counties. But yesterday Kansas got this hearty congratulations tweet from Bernie Sanders (who, by the way, trounced Clinton in the state's presidential caucuses last year 67.7% to 32.3%).

Yesterday the Kansas City Star reported that "The Republican dominated Kansas Legislature that has soured on Gov. Sam Brownback’s vision for the state voted late Tuesday to roll back the governor’s signature tax cuts. Lawmakers voted to override Brownback’s veto of a tax plan estimated to bring the state more than $1.2 billion over a two-year span. The Senate vote was 27 to 13, and the House followed by agreeing 88 to 31 to supersede the Republican governor’s wishes on the tax plan and force the changes into law. Lawmakers marshaled together a coalition of moderate Republicans, conservatives and Democrats to overcome the governor’s opposition to seeing his landmark tax cuts, which have in large part come to define his tenure in Topeka, fundamentally come to an end."

Individual income would be taxed at rates of 3.1 percent, 5.25 percent and 5.7 percent starting in tax year 2018. A phased in rate begins during tax year 2017. The changes also end Brownback’s tax cut for certain business owners, known as the LLC exemption.

The tax bill also extends the sales tax revenue bond program, known as STAR bonds, by moving the sunset date to July 2020.

Tuesday’s veto was Brownback’s third this session. He vetoed a bill that raised more than $1 billion in tax revenue back in February, and followed that by striking down the Legislature’s attempt to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act a few weeks later.

Attempts to override the governor’s veto on both those bills failed.

Tuesday’s vote to turn away from Brownback’s wishes was the most recent signal that a statehouse that moved more towards the center after the 2016 election cycle has come to resist the policy points long championed by the Kansas Republican.

The legacy of Brownback’s signature policy change loomed large over Tuesday night’s debate.

“Where’s the common sense?” Sen. Tom Holland, a Baldwin City Democrat, asked during the debate. “We should have gotten off the crazy train a long time ago.”

Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning, an Overland Park Republican, made it clear during the floor debate that he voted for the 2012 tax cuts.

But it later became clear that the cuts went too deep, he said.

“He still believes in this,” Denning said about Brownback. “That’s OK. I don’t.”

The Kansas Senate Majority Leader could do America a big favor by having a meeting with the U.S. Senate Majority, Mitch McConnell, and the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, to explain to them what a catastrophe the experiment was and why it would be so wrong to take it national, as the Trump-Ryan-Mulvaney tax proposal plans to do. When Kansas went broke last year-- no money for essential services-- the state started selling off assets, which is exactly what McConnell and Ryan and congressional Republicans want to do: sell off tax-payer owned assets (national parks, bridges, roads, the Veterans Administration... things like that) to their salivating campaign donors. Kansas has no more assets left to sell off. What Brownback and the Republican extremists in the legislature brought Kansas was not the super-charged economy they promised but the lowest job growth and most sluggish economy in the region, the most disastrous state budget anywhere in America and a state debt rating that has been slashed again and again and again while Brownback was playing his games. This is what the editors of the Kansas City Star, who have lived through their nightmare, had to say to Trump, Ryan and McConnell, noting that their tax plan "strongly resembles the disastrous tax plan passed in Kansas in 2012."


Trump wants to consolidate individual tax brackets and lower the top rate. He would eliminate some deductions and, most crucially, dramatically reduce taxes for business owners, including millions of people who own businesses but pay taxes on their profits as individuals.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback’s 2012 tax reform blueprint was quite similar, and we know why. The same worn-out supply-side “experts” helped write both proposals.

Still, the president, the Congress and millions of Americans may be somewhat unfamiliar with the outcome of what Gov. Sam Brownback once called a “real live experiment” in tax policy.

No problem. We’re happy to offer some of the lessons we’ve learned first-hand over the last five years:

• The economy won’t grow at the rate you think. Brownback promised his tax cuts would provide a “shot of adrenaline” to the Kansas economy.

It never happened. Job growth in Kansas has lagged behind peer states, neighboring states and even some states that raised taxes.

A recently published academic paper suggests why: Kansans used the small business exemption to avoid taxes, not to add workers.

The governor and his allies blame slow growth on unanticipated slumps in the farming and energy sectors. That merely proves tax cuts are usually less significant than other macro-economic trends.

The American economy is changing dramatically. Health care jobs are up, while retail jobs have collapsed. Coal mining isn’t coming back.

Giving companies a huge tax break won’t change that.

• The deficit will increase. Remember when Republicans worried about the federal deficit? Good times.

Those worries have apparently vanished. That’s less important in D.C. than in Kansas-- Washington can deficit spend, Kansas can’t-- but, contra former Vice President Dick Cheney, deficits still matter.

And the White House can’t make that reality go away, no matter how many dynamic-scoring magic asterisks it uses. Kansas passed the biggest tax increase in state history in 2015 and is still $900 million short over the next two years.

• The business tax cuts will be unpopular. Kansas is one of the most Republican states in the nation, yet its GOP governor is a political outcast. Why?

The tax cut drama is one explanation. Kansans have grown tired of credit rating cuts, crowded schools, one-time transfers and budget crises.

But something else is at work. Kansans resent the fact that thousands of business owners pay no state income taxes at all, while working people do. In fact, those working people have seen taxes on food rise dramatically.

Trump’s huge business tax cuts, coupled with smaller reductions for individuals, will anger low- and middle-income Americans.

And ending the federal estate tax and the alternative minimum tax while eliminating federal deductions for health expenses and state and local taxes will make it worse.

We do not oppose tax reform. Paying federal taxes is too complicated and too distorted by tax breaks for special interests. Taxes at all levels should be simple, low, broad and fair.

But the president isn’t just proposing tax reform. He also wants a trickle-down tax cut for the wealthy. Kansans know how this story ends.

Trump isn't up for reelection in 2018; neither in McConnell. But Paul Ryan is. Defeating him and replacing him with a progressive Democrat dedicated it making government function to better the lives of working families is that way to put an end to this crazy Ayn Rand tangent the Republican Party has been distracted by. Randy Bryce is the iron worker and veterans' and union activist about to launch a campaign to do just that. "Kansas," he told us yesterday, "is pretty similar to Wisconsin as far as extreme policies go. I haven’t checked where the Jayhawks stand, but, I’d bet it’s close behind Wisconsin as the state where the Middle Class is disappearing faster than any place in the entire United States."

It’s been proven time and again that the “trickle down” experiment doesn’t work. All that I need to do is ask readers to take a look at this article in Salon to see that income gains since the 1980s are concentrated at the top.

What do the rich do with that money? Aside from stash it offshore, they also buy politicians like Paul Ryan.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with rich people. I have a problem with greedy people.

