maybe, but Kansas is run by all conservatives at the state level, and they've utterly botched their budget. they gave tax cuts to the businesses and i think a 29% cut for only the TOP income tax bracket, as well as exempting some businesses and 330k farmers.
so far this is conservative trickle-down economics 101.
well, shocker, that money didn't make its way back to the state in the form of businesses hiring more workers and people spending more money.
as of April (last news I saw on the situation), he raided something like 17 mil from universities in the state, and also held back 93 million worth of pension funds of school teachers, and then another 750 mil from various highway projects.
Not only that, but to plug the gushing hole in the budget, his office proposed selling what is called the state's tobacco settlement. I'm not sure what that is exactly, but they are due to get something like 500 mil over the next few years for it, and Brownback wants to sell it for a quick one-time payment of something like 150 mil to plug this. that's not very fiscally responsible if you ask me, selling future money for pennies on the dollar now.
they DID raise sales tax a bit and raised taxes on cigarettes, which brought in some more money, but that's kind of shitty to pass the burden off of the rich and make the rank and file citizens pay more taxes for things, no?
it's so bad that even a lot of the republicans in the state offices are distancing themselves. and they hold a 75% majority, so these cuts were breezed through the legislature when Brownback proposed them. You know why they are distancing themselves? A majority of their seats are up for re-election.
this is the same tax cut strategy that was praised by republicans in other states when they were proposed and initially enacted.
edit to add- they just had their credit rating dropped from AA to AA- earlier this month. It's the second downgrade in 2 years. the great thing about the state is that the law requires a budget to be balanced, so it's not like the state is in debt (yet). the bad thing is that now that the cuts were put in, they are raiding public funds (schools, pensions, highway) to fill in the holes created by the lack of extra predicted income.
edit edit- i was wrong about kansas not being in debt.
State of Kansas Debt Clock
07-29-2016, 04:43 AM
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