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More context on Kansas economic policy: "Kansas has made national news with its fiscal policy in 2013–14. The state’s tax cuts were large, but we show that the

by Empact 9y ago

More context on Kansas economic policy: "Kansas has made national news with its fiscal policy in 2013–14. The state’s tax cuts were large, but we show that their projected outcome brings Kansas’s state-level tax burden only slightly below the national average (5.0 percent of income), while its local tax burden (4.1 percent of income) is a little above the national average. Kansans have little choice among local governments: only one jurisdiction for every 200 square miles across the state. The state spends much less than average on business subsidies, but government employment is much higher than average (15.0 percent of private employment). Government debt peaked at 24 percent of income in 2008 and is now down to about 21 percent." https://www.freedominthe50states.org/overall/kansas https://www.freedominthe50states.org/overall/kansas

gumby 9y ago
That link is from the Cato institute.
- digitalzombie 9y ago
  Reason why this is important is the Cato institute is funded by the Koch brothers and they were the ones that push for those Tax reforms in Kansas. Their headquarters is in Kansas. So it's may just be suspect and an alternative source would be better.
  - Noseshine 9y ago
    Reason why this is not important is if your only path of attack is through the "who did it" path and you have nothing whatsoever to say about the actual content, maybe you should base your attack on more solid ground. Should be easy: OP gave us facts to verify, not an opinion. If his facts are indeed facts you will need more than merely point to the Koch brothers, regardless of their well-known agenda.
    - Steko 9y ago
      Context is important because the number of true facts we can spout about the economy of Kansas is legion and its highly likely a propaganda shop has cherry picked the ones they deliver. Sadly, OPs linked claims don't tell us anything about Kansas' performance under these tax cuts which is really what matters since the point of the tax cuts was to supercharge growth. Did that happen? I'm going to say no: http://econbrowser.com/archives/2016/10/the-kansas-economy-three-pictures http://econbrowser.com/archives/2016/10/the-kansas-economy-t... http://econbrowser.com/archives/2016/12/trends-in-kansas-gdp http://econbrowser.com/archives/2016/12/trends-in-kansas-gdp Predictive value of conservative "freedom" rankings: http://econbrowser.com/archives/2015/07/the-information-content-of-the-alec-laffer-moore-williams-economic-outlook-ranking http://econbrowser.com/archives/2015/07/the-information-cont... Commentary on Kansas budget by former Kansas Republican Budget Director (former for both): http://www.kansasbudget.com/ http://www.kansasbudget.com/
      - jessaustin 9y ago
        ...the point of the tax cuts was to supercharge growth. No, the point is that we subjects get to keep more of the resources for which we work. Any primarily agricultural state would have had trouble "supercharging growth" over that period. Also Kansas sucks, so it's perfectly possible that "tax cuts" were implemented as direct handouts to the Koch brothers, which of course I wouldn't defend. The general idea of tax cuts is fine, though. b^)
        MarchHare 9y ago
        The tax cuts were sold with the phrase, "supercharge growth". So yeah, that kinda was a bit of the point.
        atqtion 9y ago
        You're technically correct, I think -- the actual point isn't to super-charge growth. But without massive spending cuts, you need supercharged growth to offset lost revenue. The premise of Kansas-style tax policy -- which coincides in spirit with Trump's proposed tax policy -- is that you can avoid massive spending cuts by supercharging growth. Without that premise, these tax policies would be much more difficult to push through. Because they'd have to admit massive deficit spending, or else come pre-packaged with huge cuts to popular services. So, the end goal isn't necessarily to supercharge growth, but the promise to supercharge growth is a huge aspect of what makes these tax plans politically viable.
  - brownbat 9y ago
    Fair, though if someone's just listing numbers that are easy to check, the content's probably less biased than the emphasis. Worth checking anyway, because it's any single source. If you look at property and vehicle taxes, they're a little above average: https://wallethub.com/edu/best-worst-states-to-be-a-taxpayer/2416/#detailed https://wallethub.com/edu/best-worst-states-to-be-a-taxpayer... From the same site, income taxes are a little below average but not zero. Sales taxes are decidedly higher than average (in part due to local taxes): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_Stat... I'd prefer a more progressive mix that deemphasizes sales taxes in favor of income taxes. But most stories describe this as some kind of suicide pact. That seems somewhat extreme. Yes, there was a budget crunch after this, but the same budget crunch was felt in similar states without tax policy changes, most likely driven by lingering impacts of the great recession and changes in federal tax policy. Al Franken had a great line about media bias in Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. He said everyone thinks the media is biased towards right or left when it's really just biased towards calamity and sensationalism. Cato is right-wing, but the rest of the world is trying to sell you papers. Caveat emptor either way. EDIT: Hmm, tried to provide a balanced reply with more neutral sources with a level tone. Downvote was a good reminder that Politics is the Mindkiller.
  - cookiecaper 9y ago
    I would think that the Cato Institute indicating that the tax reforms had little effect would make the argument more credible. Their bias is to be in favor of tax cuts.
    - mikeyouse 9y ago
      Parse it more closely; they're not arguing that the tax reforms had little effect on the state, they're arguing that they had little effect on the tax burden at the state level. Their only metric for measuring success is whether or not taxes are lower -- which is fine since they're a partisan advocacy group, but real humans live there too and they have to live with all of the impacts that Cato doesn't concern themselves with.