I’ve had enough of the wealth redistribution that has been taking place. All of what we working people have earned has been getting squeezed out of us and pulled up to those who already have everything that they want.

The wealthiest among us own the most. This means that they use the most. I think that a person who owns ten cars should pay more in taxes than the person who is still paying off one. Business owners depend on our crumbling infrastructure to deliver their goods. Why should we pay more to maintain it than they do?

Correct answer is we shouldn’t. But we do.

It’s time to put a stop to that. It’s time to end Paul Ryan’s career of disastrous decisions that have been destroying the Working Class.

2018 can’t get here soon enough. Within a short period of time, you can expect to receive an invitation to help make this become a reality.

Republican Of The Year Nominee #3: Governors' Edition

2016 In Review: America Off The Rails, Part 7


You bet, Maine's Paulie No-Brains is a contender!

by Noah

It’s not easy to pick the primo nominees for Republican Of The Year. For this installment of America Off The Rails, I’ve decided to narrow the field to just republican governors. Still, so many choices, so little time! It’s daunting. Where does one start? How does one judge?

Do we go by racism? No. Too easy and too all-encompassing. It’s difficult to get far enough to be a republican candidate for anything if you haven’t at least exhibited some sort of racism to polish your republican credentials somewhere along the way. At this point, I don’t think they even accept your application unless you’ve shown that you might someday strike a match to burn a cross.

So, how do we decide? Environmental policy? Wage and labor issues? Voting rights? LGBTQ stance? Immigration? Misogyny? Demeanor? Obvious insanity? Do the knuckles touch the ground? Chances are any republican governor has nearly all if not all of these bases covered, really covered!

My solution to this dilemma is to just play a game of word association with myself. I’ll type out a name of a republikook governor, any one of whom is a nominee for Republican Of The Year in his own right, who “served” in 2016, and see what instantly pops into my mind -- what about that goon leaps to the forefront of my mind as soon as I picture his or her visage or think of their name?

So, here goes!


CHRIS CHRISTIE, New Jersey

[Click on any cartoon to enlarge]

Ewwwee, this is a bad start. I’m from NJ. This is personally embarrassing. He even grew up in the town next door to the one I’m from, and I don’t remember anything that bad -- bad as Chris Christie.

Nah, he’s bad, but he’s not the worst. He’s just a dumb loudmouth bully type who should have been punched hard in the face in the fifth grade and sent home crying pathetically to his mommy. Because no one did that, we all have to suffer years later. Wasn’t it hideous to watch him chasing Trump around, trying to affix his fat lips permanently to Trump’s fat ass? Damn. And that expression on poor, sad Mrs. Christie’s face, forced to stand onstage with hubby and Trumpie as she watched. She chose . . . poorly.


SCOTT WALKER, Wisconsin



Not bad, ROTY-wise. Definitely a possibility. Scotty, you’ve done the voter-suppression thing to the max. You’ve earned praise from fellow repugs as you brought your state’s Argentina of America tendencies to the forefront. You’re a fine example of how to install a fascist government. Because of that, republicans consider you presidential material. Scott, you are the envy of republicans everywhere.

Not bad at all, Scott. Good try, but no. You’re a loser. Sad. Let’s move on.


PAT McCRORY, North Carolina



Oh, if you’re a republican, he’s good. Great grades on voter suppression. Previous career as a defense lawyer for a company that ignored environmental laws and dumped huge amounts of coal ash into once pristine rivers.

Screw those kayakers! Screw the fishermen! Screw the fish! Screw the water birds. And once in office, he kept right on defending the polluters.

He’s true to what he is: a total jackass! Oh and let’s not forget that bathroom bill, the one that messed up his reelection.

McCrory really has that republican obsession with urination down. But is he as good as --


MIKE PENCE, Indiana



In July, I posted ("With The Selection Of Mike Pence For VP, Republicans Have Now Checked All The Hate Boxes") how you put the finishing touch on the Trump ticket with your virulent homophobia. I mentioned how republicans were mighty concerned about Trump being a little weak in that area. But you, Mike Pence, you are the man! You came to the rescue and joined the ticket. Dare I say, your presence put Trump over the top?

But it wasn’t just that. Your KKK index is through the roof. Your brand of fake Christianity is second to none. That little “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” was pure inspiration to fellow sociopaths like McCrory. When it comes to being pro-discrimination, you, sir, are an asshole among assholes. No wonder Comrade Trump picked you! Good thing, too, because you are so bonkers even Indiana was sick of your act.


SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas



Sammy! You’ve done well! You’ve turned your state into a laboratory for republican-tax-policy wet dreams. You killed regulations in Kansas. You rejected those wicked federal Medicaid subsidies that would have given Kansas citizens better and cheaper healthcare. You privatized Medicaid. You’ve created Conservative Utopia!

You famously said:

My focus is to create a red-state model that allows the Republican ticket to say, "See, we've got a different way, and it works."

You’ve done it better than anybody! You’ve slashed taxes like nobody’s business. Mitch McConnell adores you and says what you’ve done in your state is what he wants to do for the whole country!

And now your state is now bankrupt beyond any sane person’s nightmares. Congratulations! Mission accomplished! A couple of F-5 tornados would barely be noticed now! Well done!

It gets even better for you. Rumor has it that Comrade Trump wants to make you his secretary of agriculture. You’re on the way up. Fuck that little girl Dorothy. Screw her pooch! The Wicked Witch’s got nothin’ on you!


PAUL LePAGE, Maine



Paulie No-Brains, I hear you are one of 17 siblings! My god, are they like you? Are they out running loose? Are they all tragically multiplying and polluting the human gene pool forever and ever? Why haven’t your parents been arrested for crimes against humanity?

Even Politico, a news organization founded by Reagan and Bush types, has recently had to publicly wonder if you’re playing with a full deck.

But really, what republican anywhere is playing with a full deck? And oh, the irony when you said:

We need Mainers to understand our government is corrupt . . . The Maine people have to demand better from our elected officials.

And you’ve sure got that 19th-century racist thing going when you say things like:

The traffickers. These aren’t people who take drugs. These are guys by the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty. These type of guys that come from Connecticut and New York. They come up here, they sell their heroin, then they go back home. Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young, white girl before they leave.

Ah, the old fear of miscegenation and dilution of white bloodlines! Sounds just like republican role model David Duke! Frankly, it also seems like a state that would elect you and even reelect you could actually use the introduction of some new genetic material. Just sayin’.

