Kansas Republicans - Smarter Than the Rest of Us - Show Us How Massive Tax Cuts Energize a State's Economy

Except of Course They Don't

When Republicans took full control of Kansas in 2011 Gov. Sam Brownback pushed through massive tax cuts.  This was going to show the rest of the nation how the economics of Supply Side policy worked perfectly.  It didn't turn out so well.  From the WaPo.

"Overall, Kansas’s economy expanded by about 2.9 percent between 2011, when Brownback took office, and 2015, the latest year for which data are available. Over the same period, the gross domestic product increased 9.2 percent nationally, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics."

State legislators have had enough, and voted to end the disasterous experiment. The Goverenor vetoed the bill and his veto was just barely upheld.


Brownback, a Republican who once called his tax policy a “real-live experiment” with conservative principles, had vetoed a bill that would have repealed the most important provisions of his overhaul. While the state House voted to override the veto earlier in the day, proponents of the bill came up three votes shy of the two-thirds majority needed in the Senate. Fifteen Republican senators voted to override the veto, while 16 voted to sustain it.

In the House, 45 GOP legislators voted in favor of the increase, while 40 voted to uphold the governor’s veto.

Now we have no fault with Kansas trying supply side stupidity.  The voters asked for it and they got it.  But the complaint of reasonable people is pretty straight forrward; the experiment failed, end it.  But the true believers who pushed this horrendous policy on Kansas never give up.  Their's is faith based economics, and nothing says faith better than the discarded, discredited, wrong, stupid and idiotic belief that tax cuts for the wealthy will create an vibrant economy.  They create what we all knew they would create, deficits, hardships, and failure.