Charleston Gazette-Mail, Times West Virginian – “Go big or go home.” That was the message from Stephen Moore — an adviser to Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback on his disastrous tax experiment — during a panel promoting tax cuts earlier this week. Alongside him was Grover Norquist, who famously said of the state’s supply-side driven tax cuts, “Kansas is the future. Kansas is the model.”
Read the full op-ed.
So, what happened in Kansas in 2012 and 2013 when the state adopted their recommendations? State revenue fell hundreds of millions of dollars and bond ratings were cut, while the promised economic benefits never materialized. In the five years that followed the tax cuts, jobs in Kansas grew at less than half the national average, business growth trailed the rest of the country, and the Republican-controlled legislature was forced to increase the state’s regressive sales tax before ultimately undoing the disastrous tax cuts altogether.
Inexplicably, the architects of the Kansas tax cut crisis are now being welcomed to West Virginia to spout cliches and discredited economic theories without knowing much at all about our people or our budget needs.