Yeah, you’re stone crazy, Paul LePage! But, ya haven’t poisoned or killed anybody, yet. You try. You’re a lot of talk, but you're up against a guy who is a real republican action figure --


RICK SNYDER, Michigan



We have a winner! Ricky, baby, you’ve really got the fascism thing down! You got a bill passed that even allows you to remove local governing bodies, just like you were running Bolivia!

Fortune Magazine recently even gave you position #1 as worst leader in the world! Too bad we haven’t landed on Mars yet, or that too would be within your grasp!

Like all republicans, you dream of a day when you can deprive all but the rich of healthcare and watch people die. But what really sets you apart? Well, that whole “Let them drink lead” concept you and your crew came up with clinches it. This is a masterstroke. No one else thought of that!

Sure, any republican would love to cut someone’s chemo treatments short and send them on their way to the funeral home. Any psycho like Paul “Crazy Eyes” Ryan would love to deprive a less-than-wealthy American of the chance to have a brain tumor removed. But you, Rick Snyder, are special! “Let them drink lead”! You poisoned the people you swore to serve! Lead in the drinking water, that’s genius! I can see your next campaign bumper sticker:

“GAS LEAKS FOR ALL!”

Or how about:

“EVERY TOWN A BHOPAL!”

It’s even better that so many of your victims in Flint are minorities! You thought of everything! And it doesn’t necessarily kill them, it may just make them suffer for their whole lives! Brilliant! Lead poisoning is the republican gift that keeps on giving. It lasts a lifetime!

You are a god, Rick Snyder! You win, hands down! Bin Laden would love to shake your hand!

2016 IN REVIEW: AMERICA OFF THE RAILS

Here it is, Noah's completed Year in Review for 2016:

Part 1, "Profiles in Cowardice: The Electoral College" (12/23/2016)
Part 2, "Republican Of The Year Nominee #1: Newt Gingrich" (12/27/2016)
Part 3, "The Trumpf Inauguration Committee Finds The Perfect Inauguration Entertainment At Last!" (12/29/2016)
Part 4, "Republican Of The Year Nominee #2: R-R-Reince Priebus" (1/2/2017)
Part 5, "Comrade Trump: The World’s Worst Cabinet Maker, Believe Me -- Meet The New Russian Oligarchs! (1)" (1/4/2017)
Part 6, "Comrade Trump: The World’s Worst Cabinet Maker, Believe Me -- Meet The New Russian Oligarchs! (2)" (1/5/2017)
Part 7, "Republican Of The Year Nominee #3: Governors' Edition" (1/9/2017)
Part 8, "Trump -- The Art And Acts Of The Emboldened: The Rise In Hate Crimes Under The Influence Of Comrade T" (1/10/2017)
Part 9, "Republican Of The Year Nominee #4: It's A Sad Thing When Cousins Marry Edition" (1/11/2017)
Part 10, "Republican Person Of The Year Nominee #5 -- And Winner!" (1/12/2017)
Part 11, "Comrade Trump: Inauguration Entertainment Update!" (1/15/2017)
Part 12, "A DWT Exclusive: We Have The First Draft Of Comrade Trump's Inauguration Speech!" (1/16/2017)

#

The Red State Model

Republican venture capital billionaire Bruce Rouner invested $26 million out of his own pocket and raised far more than that from 9 other right-wing oligarchs like sociopathic billionaire and Rahm Emanuel ally Ken Griffin, to buy the Illinois governorship in 2014. Democratic ineptitude and corruption-- with a little nudge from Rahm Emanuel-- helped Rauner, another close ally of Emanuel's, defeat Democratic reformer Pat Quinn. Within a month of taking over, Rauner had moved to defund unions and taken over $4 billion in state funding out of higher education, Medicaid, state employee pensions, public transit, and local government support, while starting work on cutbacks to end funding for infrastructure projects and programs that address GOP bugaboos like domestic violence, public transit service, Child Care Assistance, homeless youth, autism and immigrant integration.

Soon after, Rauner announced he wanted to put an emergency manager in charge of the Chicago Public Schools, a tactic commonly applied in neighboring Michigan by another multimillionaire Republican Governor, Rick Snyder. Unlike Snyder, however, Rauner has a Democratic legislature to contend with. The Illinois House has 71 Democrats and 47 Republicans and the Illinois Senate has 39 Democrats and 20 Republicans. It's served as a partial check on Rauner. In Michigan the story is very different. Although the state voted for Obama both times-- 57-41% in 2008 and 54-45% in 2012-- and reelected Democrat Debbie Stabenow 59-38% in 2012 and elected Democrat Gary Peters 55-41% in 2014, Republicans have effortlessly outmaneuvered corrupt and inept Democrats in gerrymandering up the state so that the legislature consists of a Republican-controlled House (61 GOPers to 45 Dems) and a Republican-controlled Senate (27 Republicans to 11 Democrats). In 2010 when Michigan Republicans elected "one tough nerd" governor, over a pathetically weak Democrat, the stage was set for Republican one-party rule in a pretty Democratic-leaning state.

Like Rauner, if Michigan's Rick Snyder stands for one thing, it is running government like a business. Modeling himself on Koch/ALEC-owned Scott Walker next door, Snyder immediately went after unions and immediately started appointing emergency managers to override democratically-elected local governments-- entirely in black areas. Although Republicans in the House did all they could this week the help Snyder and Michigan Republicans shirk responsibility for the catastrophe in Flint, as early as January, the New York Times was already connecting the dots between Snyder's overthrow of democracy and what ensued in his state.

Public outrage over the tainted water in Flint and the decrepit schools in Detroit has led many people to question whether the state has overreached in imposing too many emergency managers in largely black jurisdictions.

In the cases of both Flint and the Detroit Public Schools, governance was under the jurisdiction of the governor, rather than local officials closer to the ground.

In Flint, emergency managers not only oversaw the city-- effectively seizing legal authority from the mayor and City Council-- but also pressed to switch the source of the financially troubled city’s water supply to save money.

In Detroit, the schools are on the brink of insolvency after a series of emergency managers dating to 2009 repeatedly failed to grapple with its financial troubles, while also falling short on maintaining school buildings and addressing academic deficiencies. The current emergency manager for the schools, Darnell Earley, previously served in that role in Flint.

Residents of majority-black cities have long cried foul over the practice. They argue that it disenfranchises voters and violates a deeply felt ethos of American democracy that allows for local representation. They also say emergency management gives influence to what is now a mostly white, Republican leadership in Lansing, the state capital. And they worry that in their decisions, emergency managers are more concerned with fiscal discipline than public health.

“Tell me what race dominates in those communities that get emergency managers?” said Hubert Yopp, the mayor of Highland Park, Mich., which is 93 percent black and in past years has had an emergency manager. “People have a very real reason to question what that’s about. It would be one thing if the emergency managers worked with the local governments to make things better. But it’s about having dictator power in the city. The locals have no say.”

