https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/07/kansas-republicans-raise-taxes-rebuking-their-gop-governors-real-live-experiment-in-conservative-policy/?utm_term=.938decb453f7&wpisrc=nl_wonk&wpmm=1
>In a decisive repudiation of conservative tax-cutting philosophy, Kansas Republicans voted this week to reverse deep tax cuts enacted by Gov. Sam Brownback (R), a move that lays bare the challenges of one-party control and the risks for Republicans in Washington pursuing a similar policy at the national level.
>The vote by lawmakers in Kansas, which came late Tuesday, followed years of frustration about the damaging impacts of tax cuts on Kansas’s state government. With huge Republican majorities, Brownback had pursued deep reductions in tax rates early in his administration, calling them a “real live experiment” in conservative governance, and tried to veto the legislation rolling them back.
>Yet the Kansas legislature’s decision to override his veto could reverberate in many statehouses, where Republicans dominate, and in Washington, where President Trump and congressional allies have made passing similarly deep tax cuts a central pillar of their agenda for this year. The tax reductions in Kansas had not delivered the economic growth Brownback had promised but caused massive holes in the state’s budget and led to unpopular spending cuts in areas such as education spending.
>“Kansas has had a turn to the far right, and we seem to be centering ourselves,” said Rep. Melissa Rooker, a Republican who represents a suburb of Kansas City and voted for the tax increase.
>The legislation undoes the essential components of Brownback's reforms. The governor had reduced the number of brackets for the state's marginal rates on income from three to two. The legislature will restore the third bracket, increasing taxes on the state's wealthiest residents from 4.6 percent to 5.2 percent this year and 5.7 percent next year.
>Marginal rates on less affluent Kansan households will increase as well, from 4.6 percent to 5.25 percent by next year for married taxpayers making between $30,000 and $60,000 a year and from 2.7 percent to 3.1 percent for those earning less than that.
>The legislation also scraps a plan to bring those rates down even more in future years, one of Brownback's promises to conservative supporters.
>Finally, the legislature eliminated a cut Brownback had put in place to help small businesses. Analysts said that the provision had become a loophole, as many Kansans were able to avoid paying taxes entirely by pretending to be small businesses.
>Initially, the state forecast that about 200,000 small businesses would take advantage of the break. As it turned out, about 330,000 entities would use Kansas's new rule. That discrepancy suggests that tens of thousands of workers claimed that their incomes were from businesses they owned rather than from salaries.
>State budget analysts project the tax increase will raise an additional $600 million annually.
>The principles Trump endorsed during the campaign and in the early stages of his presidency are broadly similar to those enacted in Kansas. That is no coincidence, since Brownback is well connected to the Republican policymaking establishment in Washington.
>Trump and Brownback have shared economic advisers, and when Brownback was a U.S. senator, Rep. Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), now the speaker of the House, served as his legislative director.
>“In my estimation, I think the tax policy move last night by the legislature is a wrong move,” Brownback told reporters Wednesday. “It’s wrong for the long-term view of the state of Kansas. I think it’s wrong for growth.”
>In recent years, Kansas has served as a real-world example of what can happen if tax cuts fail to deliver promised growth. Since Brownback began cutting taxes in 2012, the pace of economic expansion in Kansas has consistently lagged behind that of the rest of the country. Last year, Kansas’s gross domestic product increased just 0.2 percent, federal data show, compared with 1.6 percent nationally. At the end of 2015, the state was in what many economists would describe as a recession, with the economy shrinking for two quarters in a row.
>The governor, however, blamed Kansas’s poor statistics on a lackluster global economy, which he said was slowing exports in agriculture and aviation, two of the state’s most important industries.
>The legislature began this year’s session with the government in a deficit of $350 million, leaving lawmakers mulling more budget cuts. They have drained the state’s reserves of cash, diverting money meant for roads, delaying payments to pension funds and, in essence, forcing local agencies to make loans to the state government.
>Last year, the governor pushed back the schedule for 25 construction projects planned around the state, the climax of delays intended to keep more cash on hand. In March, Kansas’s Supreme Court ruled that the lack of funding for public schools violated the state’s constitution, forcing lawmakers to act.
>Brownback battled back the legislation, issuing a veto on a similar bill in February. On that occasion, the state senate sustained the veto.
>Sen. Rick Wilborn, a conservative Republican from a rural district in central Kansas, initially opposed the increase in taxes but switched Tuesday and voted to override the governor. He said he was not pleased with the result but that lawmakers had to act and that he did not believe that conservative Republicans had the votes to improve the bill.
>“I said, ‘We need to move,’” Wilborn said. “You just try to make the best of a bad situation and make the vote.”
