“There has also been a shock-and-awe quality about the Brownback years. So numerous are the consequences of Kansas’s tax cuts (to choose the central item from Sam Brownback’s list of reforms), that it is difficult to try to process them all. By this I do not merely mean to point out that the tax cuts turned out to be much better for the rich than for everyone else; that’s kind of a cliché at this point—or that the tax cuts haven’t brought the economic growth Brownback said they would; that, too, is always the way these things turn out. More important is the panorama of disaster they have inflicted on education in the state: Fewer teachers working with more students, cuts to sports and art programs, and even school closings here and there.” “Local governments, meanwhile have tried to make up the shortfall by raising property taxes (which are paid by a big part of the population in rural states), with the ironic result that while the hated moderate yuppies in the posh Kansas City suburbs get to enjoy Brownback’s tax cuts, the hardworking conservatives of the poorer counties have to pay much more. Other institutions have felt the pain as well: There was a risk, at one point, that the state’s courts would run out of money, and now Kansas prisons, that favorite conservative institution, are reportedly being forced to operate with insufficient guards. But what’s the big deal? A leader of the conservatives in the state legislature admitted in July that chopping back government was, in fact, one of the goals of the tax cuts all along.” In Brownbackistan, everything is awesome! And don’t let any liberal tell you different Sunday, Sep 21, 2014 06:00 AM CST Thomas Frank salon/2014/09/21/in_brownbackistan_everything_is_awesome_and_don%E2%80%99t_let_any_liberal_tell_you_different/
Posted on: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 22:09:08 +0000
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