While the press feeds on the distractions thrown out there by Trump, the consequences of actual Republican policy on everyday Americans continues to be ignored.
Republicans would lose miserably in November if Americans knew how badly Republicans ran their states into the ground, using supply side economics. At the least, conservatives would have to reevaluate or even replace the party's adopted platform completely, which for them would be way too much work.
You've read about the nightmarish Louisiana experiment under Jindal, get ready for the Kansas disaster. The Kansas "real-live experiment," the term used by Gov. Sam Brownback to describe his supply side plan, was supposed to be the template for the nation. Wow. Seth Meyer's delivered the bad news:
Just in case this video is ever removed, here are parts of the transcript:
We look at what Gov. Sam Brownback did to Kansas and his followers are doing in other states like Oklahoma and Louisiana. “In the last few years, Kansas has become somewhat of a laboratory for Conservative Gov. Sam Brownback who cut taxes for the wealthy and completely eliminated income taxes for small businesses. A plan he boldly described this way … ‘Real-live experiment’ is a terrible sales pitch for something. Brownback claimed this plan was ‘designed to show the rest of the country that these policies could work on a national level. He even told the Wall Street Journal in 2013, ‘My focus is to create a red-state model that allows the Republican ticket to say, ‘See we’ve got a different way, and it works.' He also claimed it would work fast calling it a ‘small business accelerator’ where you literally remove all taxes to spur growth.
The problem, we now know, is that it didn’t work. It failed so spectacularly that Kansas’s economy was downgraded by the S&P. Supporters claimed the plan would generate $323 million in new revenue but it actually produced a $688 million loss. They’re so desperate for cash they even auctioned off pornography and sex toys from a company that owed back taxes and whose property they seized.
Brownback claimed his ‘experiment’ needed more time to work and, surprisingly, voters gave him that time. It still didn’t work. It got worse. So, surely, Brownback raised taxes to cover the shortfall. No. There will be no tax increases. Instead, Brownback decided to balance the budget on the backs of the state’s children, slicing off $106 million in funding and moving $50 million from another fund that pays for Head Start and preschool.
The sad thing is that most Kansas taxpayers don’t even want the cuts Brownback made for their businesses. Last week, the Topeka Capitol Journal reported business owners urged Kansas state House members to raise their own taxes. Asking to have the state raise your taxes is unheard of. If even the small business owners of Kansas want their taxes raised, the results of the experiment are in. Republicans want to replicate these policies on a national level, but even when you buy couch cleaner they tell you to try it on a small patch of fabric first and that’s what happened here. Kansas was the small patch of fabric and not only did the cleaner not work the couch exploded.”
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