'We are a cautionary tale': Kansas feels the pain of massive Trump-style tax cuts

[DonViejo]

In 2012, Kansas did what Donald Trump wants to do: it introduced huge tax cuts to try to boost growth. Today, the state is out of money – and residents are angry

Dominic Rushe in Kansas
@dominicru

Monday 15 May 2017 02.00 EDT

Kansas is broke – but you wouldn’t guess it looking at its shining state capitol in Topeka. The imposing limestone monument, crowned by a shiny copper dome and limned with John Steuart Curry’s luminous murals, has just undergone a $325m facelift. What’s happening inside the state house is a lot less pretty, and may well foreshadow the far uglier battle looming over the future of taxation in the United States.

Last month, Donald Trump’s two key economic allies, the treasury secretary. Stephen Mnuchin. and Trump’s chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn, unveiled the outline of Donald Trump’s much-trailed tax plan. The biggest tax cuts “in history” would slash taxes for business, simplify taxes for everyone else, and “pay for themselves” by stimulating economic growth, Trump’s fiscal duo claimed.

The plan’s similarity to the one that has left Kansas in crisis is “unbelievable”, according to Duane Goossen, the former Kansas secretary of administration.

The economic spirit behind Trump’s plan is Arthur Laffer – the go-to guru of “supply-side economics” since the Reagan era, and one of the architects of Kansas governor Sam Brownback’s original tax plan.

more
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/15/kansas-trump-style-tax-cuts-economic-disaster

[elleng]

1. LAUGHTER!

[SoCalMusicLover]

2. LOL @ Middle Drumpf America

IT'S OBVIOUSLY ALL OBAMA'S FAULT.

[PsychoBabble]

3. There is a reason Laffer's name pretty much rhymes with ...

... well, you know.

Every ideology has its weak points. I know Dems and Progressives have theirs. But in our case, the over-reaches are mostly trying to do TOO much to help people. But there is plenty of evidence along the way that the lesser levels of our policies do help people. And there is PLENTY of evidence worldwide that policies like government-supported health care is the way to go to.

GOPers just keep after their failed supply-side ideology like a starving dog with a bone. NO alternative facts can penetrate their belief. Perhaps it is why religion and political ideology are so closely married in their culture.

AND ... of course, the old maxim, "Follow the Money." It works like a charm in their case to tell you where the benefit is, almost every time.

SOCIETY benefits from Dem policies.

OLIGARCHS benefit from GOP policies. Plus they offload any potential down-side repercussions to the larger society, by design.

Somebody made a truckload of money off of that shiny copper dome ... while the State at large was crying in the financial gutter.

Anybody who can look at Kansas ... the multiplicity of evidence ... and then decide that it is a model for success ... is truly beyond hope.

Oh. CRAP. Mnuchin is our Treasury Secretary. F*ck. Cohn is our economic advisor.

You could literally pick someone from Skid Row, let THEM design a plan, and have a better chance of coming out on the up-side nationally.