...In 2011, when Mr. Snyder took office, he and the Legislature agreed to grant more sweeping powers to emergency managers, but opponents succeeded in repealing the law in a statewide referendum a year later. Mr. Snyder and lawmakers promptly passed another law, which allowed more options for cities and schools in fiscal distress-- including emergency managers.

“They’ve chosen this policy, and this is the outcome,” said Jim Ananich, a Democratic state senator whose district includes Flint. “We have poisonous water flowing through people’s faucets. In the Detroit Public Schools, they have overcrowded classrooms and rats. Unfortunately, the emergency managers in these communities have been failing.”

Mr. Ananich said the law allowing emergency managers should be “reviewed and repealed quickly.”

“It’s been a failed project,” he said. “There’s absolutely no accountability with the government. They are trying to circumvent local democracy and say, ‘This one individual knows best.’”

...Marcus Muhammad, the new mayor of Benton Harbor, Mich., whose population is 89 percent black and which had been under emergency management, said the managers had been a “horrific experiment” that left the city defending itself against lawsuits filed over actions they had taken.

“I have said that a different strategy and a different law should be put in place to help distressed cities,” he added. “Not to poison democracies, poison water, poison communities.”

There is no other outcome possible from conservative governance than what we've seen in Michigan. The nature of conservatism is authoritarian, anti-democratic, anti-human and above, corrupt. Friday, writing for New York, Eric Levitz castigated the GOP for what their ideological social experiments have done to Louisiana and Kansas, a topic we have discussed regularly here at DWT, most recently after a GOP debate in which Li'l Marco, not yet aware that he was a well-coiffed walking corpse, claimed, with a straight face, that "conservatism is about ideas." Rubio, another third-rate puffed up Republican hustler incapable of critical thinking, was wrong; conservatism is about looting. Levitz is calling for accountability, specifically in Kansas and Louisiana, and wonders why the presidential debates never veered towards questions about how doctrinaire and crackpot conservative governance has driven the two states towards bankruptcy. He suggests that voters "demand that Donald Trump, John Kasich, and Ted Cruz explain why their tax policies won’t fail America in the same way they’ve failed the people of Kansas."

In 2010, the tea-party wave put Sam Brownback into the Sunflower State’s governor’s mansion and Republican majorities in both houses of its legislature. Together, they implemented the conservative movement’s blueprint for Utopia: They passed massive tax breaks for the wealthy and repealed all income taxes on more than 100,000 businesses. They tightened welfare requirements, privatized the delivery of Medicaid, cut $200 million from the education budget, eliminated four state agencies and 2,000 government employees. In 2012, Brownback helped replace the few remaining moderate Republicans in the legislature with conservative true believers. The following January, after signing the largest tax cut in Kansas history, Brownback told the Wall Street Journal, “My focus is to create a red-state model that allows the Republican ticket to say, 'See, we've got a different way, and it works.'"

As you’ve probably guessed, that model collapsed. Like the budget plans of every Republican presidential candidate, Brownback’s “real live experiment” proceeded from the hypothesis that tax cuts for the wealthy are such a boon to economic growth, they actually end up paying for themselves (so long as you kick the undeserving poor out of their welfare hammocks). The Koch-backed Kansas Policy Institute predicted that Brownback’s 2013 tax plan would generate $323 million in new revenue. During its first full year in operation, the plan produced a $688 million loss. Meanwhile, Kansas’s job growth actually trailed that of its neighboring states. With that nearly $700 million deficit, the state had bought itself a 1.1 percent increase in jobs, just below Missouri’s 1.5 percent and Colorado’s 3.3.

Those numbers have hardly improved in the intervening years. In 2015, job growth in Kansas was a mere 0.1 percent, even as the nation’s economy grew 1.9 percent. Brownback pledged to bring 100,000 new jobs to the state in his second term; as of January, he has brought 700. What’s more, personal income growth slowed dramatically since the tax cuts went into effect. Between 2010 and 2012, Kansas saw income growth of 6.1 percent, good for 12th in the nation; from 2013 to 2015, that rate was 3.6 percent, good for 41st.

Meanwhile, revenue shortfalls have devastated the state’s public sector along with its most vulnerable citizens. Since Brownback’s inauguration, 1,414 Kansans with disabilities have been thrown off  Medicaid. In 2015, six school districts in the state were forced to end their years early for lack of funding. Cuts to health and human services are expected to cause 65 preventable deaths this year in Sedgwick County alone. In February, tax receipts came in $53 million below estimates; Brownback immediately cut $17 million from the state’s university system. This data is not lost on the people of Kansas-- as of November, Brownback’s approval rating was 26 percent, the lowest of any governor in the United States.

Louisiana has replicated these results. When Bobby Jindal moved into the governor’s mansion in 2008, he inherited a $1 billion surplus. When he moved out last year, Louisiana faced a $1.6 billion projected deficit. Part of that budgetary collapse can be put on the past year's plummeting oil prices. The rest should be placed on Jindal passing the largest tax cut in the state's history and then refusing to reverse course when the state's biggest industry started tanking. Jindal's giveaway to the wealthiest citizens in the country's second-poorest state cost Louisiana roughly $800 million every year. To make up that gap, Jindal slashed social services, raided the state’s rainy-day funds, and papered over the rest with reckless borrowing. Today, the state is scrambling to resolve a $940 million budget gap for this fiscal year, with a $2 billion shortfall projected for 2017 ...Louisiana can no longer afford to provide public defenders for all its criminal defendants. Its Department of Children and Family Services may soon be unable to investigate every reported instance of child abuse. Education funding is down 44 percent since Jindal took office. The state’s hospitals are likely to see at least $64 million in funding cuts this year.

What has happened to these states should be a national story; because we are one election away from it being our national story. Ted Cruz claims his tax plan will cost less than $1 trillion in lost revenue over the next ten years. Leaving aside the low bar the Texas senator sets for himself-- my giveaway to the one percent will cost a bit less than the Iraq War!-- Cruz only stays beneath $1 trillion when you employ the kind of “dynamic scoring” that has consistently underestimated the costs of tax cuts in Kansas. Under a conventional analysis, the bill runs well over $3 trillion, with 44 percent of that lost money accruing to the one percent. John Kasich’s tax plan includes cutting the top marginal rate by more than ten percent along with a similar cut to the rates on capital gains and business taxes. Even considering Kasich’s appetite for Social Security cuts, his plan must rely on the same supply-side voodoo that Kansas has so thoroughly discredited. As for the most likely GOP nominee, even with dynamic scoring, his tax cuts would cost $10 trillion over the next ten years, with 40 percent of that gargantuan sum filling the pockets of Trump’s economic peers.

