What's the Matter With Kansas? It's broke.

[Jimmy Higgins]

http://www.kansaspolicy.org/KPIBlog/117061.aspx

This article is hysterically funny. I like best this gem...

KLRD estimates that General Fund revenue will be 9.6 percent higher in five years. FY 2014 is the first full year of income tax reform; revenue is 7.1 percent lower this year than the record-setting level of 2012 but it is actually 1.3 percent higher than three years ago! Even more remarkable, a new revenue record is predicted to be set in FY 2018 – just four years after historic tax reform was fully implemented.

I dare you to find one media outlet in Kansas reporting these remarkable facts. To the contrary, most media and their big-government allies cling to versions of CBPP’s ‘sky is falling’ mentality.

So much funny, like 1.3% higher than the bad years before the good years!
But best of all is, "We predict! And no one is reporting it as fact!" bwaaa haaa haaa!

Without the cuts, 15, 16, 17, and 18 would all have broken records. Wonder how much that think tank paid to get their results to the top of Google's search results.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

NM

 

[Axulus]

“If it continues in the direction that he’s going, I think you can really create a state of prosperity here in Kansas,” [Laffer] said.

There you go, unless you want to maintain that the guy who invented the Laffer Curve (lower taxes = higher tax revenues) did not include government tax receipts in the phrase "create a state of prosperity."

You're not seriously attempting to argue that by "prosperity" he means "higher tax receipts" are you? Prosperous corporations always pay less in taxes when they make more profits.

Cause that would seem a touch desperate.

I do agree that one of us is appearing desperate.

Yeah, somehow there can be statewide prosperity and dropping tax revenue. Corporations always pay less in taxes when they make more profit.

The state treasury took in $5 million less than expected in oil and gas tax revenue, $7.8 million less than anticipated in sales and use tax receipts and $8.2 million below projections on corporate income tax payments. Overall, the state collected $11.2 million less than hoped.

Yup, drops in sales and use tax receipts are a great indicator of prosperity! (as a note, this tax was not cut)

So the state collected ~$12 million less than hoped (meaning that the schools had a revenue projection at the start of the year, and, at most, it came up $12 million short).

Given that the schools were provided ~$4 billion from the state, and assuming that this entire $12 million was cut from the schools, that is .3% less state revenue than expected. In other words, they can't handle a .3% shortfall without shutting down.

Can you imagine if a business ran such a tight budget that it had to close its doors if revenue came in .3% less than projected?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

“If it continues in the direction that he’s going, I think you can really create a state of prosperity here in Kansas,” [Laffer] said.

There you go, unless you want to maintain that the guy who invented the Laffer Curve (lower taxes = higher tax revenues) did not include government tax receipts in the phrase "create a state of prosperity."

You're not seriously attempting to argue that by "prosperity" he means "higher tax receipts" are you? Prosperous corporations always pay less in taxes when they make more profits.

Cause that would seem a touch desperate.

I do agree that one of us is appearing desperate.

Yeah, somehow there can be statewide prosperity and dropping tax revenue. Corporations always pay less in taxes when they make more profit.

The state treasury took in $5 million less than expected in oil and gas tax revenue, $7.8 million less than anticipated in sales and use tax receipts and $8.2 million below projections on corporate income tax payments. Overall, the state collected $11.2 million less than hoped.

Yup, drops in sales and use tax receipts are a great indicator of prosperity! (as a note, this tax was not cut)

So the state collected ~$12 million less than hoped (meaning that the schools had a revenue projection at the start of the year, and, at most, it came up $12 million short).

That was for the month, not the year.

Given that the schools were provided ~$4 billion from the state, and assuming that this entire $12 million was cut from the schools, that is .3% less state revenue than expected. In other words, they can't handle a .3% shortfall without shutting down.

Can you imagine if a business ran such a tight budget that it had to close its doors if revenue came in .3% less than projected?

I didn't mention the schools once in my post. Why are you responding to me like I had?

 

[Nice Squirrel]

So the state collected ~$12 million less than hoped (meaning that the schools had a revenue projection at the start of the year, and, at most, it came up $12 million short).

Given that the schools were provided ~$4 billion from the state, and assuming that this entire $12 million was cut from the schools, that is .3% less state revenue than expected. In other words, they can't handle a .3% shortfall without shutting down.