>For Brownback’s opponents, the tax hike is a major victory in a years-long fight to stop the governor from enacting increasingly conservative economic policy. Last year’s election substantially weakened the governor’s support in the legislature. In November, Democrats picked up a seat in the Senate, which has 40 members, and 12 seats in the House, which has 125. In primary elections in August, Republican voters had forced out 14 incumbent allies of the governor, replacing them with more moderate candidates.
>Other GOP lawmakers who supported Brownback retired last year, and moderate Republicans won a few of those seats as well. Rooker, the GOP legislator, said her former colleagues were not eager to confront frustrated voters in another campaign, or to deal with the fiscal headaches Brownback’s policies had created if they did win reelection.
>“People expect us to take care of business efficiently and appropriately,” Rooker said. “I just think it was the pressure building. Something had to be done.”
>“The elections reflected a mood in Kansas that possibly Kansas politics had shifted too far to the right,” said Rep. Don Hineman, a moderate Republican from a rural district in western Kansas who serves as the House majority leader. “It was time to return to a more centrist position, which is where Kansas has traditionally been governed from.”
>Topeka is among many state capitals where policymakers face fiscal duress, leaving lawmakers to make painful choices between cutting services and raising taxes Republicans have long criticized.
>In Alaska, independent Gov. Bill Walker has proposed restoring the state’s income tax to raise money, which lawmakers there eliminated nearly four decades ago. Yet red states such as Indiana and North Carolina have successfully reduced taxes while maintaining a balanced budget, said Joe Henchman, an attorney at the right-leaning Tax Foundation in Washington. They have done so by reducing spending sufficiently to make up for the difference.
>“They didn’t assume that the cuts would pay for themselves,” Henchman said. “It’s true that while tax cuts can boost economic activity, most tax cuts do not pay for themselves budgetarily.”
>The budget gaps are driven both by conservative legislators’ tax reductions and by broad changes in the economy. State sales taxes no longer produce as much revenue, due both to online sales and to the growing share of services, which are rarely taxed, in the U.S. economy. A fall in commodity markets globally has reduced revenue in agricultural and fossil-fuel states. In places such as Illinois and Kentucky, public employees’ pensions are short on funds.
>In Kansas, this year’s budget battle continued a streak of several consecutive years in which state legislative sessions have gone well beyond schedule, with lawmakers struggling to address the state’s fiscal woes. With the tax increase enacted, Hineman is hoping he and his fellow lawmakers can leave town this weekend — more than three weeks after the state constitution’s limit on the length of the session had expired.
>On Saturday, he hopes to head back to his family’s farm, which his son operates. This week, they are putting in grain sorghum. “I’m anxious to get back home, and my son is anxious for me to be home, because he would like to have me on the tractor,” Hineman said.
This is unfortunate. i think red states should live with the policies they advocate for at the national level.
republicans keep talking about getting rid of sensible government, but usually never go as far as they pander because they want to be reelected and can't let living standards go to shit. Then their constituencies blame all their problems on not being far right enough.
Let the state government repeal itself and privatize everything, if it works out, great, if not, maybe they'll adopt a bit of nuance in their views on public policies.
>>148291
Both parties advocate for unreasonable positions economically which a big part of why we need to have a mix of both to create a viable plan. The Democrats unfettered expansion of social programs will lead to eventual ruin just as the Republicans heavy tax cuts will.
The funny thing is, I honestly believe that the economic system by the Republicans is most feasible and grounded in reality. The only problem is that it will lead to consolidation of power onto single elites and the general public would suffer.
>>148298
>The Democrats unfettered expansion of social programs
not sure who is calling for this, but it's certainly not the democrats who in recent history have been a center right party.
The foundations for US prosperity were set with a very high marginal tax rate and government regulation and social programs unlike most any other part of the world.
>The funny thing is, I honestly believe that the economic system by the Republicans is most feasible and grounded in reality.
We keep trying it, and it consistently fails to deliver for the working class. Maybe we could try something different.Maybe we could have socialism for a while. Sweden has faster GDP growth, high taxes, and social programs like nobody's business.
>>148306
At this point, nothing can be done. Automation will wipe out the working class and concentrate wealth in the hands of the elite, allowing for a new aristocracy to entrench itself.
Republicans have such an intense fear of increasing taxes and expanding social programs, and rightly so. Once we have single-payer healthcare and sensible regulation, people are not going to want to give up something better than what we have now. It's why Obamacare is not only more popular than the ACHA but most Americans now support it. It was a small step (too small) in the right direction.
Increasing protections for the working class that much is is too risky for folks who receive hundreds of millions from multinationals. It's the same reason why Democrats in Congress, who are supposed to provide ideological competition, instead stay quiet; at the end of the day, they all have the same donors.
