That’s funny - it’s far from a rare comparison.
Regards,
Shodan
So to summarize: Brownback, a Republican lunatic who’s driven the state’s economy so far into the ground that even a group of moderate Republicans were supporting the Democratic candidate, won re-election. And the reason he won was that he used the massive funding he was getting from wealthy conservative donors and their front groups – the Koch brothers have been supporting Brownback for a decade – to flood the media with ridiculous fear-mongering attack ads and avoid the real issues of his disastrous governance, and a clueless electorate fell for it like a ton of bricks. And they will no doubt pay the price of their ignorance for many more years to come.
Fortunately, this kind of mindless dirty politics of fear, devoid of content or rationality and dominated by moneyed interests to propel a Republican idiot into power has never happened before, anywhere, and will probably never happen again, ever! :rolleyes:
I think the Fox News crowd also likes to equate the federal budget to the typical household budget. The economic principles are apparently identical. 
Brownback and the Republicans saved Kansas from the Ebambola Virus, a virulent form of hemorrhoid fever.
Question: is there any legal reason that they can’t just privatize Kansas, and sell it to the Koch Brothers?
One of those “they broke it, they bought it” deals?
Geography per se doesn’t. But it doesn’t make much sense to compare Kansas, whose economy is most based on energy, agriculture and aerospace, to New York State, whose economy is based on (dependent on, in fact) financial services. It does make sense to compare it to Colorado, which has heavy energy, agriculture and aerospace interests. Or Missouri (same). Or Oklahoma, Nebraska, and so on.
This Slate article sums things up nicely.
Any more questions, ITR champion?
Sounds good to me. Since the Kochs already run the place according to their sacred libertarian principles, after Kansas disintegrates into complete bankruptcy they should own all its liabilities. 
What makes Nebraska, Iowa, or Oklahoma any more a “peer” of Kansas than any other state? For any pair of states, there are similarities and differences. Oklahoma has had amazing economic growth in the past few years. While Oklahomans certainly benefit from a relatively high level of economic freedom, the enormous growth of the energy industry thanks to hydraulic fracturing helps that state as well. Kansas does not have the same benefits.
Looking at the Mercatus Center’s rankings of freedoms, Nebraska seems to be slightly more free than Kansas in the areas of fiscal and regulatory freedom. Contrary to what you might think if you got your news from Slate or the New York Times, Kansas did not make its tax rates the lowest in the nation.
That’s the goofiest cite I’ve seen in weeks.
Well, there you go! That right there, that’s as empirical as all git out!
We should look into what the Timecube guy has to say about Kansas’ economy.
Contrary to your implication, I never got the impression that Kansas had lowered its taxes to the lowest in the country. Those outlets only pointed out that it had lowered them enough to provide a genuine test ground to dispove the laughable Laffer claims–something it appears to be doing very well.
And those states mentioned have more similarities and fewer differences than states on either coast. That’s what makes them our peers: those are the states most like us.
Um, Kansas has a pretty good sized energy industry too, including both fracking and wind. What makes you think we don’t get the benefits? (along with the not-so-beneficial features, such as a 4.8 earthquake yesterday 
)
It’s not that Kansas made its tax rates the lowest in the nation; it’s that Kansas went to a grossly inequitable tax distribution that isn’t bringing in enough money to keep funding everything that needs funding in the state.
Kansas is a big sprawling state. For example, we have 140,000 miles of highways; that’s more than New York (114K), although they have nearly seven times as many residents. Those highways don’t maintain themselves. It costs money to keep the potholes fixed and the snow plows running. Where’s that money supposed to come from, if not from taxpayers? What happens to the highways when the money doesn’t come?
The single largest item in the state budget is the public schools. Our state supreme court last year ruled the school funding system unconstitutional, because the legislature had failed in its duty to make adequate provision for the schools. If school funding was constitutionally inadequate before, it’s not likely to be adequate in the face of massive budget cuts, but those cuts are coming.
The state has bills. The state does not have enough money to pay those bills. That makes investors nervous (which is why the bond rating went down). Why should that not be seen as a problem?
(Note, too, that the revenue estimates have been declining for some time. Brownback said his tax plan would revitalize the state; now we’ve got budget deficits stretching as far as the eye can see, even as most of us in the lower- to middle-income brackets haven’t seen any great tax savings anyway, AND we’re not seeing the kinds of economic growth our peer states are.
The ones that make up odd claims about “freedom” that don’t seem to have any genuine bearing on the real world?
One of the primary claims for that “ranking” is that more of (their claims for) “freedoms” will result in more people moving into “freer” states and out of “less free” states. Yet, aside from North Dakota, with a population boom driven my new petroleum exploration, none of their “most free” states are actually attracting any significant population growth. In 2013, New Hampshire, that they tout so heavily, has only a bit more than a third of New York’s growth since the 2010 census. In fact, New York is only a rounding error different than Kansas.
Aside from the various “measurements” of freedom that I found ludicrous, they appear to be failing their own prognoses. meh
I was the one who provided the Slate link. No where in that link does it claim that KS made its tax rates the lowest in the nation. Or did I miss something?
Is this a joke? You honestly don’t see what makes Nebraska more of a peer of Kansas than say, Oregon, Florida, or Rhode Island? And surely you must be joking with your cite.
Honestly, I think you’re thread has shown the exact opposite of what you wanted to. Kansas has blown a gigantic hole in its budget and doesn’t seem to be reaping any benefits.
Because those States are nothing like Kansas? Since the 1980s all of Kansas’s neighbors have significantly outgrown it. Long before Sam Brownback and during a period when Kansas was expanding both taxes and its welfare State.
Kansas is fundamentally very different than those other States. Several of those States have benefited from robust agricultural growth and robust shale oil and gas. Neither of those has particularly helped Kansas.
Kansas is stereotypically a farm State, but was/is actually much more dependent on manufacturing. Tons of major factories existed in Kansas particularly in the aerospace industry. Many have closed in the past 30 years, each time making Kansas worse off economically. Some have relocated to States like Oklahoma which magnify Kansas woes versus its neighbors. Again, this is all pre-Brownback and pre-tax cuts.
The liberal narrative was that conservatism destroyed Kansas. The actual facts on the ground are far different, a lot of things destroyed Kansas well before any taxes we cut. Brownback actually proposed a balanced budget, Senate Republicans forced in special interest carve-outs assuming he wouldn’t sign a budget with a deficit (he did.)
Since then school funding in Kansas is at an all time high, job growth has surpassed the rate of job growth in both Iowa and Nebraska, and many other States (for years Kansas was in the bottom ten States for growth.)
It’s not all been roses but what you have here is a State in a generational economic decline where liberals saw some facts they could manipulate to score political points.
If we can’t compare Kansas to those states, which states can we compare it to?
Base state aid per pupil, FY 2009: $4400
Base state aid per pupil, FY 2015: $3852
Total state aid per weighted full-time enrollment, FY 2009: $5084 (actual)
Total state aid per weighted full-time enrollment, FY 2015: $4845 (governor’s recommendation)
(Those latter two come directly from page 116 of the Governor’s 2014 Budget Report, v. 1)
You were saying again?
Oddly enough, the Kansas Dept of Agriculture says that agriculture is the single largest economic driver in the state, accounting for 37 percent of the state’s economy.