Since it's inevitable now anyways...is Kansas electing a Democrat to statewide office a sign of the Apocalypse?

as governor. ...Brownback is as far right as I remember. ..

a Democrat who served from 1967 to 1975 and who was "known for his commitment to farmers, small business owners, and the environment."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Docking

Kansas hasn't voted for a Democrat since




(wait for it . . . . . )




1936

It is easy to send a message:

The email addresses are here: http://ksgop.org/county-party-information/

Kansas republican party
ksgop.org

Got a fire?
Waterloo and Cedar Falls have had to have what one would call Rolling blackout days. This firestation is temporarily closed due to budget cuts call 911 for another one. got mini Republican made Benghazi's in every town now. that and then there's those who remember Brandstad longer than I do. Supreme idiot in the spending dept.. by the time Iowa figures this out we'll be in such a mess.

he has brought all of this new business to Kansas. Apparently, there are a large number of small businesses submitting paperwork to change their tax status in response to the changes in tax laws there.

Anybody I know?

Was it Davis?

Because he is running for Governor, and supposedly has a good shot, although I am mostly seeing signs for the Republicans around here.

Don't know my KS politicians well. It was Anthony Hemsley from Topeka.

He's very knowledgeable. Longest serving politician in Kansas history too, I think. Hensley. Been in office since 1977 (I had to look that up).

I have seen the results of this first hand. ...the effect on the elderly. ..

it's a laffer.

They'll just say Brownback was an incompetent and it had nothing to do with his party. Then they'll just elect another right winger. The light isn't going to reach Kansas for a long, long time.

Maybe after public services all start going to hell because there is no money to fix things.

for people who seem to want to send themselves into self-annihilation.

And I just have to sit back, take a few deep breaths, and tell myself most of us are self-destructive in one way or another.

I offer up my condolences to the people of Kansas, and hope they find the courage to abandon their notion of 'faith-based governance' in the face of brutal empirical evidence. I honestly hope they learn from their mistakes, and can work their way back out of the grave they've been digging for themselves.

that he really didn't run on his tax plan.

So it's not like voters approved of that in 2010.

The media just kinda spread the message that his victory was inevitable, so he never had to really sell himself. He ran TV ads that just said "here's how you can do a mail-in ballot, I need your vote". He didn't try to sell his plan, or bash his opponent.

Our sitting Governor, a former Republican, was too scared of losing to run himself, and then the KDP had a hard time finding a candidate. I like the guy who eventually ran, but he started late in the game, and didn't have statewide name recognition or a lot of money.

Y'know how sitting governors generally don't get involved in party primaries? Well, not Governor Brownstain.

During the 2012 elections, he worked hard to endorse and support hard-right Tea-Clowns, who then successfully removed most of the remaining non-Tea-Clown GOP legislature members.

So you have this little rump group of legislative Democrats, a substantial majority of knuckle-draggers, and hardly anyone in between.

I thought it was Brownshirt. Or Throwback.

Brownback would he a hero of all heroes, presidential material. Yes, Kansas can be a strange place. Brownbackistan.

it seemed as if his tax "ideas" (i.e. abolishing income taxes) were going to be spreading like wildfire all over the country, starting with the Southern states. Does anybody else know how many states have been adopting similar policies and what their outcomes have been so far?

The saddest thing about this is that they will find some way into deluding themselves into believing that it *should* have worked if they had only done......................something different or that Brownback just messed it up and that's why it didn't work- and keep trying it no matter how many times it fails until somebody takes away their power and keeps them from continuing to harm their states.

comprehend and tolerate they were wrong, so they keep trying and trying until the company is rescued by the board of directors/stock holders or as is often the case, fades into oblivion. Hopefully, the voters will come to their senses. I heard some remarking once that the Brownback administration had not been conservative enough. My god, just now far rightward can they go until falling totality out of reality.

It's amazing that there's still more room for them to go. Everytime they reach the bottom of the barrel, they find some way to go even lower. Of course, you know it's bad when kooks like Glenn Beck, yeah GLENN PSYCHOTIC INSANE BECK, are getting death threats from some of his extremist wingnut listeners for being slightly less insane than them.

That's their sickness.

n/t

And if it's a total freaking disaster, if your Bold Economic Leadership Plan burns, falls over and then sinks into the swamp, it's only because you didn't PRIVATIZE!! and CUT TAXES!! enough.

At last year's fair I asked a GOP True Believer why Reagan's tax cuts caused the national debt to triple.

"Because he didn't cut taxes enough. He should have made a 10 percent flat tax. Why is 10 percent good enough for Jesus but not for the government?"

'Jesus doesn't buy submarines.'