If any of these men are elected president, they will almost certainly take office with a House and Senate eager to scale up the “red-state model.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said of Brownback’s Kansas, “This is exactly the sort of thing we (Republicans) want to do here, in Washington, but can’t, at least for now.” Speaker of the House Paul Ryan’s celebrated budgets all depend on the same magical growth that has somehow escaped the Sunflower State.

Do you know anyone who votes for Republicans who who doesn't vote at all? Have a talk with them. Or chip in $5 or $10 to the campaigns of people ready to fight them... by tapping the thermometer:

Marco Rubio In Kansas: "Conservatism Is About Ideas"

In Kansas tonight Little Marco came in a distant third (16.7%) behind Cruz (48.2%) and Herr Trumpf (23.3%). He won 6 delegates to Cruz's 24 and Herr Trumpf's 9. Trumpf called on him to drop out of the race. Early in the day, Rubio was in Overland, Kansas with spectacularly failed Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback Friday, campaigning against Herr. Watch the video above and listen to him explain how, exactly, Republican governance works. But people in Kansas-- just like people in Louisiana and Michigan-- know first hand how Republican governance works. The kind of Republican Party economic orthodoxy espoused by Rubio and Cruz-- and implemented by Gov. Brownback-- has destroyed Kansas' economy, just as Bobby Jindal's crackpot approach to Louisiana governance has wrecked his state's economy. What Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has done to implement the "principles" of Republican governance has done even worse to his state, actually destroying the very lives of its citizens! Friday, Rachel Maddow addressed Rick Snyder's implementation of doctrinaire Republican governance and how that has impacted his state. The segment is somewhat long but worth watching all the way through because it isn't just about Michigan and not even just about Little Marco... it's about Republican governance in general:



Last night Little Marco also came in third in Louisiana, but didn't win any delegates. He was at 11.2% to Trumpf's 41.5% and Cruz's 37.8%. Friday, writing for the Washington Post, Chico Harlan reported that Bobby Jindal's application of Republican precepts to government in Louisiana forced the state to gut spending for it's university and deplete its rainy-day funds. "It had cut 30,000 employees and furloughed others. It had slashed the number of child services staffers, including those devoted to foster family recruitment, and young abuse victims for the first time were spending nights at government offices. And then, the state’s new governor, John Bel Edwards (D), came on TV and said the worst was yet to come."

Edwards talked about "the extent of the state’s budget shortfall and said that Louisiana was plunging into a 'historic fiscal crisis.' Despite all the cuts of the previous years, the nation’s second-poorest state still needed nearly $3 billion-- almost $650 per person-- just to maintain its regular services over the next 16 months. Edwards  gave the state’s lawmakers three weeks to figure out a solution, a period that expires March 9 with no clear answer in reach."

Louisiana stands at the brink of economic disaster. Without sharp and painful tax increases in the coming weeks, the government will cease to offer many of its vital services, including education opportunities and certain programs for the needy. A few universities will shut down and declare bankruptcy. Graduations will be canceled. Students will lose scholarships. Select hospitals will close. Patients will lose funding for treatment of disabilities. Some reports of child abuse will go uninvestigated.

...Many of the state’s economic analysts say a structural budget deficit emerged and then grew under former governor Bobby Jindal, who, during his eight years in office, reduced the state’s revenue by offering tax breaks to the middle class and wealthy. He also created new subsidies aimed at luring and keeping businesses. Those policies, state data show, didn’t deliver the desired economic growth. This year, Louisiana has doled out $210 million more to corporations in the form of credits and subsidies than it has collected from them in taxes.

...“This was years of mismanagement by a governor who was more concerned about satisfying a national audience in a presidential race,” said Jay Dardenne (R), the lieutenant governor under Jindal and now the state’s commissioner of administration. Dardenne said Jindal had helped the state put off its day of reckoning in a way that mirrored a “Ponzi scheme.”

Kansas is not just what Republican governance creates but what Koch brothers-controlled Republican governance creates. It's a one-party state, with no Democrats in federal office or in statewide office. The state Senate has 31 Republicans and 9 Democrats and the state House has 97 Republicans and 28 Democrats. Sam Brownback's Kansas, which was supposed to be the GOP's tax-cut paradise can no longer pay its bills-- which is, after all, what happens when you cut taxes for the rich the way Ayn Rand told the GOP to. In 2012 Brownback signed a massive tax cut into law, arguing that it would boost the state's economy. Eventually, he hoped to eliminate individual income taxes entirely. "Our place, Kansas, will show the path, the difficult path, for America to go in these troubled times."

Kansas is now hundreds of millions of dollars short in revenue collection, its job growth has lagged the rest of the nation, and Moody's has cut the state's bond rating. "Governor Brownback came in here with an agenda to reduce the size of government, reduce taxes, and create a great economic boom," says University of Kansas professor Burdett Loomis. "Now there's been a dramatic decline in revenues, no great increase in economic activity, and we've got red ink until the cows come home."

…Brownback's tax cut proposal came as Kansas's revenues were on an upswing. Spending cuts and a one-cent sales tax passed by Brownback's Democratic predecessor had combined with economic growth to give Kansas a surplus. Now, Brownback argued, his tax cuts would lead to even more success. "I firmly believe these reforms will set the stage for strong economic growth in Kansas," he said.

The governor proposed to cut income taxes on the state's highest earners from 6.45 percent to 4.9 percent, to simplify tax brackets, and to eliminate state income taxes on most small business income entirely. In a nod to fiscal responsibility, though, he proposed to end several tax deductions and exemptions, including the well-liked home mortgage interest deduction. This would help pay for the cuts.

Yet as the bill went through the state Senate, these deductions proved too popular, and legislators voted to keep them all. The bill's estimated price tag rose from about $105 million to $800 million, but Brownback kept supporting it anyway. "I'm gonna sign this bill, I'm excited about the prospects for it, and I'm very thankful for how God has blessed our state," he said.

Democrats, and some Republicans, weren't buying it. "It bankrupts the state within two years," said Rochelle Chronister, a former state GOP chair who helped organize moderate Republicans against Brownback's agenda. And the House Democratic leader, Paul Davis, laid down a marker. "There is no feasible way that private-sector growth can accommodate the price tag of this tax cut," he said. "Our $600 million surplus will become a $2.5 billion deficit within just five years." In return, Brownback's administration claimed the bill would create 23,000 jobs by 2020, and would lead 35,000 more people to move to Kansas.