Can you imagine if a business ran such a tight budget that it had to close its doors if revenue came in .3% less than projected?

It also depends on how that money was distributed and if costs rose during the same period.

Also a factor is how Kansas collects revenue for schools. If it is primarily supported by local property taxes this may not reflect in the numbers.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Just three years ago, many of these lawmakers passed the largest tax cuts in state history, saying they would lead to economic growth. But that growth did not appear, and after repeatedly trimming spending to close shortfalls, legislators again find themselves in a prolonged budget battle with no easy answers, where both houses of the Republican-controlled Legislature are proposing tax increases.

The reason: even anti-tax Republicans are acknowledging that there is not much more to cut without significantly hurting popular programs, including education.

The fault lines now seem to run along the question of which taxes to raise. Some believe that income taxes are off limits and that they should raise sales taxes to shoulder the entire burden. Others advocate a mixed approach and said income taxes should be on the table. Democrats argue that increasing sales taxes would be another blow to low-income Kansans to the benefit of the business class.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/30/u...hinkable-raising-taxes.html?ref=politics&_r=3

 

[SimpleDon]

Supply side "Reaganomics" has never worked. How many decades does it take for Republicans to get this through their heads?

What makes you think they don't already know and just don't care?

I believe that the right measures the success of a programs by how closely it follows their shared and learned by rote dogmas, not by any empirical measure of success or failure.

How else can they continue to hold on to such failures as neoliberal, supply side economics or austerity in the middle of a recession or deregulation or abstinence based sex education or war instead of diplomacy or impeding run away inflation because the Fed is printing too much money or the US will go bankrupt away so let's just drive the US bankrupt or anarchists who want to drown the government in a bathtub are the best people to run the government or saving marriage by preventing people from getting married who want to get married or solving a problem that doesn't exist like people misidentifying themselves to vote or their battles to preserve racism as a political force or blaming the poor for poverty or the more people who have guns the safer everyone will be or their apparent need to resist any change except for those changes intended to roll back every small amount of social justice won over the last fifty years or so?

Are they trying intentionally to be wrong about everything? Or does it just seem that way because they have been wrong about everything so far? That they aren't trying to be wrong, they just can't help themselves?

If anything the right is more unhinged and convinced of the correctness of their dogmas after the failure of so many. Starting fifteen years ago the run of the mill conservatives gave us the largest terrorist attack in our history, two unnecessary wars, unfunded tax cuts, unfunded programs and the largest recession since the Great Depression. Do we really want to see how much more damage the Austrians, the Libertarians, the anarchists, the reactionaries, the Tea Partiers who are now in charge of the Republican party can do than the compassionate conservatives and the neocons did then?

 

[ksen]

This Age of Derp, Kansas Edition

Menzie Chinn notes the continuing failure of the Kansas experiment with supply-side tax cuts. And yes, it is an experiment — Gov. Brownback said it was, and by cutting taxes radically on the basis of ideology rather than any compelling event, Kansas in effect provided us with a natural experiment on exactly what such cuts accomplish. Menzie uses business indicators; I just look at employment growth since Brownback took office, compared with the nation as a whole (red line). No hint whatsoever of a supply-side boost, and of course a terrible fiscal crisis.

So how will this change GOP economic ideology? You know the answer: not at all.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

So how will this change GOP economic ideology? You know the answer: not at all.

You know the answer: not at all.

You know the answer: not at all.

You know the answer: not at all. ​

 

[Axulus]

This Age of Derp, Kansas Edition

Menzie Chinn notes the continuing failure of the Kansas experiment with supply-side tax cuts. And yes, it is an experiment — Gov. Brownback said it was, and by cutting taxes radically on the basis of ideology rather than any compelling event, Kansas in effect provided us with a natural experiment on exactly what such cuts accomplish. Menzie uses business indicators; I just look at employment growth since Brownback took office, compared with the nation as a whole (red line). No hint whatsoever of a supply-side boost, and of course a terrible fiscal crisis.

So how will this change GOP economic ideology? You know the answer: not at all.

You do realize it is invalid to compare a regional economy with the national economy as a whole to determine the benefit (or lack thereof) of the tax cuts, I presume?

Also, why is the start date well before the tax cuts were implemented? Cherry picking to make the invalid comparison look even worse, perhaps?