Laffer Curve Believers will tell you that it says "if you cut tax rates tax revenue will increase in all circumstances." The fact it has never happened is problematic, but more problematic is what the Curve actually says: Laffer claims there is One Perfect Rate for taxes to be. If the rate is above it tax revenues will go down due to tax evasion, and if it's too low revenues will go down because the rate isn't high enough. Problem is, people prone to evading taxes will evade them no matter how low they are. If you want proof come to Idaho and look for Priuses with Tea Party bumper stickers on them. There are a lot, and their drivers are probably working on a way to roll coal in them. I got a chance to ask one of them why a loyal Tea Party member would drive a hippie wagon. "Because gas taxes are lower in it - trade a car that gets 15 mpg in on it and the government gets a third the money it did before."

Is it time for the pitchforks and guillotines yet?

That's on you, sammy baby. You and your IDIOT ideas. Pie-in-the-sky from snake-oil salesmen like him quickly turns into pie-in-yer-eye. And it's shit-pie, too.

Their credit rating has also been lowered.

and had a much better approach to just about everything...

I thought maybe Kansas isn't flat anymore. Is that it?

Perhaps the weirdest?

I like to think Kansas is taking one for the team.

Like it is more "concave" now

actually is not flat. Worse for bicycling than the driftless region of Wisconsin. The driftless region, where I lived for ten years is called that because they had no glaciers during the most recent ice age. Well the glaciers had the effect of scraping the land down, whereas the driftless region has had another 10,000 years of erosion - thus it has some monster hills and valleys.

But even there, the roads will often follow a valley and thus be relatively flat for miles and miles, at least if you get on the right roads. Here they all seem to constantly go up and down and up and down.

One of my cousins from Wisconsin said the same thing about western Missouri/eastern Kansas - it reminded her of Wisconsin.

I'll get back to you when I feel sorry for them. Don't hold your breath.

I know. Sad.

the people are getting what they voted for. Same as here in Ok with our congress critters. No one to blame but ourselves

that a lot of people bought into the Great Flim-Flam....

Education is the key

and Benghazi.
You can't argue with that!

The Republicans may suck at all forms of governance, but by the Christ, they can find a scapegoat, even if they have to dig up the festering corpse of a political philosopher no one's ever heard of. Besides, there's a blah man in the White House, and they can blame him for pert near everything.

The old bankrupt the government, then sell off the assets to your buddies kind of thing?

There's plenty of blame to go around, not just Brownback. Is all of Kansas in trouble, or is Cupcake Land doing well?

They believe that if the wealthy and upper middle class have extra money they will invest and spend, the problem is they make too much to spend what they have, they have everything they want and dream about buying already, extra money isn't going to make them want more things. It's true they might often invest, but the earnings they make on those investments which often come from productivity ( lower labor cost) are not spent either, which has a horrible effect of taking from those that will spend and give it to those that don't. The wealthy just don't spend enough, that's why they need to be taxed and forced to pay their workers more, hording money is a huge problem in a capitalist democracy and is often done for no other reason than irrational fear.

need is that they don't really invest...they speculate. They have money they can risk...money they want to really beat the market...money that goes to driving up commodities, real estate, etc.

More inequality = more bubbles = more instability = more inequality

What has happened there is what anyone with any sense could have predicted. The weird thing is that the voters of Kansas keep supporting right wingers and watching their state circle the bowl.

Most conservatives are single issue voters, with the single issue being abortion. Lots of them actually have moderate to liberal views on the economy, but they won't vote for anyone who is pro choice.

Unfortunately, you and those like you have to suffer along.

Or the conservatives have gotten more conservative on some issues?

I'm in KC and I was really surprised at just how far right Kansas has gone. I didn't expect that.

The other ones simply didn't go far enough, according to Republican logic, of course.

Cut more taxes for the job creators, so they can create more jobs.

Cut, cut, cut! Who needs all of that bloated state government anyway? The moochers, you betcha.

The moochers are the problem.



If you need the sarcasm smiley, you're taking this much too seriously.

Tax rates were pretty low before Brownback. Politicians here campaign on cultural issues, and accuse Washington and liberals (and moderate Repubs) of being pointy heads who are out of touch with the good people of Kansas. It has become an us vs. them mentality, with them being Democrats and moderate Republicans.

... that supply-side theory -- that lower tax rates creates economic magic -- is what has put Kansas into its current recession? 'Cuz people need to learn -- not just think or believe, but see for themselves and REMEMBER -- that RW economic policies are just plain bunk.

=======================

At some point, this has to work, doesn't it? Of course it doesn't, and that conclusion isn't theory, it's empirical evidence. IT NEVER HAS. Never once. Ever.

Hoping to gain a little insight that might not be available to the layman, many years ago, I asked my sister about supply-side theory.

Now...she is no Paul Krugman, but she's got some game. Won an award at the end of 3rd year that had never before been won by someone without at least being in a Master's program. Her Master's dissertation was on the economic history of the North Atlantic Triangle (US, UK and Canada), which she did at Oxford on a full ride scholarship....and it wasn't for football.

