Revisiting Sam Brownback's tax cut disaster: How does Kansas feel about his "experiment"?

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback was evangelical about his radical plan to slash taxes. A new documentary looks at results

STEPHEN TALBOT
04.17.2018•11:54 AM

"It's like shooting adrenaline into the heart of growing the economy." That's how Sam Brownback, then governor of Kansas, described his radical tax cut plan in 2012. He was evangelical about it. Slashing corporate and personal income tax rates and completely eliminating taxes on limited liability companies, he promised, would create tens of thousands of jobs and bring prosperity to the state. It did not work out that way.

At first, there were many believers, including the Kansas State Legislature, which passed the governor's revolutionary tax package in 2012. Some 330,000 independent business owners took advantage of their new tax exemption. Corporations and individuals enjoyed their income tax cuts and refunds. The result was a $700 million loss in revenue for the state the first year the tax plan went into effect.

For the next five years, as revenue continued to tank, the state found itself mired in fiscal crisis, and job growth was anemic compared to the national recovery. Last year, a bi-partisan majority in the legislature essentially repealed the entire Brownback tax package.

Brownback had won a landslide victory in the 2010 gubernatorial race and was re-elected in 2014, though by a thin margin. Early this year, the Trump administration nominated him as U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom and pushed his confirmation through the Senate. But by the time Brownback resigned as governor at the end of January 2018, his "Kansas experiment" had been shelved.

Filmmakers Melinda Shopsin, Paul Lovelace and Jessica Wolfson were curious about what Brownback had left behind. Crisscrossing the heartland state (population just under three million), the crew wanted to hear what ordinary Kansans thought about their state's experiment in tax policy.

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https://www.salon.com/2018/04/17/revisiting-sam-brownbacks-tax-cut-disaster-how-does-kansas-feel-about-his-experiment/