Monday, December 11, 2017

Kansas offers U.S. a tax template

To hear The Guardian tell it, the Republican/Democrat tax plan wending its way through Congress (it currently seems to have the momentum for passage) bears an uncanny resemblance to a blueprint already implemented in Kansas. The thinly-veiled trickle-down economics that have failed analytical examination far and wide didn't work in Kansas and won't work in the broader U.S. Nevertheless, Congress seems kindly disposed towards this Kansas model.

Short and sweet: FUBAR ... fucked up beyond all recognition.
Is Donald Trump about to turn America into Kansas? It’s a question some worried people who live in the state are asking as the Republican party pushes through the biggest tax overhaul in a generation – an overhaul that, they claim, bears an uncanny resemblance to a tax plan that left their midwestern home in disarray.
After a failed economic experiment meant to boost economic growth blew a hole in the Kansas budget as big as a prairie sky (a $350m deficit in the current fiscal year and nearly $600m in the next) state jobs and services have been slashed....
The crisis follows the 2012 passage of a tax plan by Kansas governor Sam Brownback that he dubbed “the march to zero”.
Individual state income tax rates dropped from 6.4% to 4.9% – with the intention of getting rid of them altogether eventually. Taxes were eliminated on so-called pass through entities – businesses where taxes are collected at the rate of the business owner and not at the corporate rate. The plan would provide a “shot of adrenaline” to the Kansas economy, Brownback claimed.... “There never was a shot of adrenaline. If anything, that shot put the state on life support,” she said. “It’s the same thing that Trump is saying: there’s going to be tremendous job growth. Well, that didn’t happen either. It’s going to take an entire generation to undo this damage.”
Yes, the electorate has a short memory and yes, politicians know where their re-election bucks are likely to come from, so the bill will probably pass. But that doesn't mean it can't be seen for what it is -- an obscene flop for the nation.

2 comments:

  1. The reformation is seen as a shift from catholicism to Calvinism, away from a centralized pope to a localized leadership. But breaking the back of the pope's power also took away the support for localized feudal style brutalization of the population and allowed for a strong centralized government in the crown.

    If you take away the dog and pony show of an idealized movement such as religion, what you see is the strengthening of a centralized government that relies on the support of the masses, and so cares for them. At least it cares for them more than the localized serf based economies of local duchy's.

    In our world, it's the fight between a strong federal government and states rights. We can thank the federal government for social security, labor protections, civil rights, national highways, etc. I'm at a loss as to what the state's could lay claim to equal to that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Republican / Democrat Tax Plan?

    Really?

    Are you in on a secret?

    Share it!

    The Corporate Greed Tax Plan is a better label.

    Then to say there are Dems who’ll support it makes sense.

    ReplyDelete