GOP governor implements GOP economics

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While we’ve gotten used to Tea Party primary challenges to popular and seemingly secure Republican incumbents, something unusual is happening in Kansas. Governor Sam Brownback is facing an organized revolt from centrist Republicans, over 100 of whom just endorsed the presumptive Democratic nominee for governor, so disgruntled are they with the effects of Brownback’s rule.

In many ways, Brownback’s term has been a perfect experiment in Republican governance. Take a crusading conservative governor, give him a legislature with Republican super-majorities so he can do pretty much whatever he wants, and let him implement the right’s wish list. The result was supposed to be a nirvana of economic growth and budgetary stability. But the opposite happened.

The disastrous results of Brownback’s economic and fiscal policies demonstrate that it’s one thing for your average Republican to go around saying things like “cutting taxes raises revenue!” even if nearly every economist agrees that the idea is absurd (Greg Mankiw, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under George W. Bush, famously called the purveyors of this idea “charlatans and cranks”). It’ll never really be tested, at least not in a context where there aren’t so many other variables at play that any inconvenient results can be explained away. Republicans know that it’s bogus, but they like the way it sounds; after all, who wouldn’t love a free lunch? But if you bet a single state’s future on the idea — and you have the power to take it to an extreme — you’re going farther than anyone in Washington ever has to go.

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And as usual: It is easier to b!tch than to make it better.....

[Gromdor]

It does make for an interesting economic and social experiment though.

[+OverSword]

In my state the exact opposite is done time and again to negative effect.