After the cuts became law, it was undisputed that Kansas's revenue collections would fall. But some supply-side analysts, like economist Arthur Laffer, argued that increased economic growth would deliver more revenue that would help cushion this impact.

Yet it's now clear that the revenue shortfalls are much worse than expected. "State general fund revenue is down over $700 million from last year," Duane Goossen, a former state budget director, told me. "That's a bigger drop than the state had in the whole three years of the recession," he said-- and it's a huge chunk of the state's $6 billion budget. Goossen added that the Kansas's surplus, which had been replenished since the recession, "is now being spent at an alarming, amazing rate."

Kansas has to balance its budget every year, so when that surplus runs out, further spending cuts will be necessary. The declining revenues have necessitated extensive cuts in state education funding, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Moody's cut of the state's bond rating this May was another embarrassment. And the economic benefits Brownback promised haven't materialized either. Chris Ingraham wrote at Wonkblog that Kansas's job growth has lagged behind the rest of the country, "especially in the years following the first round of Brownback tax cuts."

…Brownback's approval rating has plummeted-- in a recent poll by PPP, his 33 percent was actually lower than Barack Obama's 34 percent approval.

This is what Little Marco was proposing to bring to the whole country-- which is also what Ted Cruz is proposing to bring to the whole country and what Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell are pushing on the whole country from their perches as the leaders if the House and Senate. Want to help save the country? Tap the thermometer below:

Your Rights And Quality Of Life When Republicans Rule: It’s Republican World! 2015 In Review-- Chapter Nine

-by Noah

As the old saying goes, elections do have consequences. One need only compare two side by side states, Minnesota, rebounding under Democratic Governor Mark Dayton’s administration, and, Wisconsin, being run into the ground by the Koch brothers-backed Governor Scott Walker, who runs Wisconsin as if it was Bolivia or Uganda.

Unfortunately, Wisconsin is, by far, not the only state whose citizens are at risk under Republican rule. Here’s a quick look at just a few of the 33 states that have a Republican governor and a matching state legislature. Next time you’re thinking about not voting, you might want to reconsider.

1. Kentucky- Kentucky’s new governor, Mark Bevin, is filled with Christmas spirit, Republican style. Just elected in November, in a low turnout election, Bevin is already in office and, just in time for Christmas, has lowered the minimum wage for state employees and contract workers by $3.00 an hour. Bevin has stated that he would like to get rid of the minimum wage concept altogether.

Gov. Bevin, implementing a typical Republican election strategy, has also already revoked voting rights for 140,000 Kentucky citizens who are non-violent felons. Why would a Republican governor do this? As always, with his party, it’s all down to race and/or economic status. The victims of this disenfranchisement are disproportionately poor and/or African American. In Kentucky, one in five African Americans is now without voting rights due to Bevin’s action.

That's the new guv and Kim Davis and her hubbie. And behind the hubbie? Satan has someone from Texas observing

Bevin is also a classic Republican homophobe. He has taken up Kim Davis’s suggestion that a clerk’s name not be included on marriage licenses, a move that would presumably make things easier and more comfortable for clerks who oppose marriage equality.

How has Bevin managed to do this all so quickly? By executive order, of course! You know, that method Republicans are always whining and bitching about every time President Obama signs an executive order. Kentuckians can now expect Bevin to go after their healthcare in short order. After all, Kentucky had one of the most successful implementations of Obamacare in the country. What self-respecting Republican would want that?

2. Indiana- Wednesday, I wrote about the Republican sport of gay bashing. I included a mention of Indiana’s extremely homophobic governor, Mike Pence. Pence and his state's Republicans, once again, threw their bigotry in the face of American citizens. A former Hate Radio host, Mike Pence made his hate and bigotry into law by signing a so-called Religious Liberty law which is designed as a means to discriminate against LGBT people in Indiana. It’s a “we reserve the right to refuse service” to gays, blacks, whomever you dislike law. Doesn’t Indian sound like a swell place?

Pence signed his law behind closed doors, surrounded by anti-gay spokescretins, including one who is a gay conversion guy, and one who believes that homosexuality leads to sex with animals, yet Pence claims his bill has nothing to do with gays.

We shouldn’t be all that surprised about Indiana. When the KKK was at its height, Indiana may have been the state where the KKK was at its strongest. It’s in the state’s DNA. Back in the 1920s, even the governor and the majority of the state legislature were KKK members or, at the least, under their control. Back then, Indiana politics was so insane that Grand Dragon D. C. Stevenson basically ran the state and had hopes of himself one day moving into the White House. Those hopes were dashed after he abducted and murdered Madge Oberholtzer on the night of Republican Governor Edward Jackson’s inauguration. Jackson pardoned Stephenson, of course. These things do happen. Once again, Indiana has a right wing extremist for a governor. How far will he try to go?

3. Arkansas- Not to be outdone by Indiana, Arkansas passed a “Religious Freedom” bill very similar to Indiana’s. Shall we now expect republican-run states to start looking into the possibility of having anti-gay laws like England had until the late 1960s. In England, even being a homosexual was a crime until the relatively recent date of 1967. Being gay was criminalized. If you were found out, you lost your job, you went to prison, you might have been forced into “hormone therapy”, or worse. Now that’s a republican dream if there ever was one. People like the politicians behind these laws wish it so. Republican voters vote for them.

4. Missouri- In Missouri, it’s not just about racism and/or homophobia. Add anti-Semitism to the fetid mix of Republican state politics. In Missouri, John Hancock, leader of the state Republican party, is still the choice of Missouri Republicans to run their party after a year of insanity that got so bad that Tom Schweich, a prime GOP candidate for governor, and Spence Jackson, a member of his staff, both killed themselves. According to one of the deceased and at least one sworn affidavit, party leader Hancock went after Schweich because he was Jewish. According to an affidavit signed by David Humphreys, a top party donor, Hancock said that:

“…being Jewish is a negative attribute to Tom Schweich’s gubernatorial race”

And you thought the events in Ferguson were the only story in Missouri!

5. Kansas- Republicans love to call President Obama a dictator. In Kansas, they have Governor Sam Brownback. Brownback has not only bankrupted his state with his ideologically-driven Republican policies, he has now signed a law, passed by the Kansas Republican-controlled legislature that states that the Kansas courts must rule how he decrees or he will defund and therefore disband the court. It’ll be interesting when people in Kansas start to wake up, if they do, and wonder why state roads are impassable and their kid’s schools are literally falling apart.

Perhaps, we should now expect a new Kansas law designed to change the state’s name to Chile.