by Empact 9y ago

gumby 9y ago

That link is from the Cato institute.

digitalzombie 9y ago
Reason why this is important is the Cato institute is funded by the Koch brothers and they were the ones that push for those Tax reforms in Kansas. Their headquarters is in Kansas. So it's may just be suspect and an alternative source would be better.
- Noseshine 9y ago
  Reason why this is not important is if your only path of attack is through the "who did it" path and you have nothing whatsoever to say about the actual content, maybe you should base your attack on more solid ground. Should be easy: OP gave us facts to verify, not an opinion. If his facts are indeed facts you will need more than merely point to the Koch brothers, regardless of their well-known agenda.
  - Steko 9y ago
    Context is important because the number of true facts we can spout about the economy of Kansas is legion and its highly likely a propaganda shop has cherry picked the ones they deliver. Sadly, OPs linked claims don't tell us anything about Kansas' performance under these tax cuts which is really what matters since the point of the tax cuts was to supercharge growth. Did that happen? I'm going to say no: http://econbrowser.com/archives/2016/10/the-kansas-economy-three-pictures http://econbrowser.com/archives/2016/10/the-kansas-economy-t... http://econbrowser.com/archives/2016/12/trends-in-kansas-gdp http://econbrowser.com/archives/2016/12/trends-in-kansas-gdp Predictive value of conservative "freedom" rankings: http://econbrowser.com/archives/2015/07/the-information-content-of-the-alec-laffer-moore-williams-economic-outlook-ranking http://econbrowser.com/archives/2015/07/the-information-cont... Commentary on Kansas budget by former Kansas Republican Budget Director (former for both): http://www.kansasbudget.com/ http://www.kansasbudget.com/
    - jessaustin 9y ago
      ...the point of the tax cuts was to supercharge growth. No, the point is that we subjects get to keep more of the resources for which we work. Any primarily agricultural state would have had trouble "supercharging growth" over that period. Also Kansas sucks, so it's perfectly possible that "tax cuts" were implemented as direct handouts to the Koch brothers, which of course I wouldn't defend. The general idea of tax cuts is fine, though. b^)
      - MarchHare 9y ago
        The tax cuts were sold with the phrase, "supercharge growth". So yeah, that kinda was a bit of the point.
      - atqtion 9y ago
        You're technically correct, I think -- the actual point isn't to super-charge growth. But without massive spending cuts, you need supercharged growth to offset lost revenue. The premise of Kansas-style tax policy -- which coincides in spirit with Trump's proposed tax policy -- is that you can avoid massive spending cuts by supercharging growth. Without that premise, these tax policies would be much more difficult to push through. Because they'd have to admit massive deficit spending, or else come pre-packaged with huge cuts to popular services. So, the end goal isn't necessarily to supercharge growth, but the promise to supercharge growth is a huge aspect of what makes these tax plans politically viable.
- brownbat 9y ago
  Fair, though if someone's just listing numbers that are easy to check, the content's probably less biased than the emphasis. Worth checking anyway, because it's any single source. If you look at property and vehicle taxes, they're a little above average: https://wallethub.com/edu/best-worst-states-to-be-a-taxpayer/2416/#detailed https://wallethub.com/edu/best-worst-states-to-be-a-taxpayer... From the same site, income taxes are a little below average but not zero. Sales taxes are decidedly higher than average (in part due to local taxes): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_Stat... I'd prefer a more progressive mix that deemphasizes sales taxes in favor of income taxes. But most stories describe this as some kind of suicide pact. That seems somewhat extreme. Yes, there was a budget crunch after this, but the same budget crunch was felt in similar states without tax policy changes, most likely driven by lingering impacts of the great recession and changes in federal tax policy. Al Franken had a great line about media bias in Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. He said everyone thinks the media is biased towards right or left when it's really just biased towards calamity and sensationalism. Cato is right-wing, but the rest of the world is trying to sell you papers. Caveat emptor either way. EDIT: Hmm, tried to provide a balanced reply with more neutral sources with a level tone. Downvote was a good reminder that Politics is the Mindkiller.
- cookiecaper 9y ago
  I would think that the Cato Institute indicating that the tax reforms had little effect would make the argument more credible. Their bias is to be in favor of tax cuts.
  - mikeyouse 9y ago
    Parse it more closely; they're not arguing that the tax reforms had little effect on the state, they're arguing that they had little effect on the tax burden at the state level. Their only metric for measuring success is whether or not taxes are lower -- which is fine since they're a partisan advocacy group, but real humans live there too and they have to live with all of the impacts that Cato doesn't concern themselves with.