Kansas' experiment in concentrated conservatism keeps getting grimmer

[swag]

http://theweek.com/articles/551262/kansas-experiment-concentrated-conservatism-keeps-getting-grimmer

by Scott Lemieux

Kansas is in the midst of a grim experiment putting crackpot supply-side economic theories into practice. While these economic anti-reforms will have devastating results for poor people in the state, in other respects Republican Gov. Sam Brownback and his legislative allies have made the government more intrusive into the private lives of the state's citizens. April has provided some particularly egregious examples of this disastrous turn.

Kansas has been a Republican state for a long time. Since 1936, the only time the state has given its electoral votes to a Democratic candidate was to Lyndon Johnson in the massive landslide of 1964. Despite this, Kansas has historically not been a far-right state. Prominent Kansas Republicans have generally been moderates, like Bob Dole and Nancy Kassebaum. Kathleen Sebelius, President Obama's former secretary of health and human services, was the state's Democratic governor as recently as 2009.

But since the election of Brownback, Kansas has gone full Tea Party. Kansas Republicans have enacted massive upper-class tax cuts, with the idea that they would produce such an explosion of economic growth that the state would actually gain revenues. This makes no sense in theory and has been a catastrophe in practice. Revenues have cratered, while economic growth lags behind neighboring states. Spending on the poor has decreased, while the tax burden on the poor has increased. Needless to say, Kansas has rejectedthe Medicaid expansion offered by the Affordable Care Act, denying access to health care for many poor Kansans.

Kansas Republicans certainly have no intention of taking responsibility for this disaster, which means a search for scapegoats. The targets should not be surprising: poor people, women, and gay people.

Earlier this month, Brownback signed a bill that, among other things, prevents welfare recipients from spending government-provided funds on things poor people do not spend their money on, such as cruise ships. As Emily Badger of TheWashington Postobserves, this reflects a trend in Republican-governed states of placing burdens and restrictionson poor people that do not apply to any other recipients of government benefits — and for no good reason.

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1. I am pretty sure if they properly looked at the mid-term elections in Kansas, they would find

Brownback did not have the legitimate votes to properly win. Davis would now be governor.

[Gothmog]

2. Brownback has proven that supply side economics are a bust

[blkmusclmachine]

3. http://farleftside.com/2010/7-30-2010.png

[Ford_Prefect]

4. Just wait until they complete strip mining North Carolina's economy, infrastructure and environment.

You'll believe they ARE capable of anything. Presently they are stripping the NC Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) of all authority to act in order to allow stunning amounts of water abuse by Duke Power and a whole host of companies waiting to drill for fracking of oil and natural gas.

They have already revoked state tax exemptions for middle class families with mortgages and medical bills. There is an accelerated move on to find ways to shed thousands of disabled persons from the state's medicaid rolls. (Yes, the state does have a say in who is qualified).

We have the 9th largest population yet our legislature only meets for part of the year, then goes into mothballs until it is time to steal the money they voted for civilian projects and education and turn that back into yet more tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy.

By all accounts the NC GOP appear to want to turn the state into a copy of 1930's Germany: essentially a outdoor prison for working class people complete with state mandated sub-classes of liberals, non-evangelical Christians along with the more typical LGBT, women, all minorities, and non-Christian faiths all identified by appropriately marked NC Driver's Licenses.

If you liked living here over the last 40 years, you soon won't be able afford it. Oddly the largest growth industry has been for medical and other services to the growing number of retirees moving here rather than Florida. I can only guess they couldn't read the memo...

[bemildred]

5. Pity. That's a beautiful state. nt

[Ford_Prefect]

6. Its my home and they are destroying everything they ever claimed to like about it.

May they rot in hell sooner than later for their avarice and their pompous piety. If there is a God I am sure He or She is deeply ashamed of this bunch.