6. Montana- The future? Stay tuned! Montana currently has Democratic Governor Steve Bullock but his term ends in 2016 and many Republicans are already excited about the possible candidacy of businessman Greg Gianforte. Gianforte supports the usual “Let Them Eat Cake” things that Republicans cherish and he is already pushing a new item on the Republican wish list: no retirement! That’s right. Forget the usual republican attacks on Social Security Gianforte is against the concept of retirement altogether! Using the common republican tactic of twisting the Bible for political purposes, Gianfronte spoke at Montana Bible College saying:

“Nowhere does it say ‘Well, he was a good and faithful servant, so he went to the beach. It doesn’t say that anywhere.”

Gianforte continued with his party’s work ‘til you drop meme:

“The example I think is Noah. How old was Noah when he built the ark? 600. He wasn’t like, cashing Social Security checks. He wasn’t hanging out. He was working. So, I think we have an obligation to work. The role we have in work may change over time, but the concept of retirement is not Biblical.”

Does this mean we can expect 550 more years of Republican wisdom from this typical, bible thumping assclown? I’m surprised he isn’t already in those wacky Republican debates that have been making such fine television lately.

Rich GOP psychopath, Greg Gianforte, interprets the Bible to mean no more retirement crap for the middle class

What's The Matter With Kansas Democrats?

They couldn't even beat this garbage

Chances are you never heard of Larry Meeker, a conservative politician and former banker, unless you're from Kansas. People in Kansas know him because he's the chairman of the state's moribund Democratic Party. Or he was. Friday he was forced to resign, and tomorrow is his last day on the job. Meeker, exactly like the careerist shills Inside the Beltway-- the folks around the DNC, DCCC and DSCC-- didn't give a hoot about the values and principles that attract progressives to the Democratic Party. Electing Democrats-- even if one has to stretch the meaning of the word "Democrats" into something unrecognizable-- was his priority... just as it is the priority of the DCCC when they recruit "ex"-Republicans like Monica Vernon in Iowa and Mike Derrick in New York and the priority of the DSCC when they recruit "ex"-Republicans like Patrick Murphy in Florida and Heath Shuler in North Carolina.

Kansas Democrats kicked off their annual Demofest convention Friday by announcing that state chair Larry Meeker had resigned after only five months on the job.

Meeker, a former mayor of Lake Quivira, has been vocal about his desire to rebrand the party to appeal to more conservative voters and distinguish itself from the national Democratic Party.

But his message about fiscal conservatism and his perceived indifference to gay rights and abortion rights caused an uproar among the party’s more progressive members.

...Democrats lost all statewide elections in 2014 and saw Republicans strengthen their hold on the Kansas House. With both the House and Kansas Senate up for election in 2016, the party has been seeking a new path forward.

Progressive Democrats say the party needs to focus on registering more voters-- especially in minority communities-- and offer a message that appeals to working class voters. They want to broaden the party’s message beyond education-- the main focus of Paul Davis’ unsuccessful run for governor-- and press issues such as tax fairness, Medicaid expansion and raising the minimum wage.

Meeker, on the other hand, said the party needed to do more to sway Republican-leaning voters and pushed a concept that the party could rebrand itself for a red state.

“We’re looking to re-message how we speak about our party and our issues. At the end of election cycle, as you well know, we are Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Obamacare, Obama, anything bad they can figure out going on in Washington, and the Republicans brand us,” Meeker said Wednesday. “That’s not who we are. Kansas Democrats are very different from Massachusetts Democrats or California Democrats.”

Meeker said Kansas Democrats were fiscal conservatives and emphasized that there was room in the party for people who were pro-choice or pro-life, for same-sex marriage or against it. He said conveying this to voters would serve as “a pickup line” in a more conservative state.


...Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, who had nominated Meeker for party chair in March, called the rebranding idea a waste of time on Wednesday.

“It’s well understood that the party stands for education and for working people and women,” Hensley said Friday, and against what he called Kansas’ unfair tax structure.

“We already have a Republican Party in this state, and it has moved so far to the right that it’s turning people off,” Hensley said. “We need to stand by our values.”

Currently the GOP, which controls every statewide office in Kansas, has a 31-9  advantage in the state Senate and a 97-28 advantage in the state House. Romney beat Obama 678,719 to 427,918, winning every one of the 105 counties in the state except Wyandotte (Kansas City) and Douglas. No Democrat running for one of the state's 4 congressional districts reached 40%. And last year, when spectacularly failed and much loathed Republican Governor Sam Brownback was up for reelection, the Democrats ran a relatively conservative candidate, Paul Davis, who only managed to win 7 counties (Wyandotte, Jefferson, Douglas, Shawnee, Riley, Lyon and Crawford) while losing to the despised Brownback, 433,196 (49.82%) to 401,100 (46.13%). 

Davis opposed marriage equality and said he was "undecided" about prayer in public schools and about stem-cell research. At the same time, Kansas Democrats had their own candidate for Senate, Chad Taylor, withdraw in favor of an independent, Greg Orman. Orman still lost to senile, non-resident incumbent Pat Roberts, 449,974 (53.3%) to 358,898 (42.5%), losing every county but Wyandotte, Douglas and Shawnee. Perhaps offering a real alternative to the failed Republican right-wing extremism is something Kansas Democrats should try-- if they even have it in them.




A Republican Wave Election? Not For GOP Extremists Scott Walker And Sam Brownback

Scott Walker family portrait

Two of the worst governors in America are extremist ideologues Scott Walker of Wisconsin and San Brownback of Kansas. Both will face the voters a week from tomorrow. Both are being opposed by moderate Democrats, rather than by the kinds of progressives Blue America endorses. However, Walker and Brownback are so extreme that we want to make it clear that progressives in Wisconsin and Kansas need to go to the polls next Tuesday to vote them both out. The latest polling in Kansas shows that most voters want to end the disastrous Brownback experiment. GOP polling firm Rasmussen, which regularly jiggers its findings to favor Republicans reported this week that Paul Davis is beating Brownback 52-45%, in line with a poll conducted by another GOP firm at the same time, Gravis Marketing, for Brownback showing a 49-44% lead for Davis. Both polls showed Davis with momentum and Brownback falling further behind.
v Similarly, Rasmussen's most recent poll showed Mary Burke leading Scott Walker 49-48%, (within the margin of error). The biggest and most influential newspaper in Wisconsin, the conservative-leaning Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which has always gone to bat for Walker, tilted towards Burke yesterday.

Is it time for a change in the governor's mansion? Voters have to decide that on Nov. 4. But before they do, a few closing thoughts on the election...

Scott Walker

If the electorate is suffering from the virus known as Walker Fatigue, we haven't seen it yet.

