The security clearance of any officer or employee of the federal government who has exercised extreme carelessness in the handling of classified information shall be revoked.” — Senate Bill 3135, co-sponsored last year (to shame Hillary Clinton) by 16 Republican senators: Cory Gardner, John Cornyn, Shelley Moore Capito, Tim Scott, James Risch, Pat Roberts, Dean Heller, Kelly Ayotte, John Barrasso, David Perdue, Johnny Isakson, Thom Tillis, John Thune, David Vitter, Mike Rounds and James Inhofe
“Those who mishandled classified info have had their sec clearances revoked, lost their jobs, faced fines, & even been sent to prison.”
— Reince Priebus, tweet, July 6, 2016
Republicans Keep Repeating the Same Tax Mistake
For budget wonks, the saga of the Kansas budget will be reminiscent of the Reagan years, when supply-side tax cuts resulted in big deficits. The administration had hoped that the tax cuts could be paid for by a combination of faster economic growth unleashed by lower marginal rates, and the infamous “magic asterisk” (in which unidentified spending cuts were promised, details to come later).
.. Reagan was forced to do another tax reform a few years later, hiding the fact that he was increasing taxes by cutting marginal rates but doing away with the generous exemptions that had dramatically lessened what people actually paid. Nonetheless, it took two more tax hikes — under Bush the First, and Clinton — to get the budget into some semblance of structural balance.
The answer is, I think, that a lot of Republicans have a view of how taxes affect labor markets that is simple, intuitive, and wrong.
.. Many of you will recognize that I am describing the famous Laffer curve. And the Laffer curve is absolutely right — for some effective tax rates. It has not, however, turned out to be correct for the tax rates actually prevailing in the United States during the later postwar era. Relatively modest decreases from modest tax levels do not increase economic growth enough to offset the losses from the lower tax rate, at least not in the short or medium term. In fact, they may not increase economic growth at all.
.. People who expected great things from tax cuts were essentially hoping that labor supply was very elastic
.. Yes, as your hourly wage rises, each additional hour of leisure is more costly in terms of other stuff you could buy. On the other hand, it’s also more enjoyable.
.. If you have a yacht and can afford to cruise around the world staying in fine resorts, each hour of leisure lost is more painful.
.. I haven’t even gotten into complex effects, like the fact that many high-income, high-status people like working.
.. most of what happens in the economy will end up being determined by other factors,
- such as regulation,
- technological change,
- demographics,
- and the individual decisions made by millions of people about what they want to do with their lives.
Sam Brownback Calls on Donald Trump to Mimic His Kansas Tax Plan
Controversial measure hasn’t led to the growth the governor had forecast for the Sunflower state
Sam Brownback, the Kansas governor whose tax cuts brought him political turmoil, recurring budget holes and sparse evidence of economic success, has a message for President-elect Donald Trump: Do what I did.In 2013, Mr. Brownback set out to create a lean, business-friendly government in his state that other Republicans could replicate. He now faces a $350 million deficit when the Kansas legislature convenes in January and projections of a larger one in 2018. The state’s economy is flat and his party is fractured... About half of pass-through business income in the U.S. is earned by the top 1% of households,
.. Mr. Brownback’s policy gave businesses an incentive to come to Kansas. But it also gave existing businesses a big tax break—or a reason to restructure to avoid paying taxes—without creating any new jobs.
.. In Washington, the Kansas idea—preferential business tax rates—is part of the Republican plan for the biggest federal tax overhaul in 30 years.
.. “They had many more owners of small businesses than they expected, because it doesn’t take much to reorganize yourself.”
.. At least 330,000 entities used the zero rate, more than 70% above projections.
.. The cuts have done little to jump-start Kansas’ economy overall—with growth for this year projected to be flat, compared with 2% GDP growth nationally. Ratings firm Standard & Poor’s twice downgraded Kansas’ bond ratings.
.. Those cuts contributed to dismal approval ratings for Mr. Brownback. He’s the country’s least popular governor, according to a 2016 MorningConsult survey.
The Republican Party Must Answer for What It Did to Kansas and Louisiana
Wouldn’t it be important for those candidates to explain why their program wouldn’t fail the country in the same way it had failed the Green Mountain State? If you think yes, then you should demand that Donald Trump, John Kasich, and Ted Cruz explain why their tax policies won’t fail America in the same way they’ve failed the people of Kansas.
.. In 2010, the tea-party wave put Sam Brownback into the Sunflower State’s governor’s mansion and Republican majorities in both houses of its legislature. Together, they implemented the conservative movement’s blueprint for Utopia: They passed massive tax breaks for the wealthy and repealed all income taxes on more than 100,000 businesses. They tightened welfare requirements, privatized the delivery of Medicaid, cut $200 million from the education budget, eliminated four state agencies and 2,000 government employees. In 2012, Brownback helped replace the few remaining moderate Republicans in the legislature with conservative true believers. The following January, after signing the largest tax cut in Kansas history, Brownback told the Wall Street Journal, “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.’ ”
.. The Koch-backed Kansas Policy Institute predicted that Brownback’s 2013 tax plan would generate $323 million in new revenue. During its first full year in operation, the plan produced a $688 million loss. Meanwhile, Kansas’s job growth actually trailed that of its neighboring states. With that nearly $700 million deficit, the state had bought itself a 1.1 percent increase in jobs, just below Missouri’s 1.5 percent and Colorado’s 3.3.
.. This data is not lost on the people of Kansas — as of November, Brownback’s approval rating was 26 percent, the lowest of any governor in the United States.
.. Leaving aside the low bar the Texas senator sets for himself — my giveaway to the one percent will cost a bit less than the Iraq War! — Cruz only stays beneath $1 trillion when you employ the kind of “dynamic scoring” that has consistently underestimated the costs of tax cuts in Kansas. Under a conventional analysis, the bill runs well over $3 trillion, with 44 percent of that lost money accruing to the one percent. John Kasich’s tax plan includes cutting the top marginal rate by more than ten percent along with a similar cut to the rates on capital gains and business taxes.