Not only that, but a state that already has lower than average unemployment levels would not be expected to increase employment at the same rate as a region with much higher starting unemployment levels.

That Krugman graph is data cherrypicking in order to mislead at its worst.

Here is a more fair graph to consider:

Show

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

This Age of Derp, Kansas Edition

You do realize it is invalid to compare a regional economy with the national economy as a whole to determine the benefit (or lack thereof) of the tax cuts, I presume?

Also, why is the start date well before the tax cuts were implemented? Cherry picking to make the invalid comparison look even worse, perhaps?

Not only that, but a state that already has lower than average unemployment levels would not be expected to increase employment at the same rate as a region with much higher starting unemployment levels.

That Krugman graph is data cherrypicking in order to mislead at its worst.

Would you like this one better?

 

[Axulus]

You do realize it is invalid to compare a regional economy with the national economy as a whole to determine the benefit (or lack thereof) of the tax cuts, I presume?

Also, why is the start date well before the tax cuts were implemented? Cherry picking to make the invalid comparison look even worse, perhaps?

Not only that, but a state that already has lower than average unemployment levels would not be expected to increase employment at the same rate as a region with much higher starting unemployment levels.

That Krugman graph is data cherrypicking in order to mislead at its worst.

Would you like this one better?
View attachment 3184

What does that graph mean? Why does it start in 2011 when the tax cuts become effective on 1-1-2013?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Would you like this one better?
View attachment 3184

What does that graph mean? Why does it start in 2011 when the tax cuts become effective on 1-1-2013?

Starts in 2011 because that is when Walker and Brownback started their reigns.

Source for the chart

 

[ksen]

This Age of Derp, Kansas Edition

You do realize it is invalid to compare a regional economy with the national economy as a whole to determine the benefit (or lack thereof) of the tax cuts, I presume?

No, why should I realize that? Why is it invalid?

Also, why is the start date well before the tax cuts were implemented? Cherry picking to make the invalid comparison look even worse, perhaps?

Normally when you want to start analyzing if a policy is improving things you need to consider how things were doing before the policy was implemented. Otherwise what's your basis for comparison?

Not only that, but a state that already has lower than average unemployment levels would not be expected to increase employment at the same rate as a region with much higher starting unemployment levels.

That Krugman graph is data cherrypicking in order to mislead at its worst.

Here is a more fair graph to consider:

Show

>"That FRED graph is cherrypicked data!"

>"BTW, here's a fair graph." *posts another FRED graph*

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So how will this change GOP economic ideology? You know the answer: not at all.

You know the answer: not at all.

You know the answer: not at all.

You know the answer: not at all. ​

When do religious adherents ever give up their faith in the face of contradictory evidence?

 

[dismal]

Would you like this one better?
View attachment 3184

What does that graph mean? Why does it start in 2011 when the tax cuts become effective on 1-1-2013?

If you're going to abandon economic theory and attribute all causative force for events across multiple states to these tax cuts why not also assume the tax cuts exerted causation over events even before they existed?

It's only slightly less plausible.

 

[bleubird]

http://www.ktoo.org/2015/06/01/no-budget-july-means-no-ferry-service/
Ok,this not the same thing,but it is still repugs not willing to find solutions.

 

[braces_for_impact]

Well there's THIS.

To Fill Budget Hole, Kansas G.O.P. Considers the Unthinkable: Raising Taxes

 

[ksen]

Well there's THIS.

To Fill Budget Hole, Kansas G.O.P. Considers the Unthinkable: Raising Taxes

From the article:

“There’s definitely waste in the budget,” Senator Dennis Pyle, a Republican, said in an interview. “It’s my goal to not raise taxes. We have to let the private sector breathe and operate as freely as possible because that is the revenue driver.”

So Senator Dennis Pyle, at least, thought that tax cuts would increase tax revenues.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Well there's THIS.

To Fill Budget Hole, Kansas G.O.P. Considers the Unthinkable: Raising Taxes

Yeah, our elephants are finally resorting to the t-word. Unfortunately, they're going about it in the worst possible way--trying to come up with some sort of gross receipts-based business tax. The voters already smacked that one down hard (although there was more wrong with the proposal than just the nature of the tax base) when the teacher's union got it on the ballot.