So......she's been in an economics class once or twice. And, in who knows how many lectures and seminars, had never heard the phrase uttered in an academic context.

My inescapable conclusion is that adherents are either idiots, or have an agenda that doesn't include you or me.

Just like any other red welfare state, they'll get bailed out by the federal government. And then complain about it.

Too many of the smart people got blown to Oz, and the morons but asses like Brownback in office.

Wolf

despite decades of proof to the contrary.

I guess you could call them True Believers®. True Believers® in the Reagan miracle®, another complete fallacy. I was there, Reagan was a fucking disaster—his policies ultimately cost me my job.

For whatever reason if the belief system doesn't square with the facts, then it's the facts that are wrong. The definition of an ideology.

their argument that big government doesn't work.

I don't think any growing business is going to get the talent to move to Kansas. Not when they have other options.

that is now happening so the counties can cover revenue losses? Property taxes on farm land have always been ridiculously low and in no way connected to actual value or revenue generation. Now the reddest (rural) counties are increasing property taxes at an alarming rate and it is getting everyone's attention.

I just spent some time there and more than one farmer told me that the Democrats who live in Wichita, Lawrence, Topeka, KC, etc. are the ones actually benefiting from Brownback's income tax reductions and everyone else (read that Republican voters) is being punished through property taxes and sales tax.

Put him in office and he was pretty obvious about his plans.
The takeaways on this experiment are two
A. You can't live happily ever after without paying taxes
B. You reap what you sow

Think those lessons have been learned? Doubtful.

Teams up with a heartless guy, a coward a brainless man and a con man to kill and steal from the sister she killed on arrival.

is that Brownie's activities have made it worse for some of us.

1) The Homestead Act, which used to provide me with $300 or so each year, is now no longer available to renters--it's for homeowners only.

2) The Food Tax Refund is now only available as a deduction on tax refunds due, so since I haven't enough income (SS only), I can't get that. Another $70 or so I can't get anymore.

But thanks to Brownhole, that's all gone. And thank Dog, I assume the Koch's are making more than ever thanks to generous tax breaks!

I used to love Kansas, but the people, like most of the US, have turned ugly and unkind. I'm of an age that means I probably won't be around to see the worm turn, but I'd like to see that...

What would be weird would be if they raised taxes in order to make up the debt they are accumulating and start paying to make their state livable again.

That would be weird.

Oh wait, yes we could have and did.

...most of them would tell you that Kansas is doing much better than other states and they'd be fine and dandy if it wasn't for that Keynan socialist wrecking the national economy. That's what Fox News tells them, and that's what they'll continue to believe even when if they're living under a tarp on the open prairie.

Take my Pat McCrory. Please.

They cannot blame the democrats, they do this every time. Republicans like to talk about smaller government, when in reality they actually mean smaller government for corporations and the rich, which translates to everyone else being ran over by a 18 wheeler. Its too sad, but unfortunately republican voters keep doing this to themselves and the rest of us.

... I have despaired of ever electing anybody (local, state or national) that had the interests of ALL Kansans at heart. I saw Brownback for what he was, and cried when he was elected. I have watched him take this state apart, piece by piece, cutting this and hacking that. And while I would hope that my fellow Kansans would have their eyes opened by what's going on, assuming any intelligence in this state is an exercise in futility.

We had a wonderful moderate Democrat representative (Dennis Moore) in Washington for years. He was diagnosed with Alzheimers and chose not to run for re-election. His wife tried to run in his place, but slammed against the Koch-backed Kevin Yoder, who I am sad to say is supposed to be my representative at this time. I have written to him repeatedly on issues, but have yet to receive one intelligent response. I have made it my mission to see that he doesn't win re-election this year, hoping that Kelly Kultala will unseat him.

Is there hope for Kansas? God, I hope so.

we ousted the governator in california, so i know kansas can do it too.

the problems are all caused by Obama's economic policies. Of course, that doesn't explain why other states are not experiencing the same problems and getting a Moody's downgrade in the same way that Kansas is.

BTW, Missouri's Dem governor vetoed a Repub tax bill that was intended to mimic Kansas's tax-slashing tactics. As he did so, he pointed to the damage being caused to our economy in Brownbackistan by the stupid tax policies of the Repub legislature and Repub governor.

My family is at least 5 generations of Kansas natives. And last year, I finally HAD to move my elderly mother out. Brownback's tax policy is designed to starve old people to death.

Nothing makes Democrats and Liberals faster than lots & lots of local fracking.

Crank it up!

He loves doing shows in red states. He said it is amazing how many Dems show up. They're out there. You should see the wack jobs on my facebook page.

He should get full credit for that. All he deserves. In spades.

And so should other people who evangelize for it. Just ask Timothy McVeigh. I mean Geithner.