This illness normally would be expected to manifest itself with symptoms of declining favorability ratings for the first-term Republican governor. And yet, while Walker's margins between those who say they have a favorable impression of him and those who do not have always been razor thin, those numbers haven't changed much. That's despite the governor running in three statewide races in four years. People know what they're getting; they either like him-- a lot-- or they do not-- a lot.

Walker's decisiveness is refreshing and his resolve and steadiness at the tiller in the face of vicious political attacks is admirable if often misguided. He's sincere: We don't doubt for an instant that Walker really believes that his ideas are right for Wisconsin.

But the governor's take-it-or-leave-it approach to governance wears thin. He has made politics courser in Wisconsin-- needlessly so. The governor "got things done" all right, but he did it by shoving those things through the Legislature with very little debate and with very little Democratic support.


After the GOP took charge of both houses of the Legislature and the governor's office in 2010, the party acted on a long to-do list, aching with pent-up demand for their conservative agenda.

They're not done yet.

While Walker has been cagey on whether he would sign right-to-work legislation, for example, Republican lawmakers have not: They're going for it. A second Walker term may not be as contentious as the first-- but we could be wrong about that. Brace yourself, Wisconsin.

In such an evenly divided state, even if only a few independents are done with Walker, it could make a difference. Walker's challenge is to argue that he's not really as radical as his record shows that he is.

Mary Burke

Mary Burke has a different challenge. The Democratic candidate needs to prove she has the political chops to do the job. She's a rookie who has no statewide experience. That's no advantage; it's a handicap. The job requires political skill-- lots of it.

A political novice in the Madison snake-pit had better be pretty good at either dodging the vipers or grinding them beneath the heel of her boot. We're skeptical about Burke's bona fides in this regard. If the Republicans retain control of both houses, as expected, she'll be squaring off against two of the best politicians in the state, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau).

Burke points to her experiences running the state Department of Commerce, as an executive at Trek Bicycles, working with the Boys and Girls Clubs and serving on the Madison School Board. "Part of doing that is building up a team around you that brings to the table different skills and experiences, and I will certainly look to have the best possible team around me as governor," she told us during our interview with her.

Burke seems quietly competent-- and very bright. And she has grown enormously as a candidate. There is no reason to believe she will not continue to grow as a politician if she is elected governor. But it's a bigger learning curve than she might expect. Another Democratic politician learned that lesson the hard way-- or perhaps he never learned it. President Barack Obama, whose disdain for performing the duties of the world's No. 1 politician have been apparent from his first day in office, had plenty of brains, guts and drive when he entered the Oval Office but what he didn't have were either good political instincts or the willingness to use them.

If she wins, Burke will need those instincts-- or really good advice-- and she'll need to be willing to get her hands dirty in the day-to-day work of governing the state.

Down in Kansas, the Wichita Eagle has a lot more decisive yesterday. The implored Kansans to dump Brownback and replace him with Davis.

Democrat Paul Davis is the best choice for governor because he would help restore balance, common sense and fiscal responsibility to a state government that has jumped off an ideological cliff.

The biggest issue facing the next governor is pulling the state out of its budget hole. Because of large tax cuts, the state is spending more than it collects. According to current projections, it will burn through its remaining cash reserves this fiscal year. Balancing next year’s budget and restoring the statutorily required ending balance could require more than $700 million in additional tax revenue, budget cuts or a combination of both.


As a first step, Davis proposes freezing future tax cuts. That makes sense; when you are in a hole you need to stop digging. Davis won’t specify what spending cuts also might be necessary, other than saying he wants to protect public education funding.

“Schools have taken all the cuts they can,” he said.

Davis wants to restore as soon as possible the state base aid that was cut to public education, arguing that good schools are important to growing the state’s economy. He also hopes to develop a multiyear funding plan for higher education that includes performance goals and commitments to limit tuition increases.

Davis intends to conduct a “top-to-bottom” review of KanCare, the state’s privatized Medicaid program that has been plagued by complaints. He also wisely supports allowing the federal expansion of Medicaid, noting its importance to low-income Kansans and hospitals. And he would re-establish the Kansas Arts Commission, arguing that arts are a quality-of-life issue, particularly in rural communities.

As House minority leader, Davis showed a willingness and ability to work with others to find practical solutions. He pledges to continue that bipartisan outreach and cooperation as governor.

But this election is less about Davis than about the bad policies and hostile attitudes of the current administration.

This editorial board endorsed Republican Gov. Sam Brownback four years ago, hoping for the best. That’s not what Kansas got.

Brownback pushed through fiscally irresponsible tax cuts on the blind faith that they would act like “a shot of adrenaline into the heart of the Kansas economy.” As many warned, the trickle-down economics hasn’t worked.

Though Kansas has seen some job growth, it trails the nation and most surrounding states (which didn’t cut taxes). And the growth has not been nearly enough to replace the lost tax revenue-- leaving Kansas with deficits at a time when nearly every other state has surpluses.

Brownback won’t admit his tax cuts aren’t delivering as promised (“The sun is shining in Kansas and don’t let anybody tell you any different,” he says in one of his campaign commercials), and still insists that job growth will cover any future shortfalls.

But wishful thinking won’t balance the budget. That’s why the nation’s two leading bond-ratings agencies downgraded Kansas’ credit rating-- which should be an embarrassment to Kansans and an authoritative judgment on Brownback’s “real-live experiment.”

In addition to wrecking the state’s finances, Brownback also enacted policies that punished the poor. His administration raised eligibility requirements for receiving welfare and food stamps and turned down federal funds aimed at helping needy Kansans. It pushed out dedicated social-service professionals, replacing them with inexperienced ideologues.

Brownback and his administration also rejected the desperate pleas of families to keep developmentally disabled Kansans out of KanCare. And his refusal to allow an expansion of Medicaid is costing Kansas hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding (our tax dollars) and denying needed health insurance to more than 75,000 low-income Kansans.

Because of the elimination of certain tax credits, Brownback’s tax cuts financially harmed some low-income Kansans-- particularly after he pushed the Legislature to make permanent part of the state’s temporary sales tax increase.

Brownback also supported some of the worst ideas of the Legislature-- including signing and endorsing a plan for the state to take control of Medicare.

Brownback pushed for more control of the judicial branch and sought to undermine its independence-- leading 14 past presidents of the Kansas Bar Association, Republicans and Democrats, to endorse Davis. And former Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston is correct: Brownback’s campaign commercial trying to link Davis to a Kansas Supreme Court decision regarding the Carr brothers is “beyond disgraceful.”

In his quest to gain control of the Legislature, Brownback led an ugly campaign to purge moderate GOP state senators. Given this hostility and the wreckage caused by his policies, it’s no wonder so many former GOP officials endorse Davis.