Kansas is still bleeding, thanks to tea party economics

Give some credit to Sam Brownback, the far-right Republican governor of Kansas: He’s got tenacity. Confronted by an unbroken string of reports that his fiscal policies are leading his state to economic ruin, he hasn’t given an inch.

We’ve been chronicling the tea party ruination of Brownback’s Kansas for more than two years, since soon after he enacted a slew of dramatic tax cuts in the conviction that they would unleash stupendous economic growth.

The latest evidence to the contrary comes from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, which has just released its monthly survey of economic indices for the 50 states.The survey compiles state-level statistics on nonfarm payroll employment, average hours worked in manufacturing by production workers, the unemployment rate, and inflation-adjusted wages and salaries.

Kansas ranked rock-bottom in the three-month change in these metrics from July through September, with a decline of 1.18%. Indeed, it was one of only eight states that showed any decline. The U.S. average gained 0.64%. Most of the other states with negative changes were oil-and-gas producers. Kansas is too, but that industry has been a tiny factor in its economy for years.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-kansas-economy-20161031-story.html