>>148309
>Automation will wipe out the working class
This never happens though. Even in Africa, people talk about withholding charity so the poverty will "wipe itself out" but it never works that way. Pretending poverty doesn't exist isn't a sort of eugenics that gets rid of poor people. Poor folks just become more poor and disgruntled and sometimes more numerous and it leads to more social problems even for the wealthy.
>>148298
>The only problem is that it will lead to consolidation of power onto single elites and the general public would suffer.
you get that no matter which side you vote for
>>148313
>This never happens though.
it definitely will.
most of the western world is completely fucked because everyone is fucking retarded.
shitty third world countries are already fucked and wont get much better,
some asian countries seem to at least be heading in a better direction, but who knows if they can keep that up.
africa and other shitholes would better off without thoughtless charity propping their population sizes far greater then they are capable of supporting on their own.
>>148298
>economic system by fiscal conservatives is most feasible
Ftfy
Current GOP Republicans are a far cry from fiscally conservative, and many times they have spent loads of money on unimportant shit. Go look at how much money North Carolina spent on "experts" during HB2 and gay marriage debacles. They aren't for small government, they're for -their- government, just like some democrats.
The country would most certainly better off with an even mix between the two (would be better if we had 3-5) parties, but lopsided majorities like what we have now always leads to bad shit in 5-10 years.
The poison of modern politics is the typical partisan, us-vs-them mentality. Nothing can get done with two sides pulling against each other. George Washington warned us of two things: foreign alliances, and political parties. Lo and behold, both of those things have fucked us up big time as a nation. One has to wonder what would happen if the united states entered a period of withdrawal for a spell, to re-center itself and realign itself with growth, prosperity, reasonable discourse and nonpartisan problem solving.
>>148309
>Automation will wipe out the working class
Who buys all your shit when you replace your workers with robots? You wipe out the middle class you may as well wipe out everyone else
>>148406
Individual profit and incentives from automation means that what is bad for the system will be ignored until it is too late. Individual corporations have huge incentives to automate (wages account for a huge chunk of profit lost; efficiency; less mistakes; etc). From an individual perspective, automation is great, so long as you're the only one doing it. If everyone starts doing it, then you blow up the working class and the economy.
On the flip-side, if you think about the greater good and try to spread around the money to keep the economy chugging along, then you lose to those who do automate. Furthermore, unilaterally acting for the greater good of the economy isn't going to work, especially when so many strong incentives exist to automate and there's a culture of competitiveness and oneupmanship.
The big problem is is that automation does not play nice with our current form of capitalism (most of society needs to be employed to circulate cash through the system, people need wages/jobs to survive, a 40-80 hour work week standard). If you don't want overall society to resemble something like Elysium or some cyberpunk dystopia, either you must globally resist automation (not going to happen) or you must tweak the economic system.
>>148313
>Even in Africa, people talk about withholding charity so the poverty will "wipe itself out" but it never works that way
Nobody has ever tried withholding charity from Africa. Instead we throw even more at them. When M'Butu can't run a farm because whitey popped up with free food, completely undercutting his market, what the fuck is M'Butu going to do?
Get depressed, fuck his wife a ton, and hold out his hands for charity as yet another charity case, rather than a self-made business man like he was. I mean, you people really don't fucking get it. You're not aiding Africa, you've turned them dependent. You've made them into pets. They're dogs that don't know how to hunt anymore, they're a spider in a terrarium waiting for its owner to drop in a few bugs.
Name me ONE society that became successful by having absolutely no jobs and having food handed out to it every now and then.
>>148343
I agree with you on getting rid of the partisans, but the US can't afford to turn its back on the rest of the West, especially at this dire hour. That's what Trump thought at first too, before being forced to finally commit to supporting NATO. Even the US can't go it alone.
>>148411
You have a point, but there are other factors such as drought and disease that are pulling the rug under Africans trying to make an honest living. M'Butu is just as likely to have had all his crops wither away or his herds die of disease, forcing him on welfare to support his family.
Thus, charity needs to be refocused on education and building vital infrastructure, long term investments. However, rampant population growth may throw all these plans out the window.
>>148278
They should've done the tax cuts in a gradual matter so that no one will notice.
>>148409
I repair aircraft parts using 99% manual machinery in new england. People said CNC was going to kill the middle class once too. You're a fucking idiot who thinks he is intellectual.
>>148512
sure automation is just like every other technological improvement,
less people can do more work, more efficiently with less effort.
it didnt fuck things up for people in the past because it didnt actually effect that much, there was plenty of time to stabilize between big advancements, and it created new jobs to replace old ones.
but the automation we are starting to see and will get in the near future is on a completely different scale,
anyone who thinks it will just work out like it always has is an idiot.
also the middle class is dying, its been slow because theres plenty of bandaids keeping it alive but its definitely dying.