Kansas and their Guv all over the news lately--just not in good ways

Yessiree, bob, good ol' Kansas and Governor Sam "I Haven't Got a Brain" Brownback are all over the news and internet and Facebook lately.

And it isn't pretty.

First this from Bloomberg News:

Bleeding Kansas Shows Peril of GOP Bid to End Income Tax

Kansas Governor Sam Brownback has a prairie-wide smile, a friendly manner and an abiding hatred of his state’s income tax. He pushed an unprecedented cut for individuals and small businesses through the legislature last year and is now plotting, as he says, to “take it to zero.”

 

And the unfortunate thing is, it's getting him the national attention he wants, so he can, hopefully, in his mind, anyway, run successfully for the presidency in 2016, God forbid:

 

“Kansas is the starter gun for tax competition,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, the Washington-based group that pressures members of Congress to sign a no-tax-increase pledge. “Brownback fired off the shot that said ‘Go.’”

 

But here's the bad things, as we know, for Kansas and Kansans:

 

The race presents significant hurdles. Kansas lawmakers haven’t figured out how to pay for the tax cuts without potentially crippling public schools and other local government functions. Reducing the income tax has left a projected $2.5 billion revenue hole through fiscal 2018, according to the Kansas Legislative Research Department. On Jan. 11, a state court ruled that the legislature was illegally underfunding schools and ordered a payment of $440 million.

“It’s a major fiscal risk,” Chris Mier, managing director of analytical services at Loop Capital Markets in Chicago, said of Brownback’s income-tax push. “Are the alternative revenue sources going to produce the revenue they need?”

 

And that's just the first article on Kansas and the Guv. Here's another, this one from The New York Times:

 

Kansas' Governor and GOP Seek to End Income Tax

Then there's this, yesterday, from the Kansas City Star:

Brownback's tax plan favors rich over middle-income

 

So, God help and forgive him, tax-slashing Sam is getting that national attention he wants, even if it is on the backs of all Kansans except the wealthy and corporations.  The bad thing, though, the sad thing, besides the fact that he's doing this at the expense of the middle- and lower-classes of Kansas is that this, however, is the real truth, from the Pittsburg, KS - Morning Sun newspaper:

 

SULLIVAN: Kansas isn't Texas

 

PITTSBURG — Kansas isn't Texas. Kansas isn't Florida. Kansas is Kansas. If you take away the ability of the state government to maintain and/or enhance it's great university system, and if you take away the money to fix the roads, re-build bridges, and maintain and/or enhance infrastructure, Kansas won't be Kansas anymore. It will be simply a central flatland with few distinguishing characteristics.

When Governor Brownback gave his State of the State address, his legislative cheerleaders erupted in raucous applause when he said "Look out Texas, here comes Kansas!"

 

The comparison could not be more in apt. Both Florida and Texas have lots of seacoast and derive much of their economic vitality either from the gulf coast directly, or tourism indirectly.
Kansas is landlocked. It has no sea coast.  It has little tourism industry compared to the other two states.  What it does have is a pretty good road system, pretty good schools, and excellent university system, all of which are now at risk under the policy initiatives of the current regime in Topeka.  It also has an industrious and well trained workforce, whose middle class existence is being threatened by the tax increases that will be visited upon them in order to give tax cuts to the supposed job creating class that has yet to move here.

It's pretty bad when the most blatant, obvious truths have to be spelled out to egomaniac, self-centered, self-serving politicians who only want themselves to succeed, even if it means hurting the entire state they're supposed to be leading far more wisely and, again, successfully.

 

Kansas, you deserve far, far better than your governor, Sam Brownback.

 

You poor things.

 

Literally and figuratively, if not already, then soon.