Here is a cautionary tale for anybody out there who is brain-damaged enough to still be considering voting for Doug Douche-y for Governor. Four years ago, the Tea Party crazies stirred up the Honey Boo-Boo Patriots across the country with the dire warning that “There’s a dusky-skinned fella’ in the White House and he’s tryin’ to keep poor people from dying. We have to stop him.”
It worked, and industrial-strength nutjobs were swept into federal, state and local offices across America. They kept up the constant chorus of trying to keep the underprivileged from getting health care, but, while doing so, they got into all kinds of mischief under the guise of pursuing the purest of conservative ideals. Somewhere, a top-secret council of weasels decided that taxes are evil and the word went out to the minions.
Taxes were attacked like a Peeping Tom being set upon by an unruly mob. The public safety net was dismantled, schools went massively underfunded, and the public infrastructure was left to crumble. But the Affordable Care Act remained intact, so the onslaught continued.
One of the anti-tax crusaders on the front lines was former U.S. Senator from Kansas, Sam Brownback. Having caused enough damage in Washington, D.C., Brownback returned home to run for Governor. He won by a 30-point margin and then immediately set about destroying his state. He slashed personal income taxes and eliminated income taxes on small businesses altogether. Operating on the delusional belief that supply-side economics wasn’t unconditionally discredited 30 years ago, Brownback claimed that doing away with taxes would somehow bring in more tax revenue.
Over the past four years, Brownback has blathered on and on about how Kansas was going to supplant Texas as the top destination for new businesses. (Texas does not have a personal income tax, but it does have one of the highest percentages of crappy, low-paying jobs in America.) He claimed that he was conducting a grand experiment and that all Kansans would benefit.
Well, his experiment blew up like Mentos in a shaken bottle of Diet Coke. Since the implementation of his tax cuts, Kansas has added jobs at a rate slower than that of the rest of the country. The earnings and income of Kansans also lagged behind that of other states and the country as a whole. And, quite embarrassingly, the number of businesses in Kansas grew more slowly in the year after the tax cuts than it had in the year before the tax cuts.
Not surprisingly, tax revenues plummeted. Schools were hit hardest, followed by social services, health care and infrastructure. They raised the state sales tax to help offset some of the revenue loss. (Sales tax is always a regressive tax because it inordinately affects the poor more than the rich.) When that didn’t do the job, they quadrupled down by raising taxes on low-income families to alleviate the budget strain caused by massive tax cuts for the rich.
One of the more surprising results of this fiscal madness was that a not-insignificant number of Republicans in Kansas came out against Brownback’s folly. Some self-described moderate Republicans in the Legislature joined with Democrats to block the initial tax-cut measures. Brownback got all butt-hurt and got his flying monkeys spread out all over Kansas to “purge” the Legislature of those who didn’t goosestep along with his far-right-wing agenda.
Brownback had a couple powerful allies in the purge. The infamous Koch Brothers (who are often identified with North Carolina but are actually based in Wichita, Kansas) looked under their seat cushions and came up with several million dollars to finance challenges from the right. One so-called moderate state senator (who actually voted with Brownback more than 90 percent of the time) got swamped by Koch money. Afterwards, he said that he would usually spend in the neighborhood of $35,000 on his race. His primary (Tea Party) opponent, a political newcomer backed by Koch money, somehow came up with 200 large and ran away with the election.
Somewhat refreshingly, Brownback is trailing in his bid for re-election. The race is tight, but his opponent, Paul Davis (who has the backing of hundreds of top Republicans in the state) holds a narrow lead. If you win your first election by 30 points, you have to screw up big time to risk losing on your second go-round.
There are three kinds of people in this world. There are those who never learn from their own mistakes; those are the drug addicts and criminals. There are those who do eventually learn from their own mistakes. (That’s most of us.) But then there are the blessed few who can actually learn from somebody else’s mistakes and not have to make them.
We, as Arizona voters, with the failed Brownback “experiment” in front of us, have the opportunity to fall into that last category, if only this once. Doug Douche-y has been lionizing Brownback’s approach, even though it hasn’t even a shred of common sense attached to it. He wants to get rid of income and business taxes, knowing full well that the Arizona Constitution requires a super-majority to raise (offsetting) taxes, meaning that it will never happen.
I guarantee that if Arizonans elect that fraudulent ass-clown as governor, we’ll all look back to the embarrassing tenure of Jan Brewer as the good old days.
This article appears in Oct 30 – Nov 5, 2014.
Could you be more specific?
Jan Brewer as the good old days? God help us.
You say there are 3 types of people in this world. Really there are 4, and that fourth category includes the Koch brothers who intend to own every elected politician in this country in order to dictate this country’s direction. We need to vote with our eyes wide open.
Name calling and insults, now this is top flight journalism. I think I will print this article so I have something to wipe my A%$ with.
Let’s see, Doug What’s his name, you mean the no show debater who is sitting on his pile of Koch money in the sure realization that the Arizona dummy will give him his vote. It’s obvious that the half century effort by the Republican party to dumb down the electorate is working. With this election we’ll be able to see how effective the dirt bags have been at their efforts. I just hope that the courts stick to their demand that the state legislature repay the schools all of the money that they stole from the kids through the years. These so called legislators are reminiscent of a father tapping his children’s piggy banks to pay for his smokes.
Mark, bear with them, it’s all they have.
What else are they going to run on? Obummer’s record? I think not.
My aversion to Ducey runs much deeper: his eyes are so close together that he’s difficult to look at.
You’re just prejudiced against morons. They’re people too.
“I guarantee that if Arizonans elect….” You surely mean “…when…” don’t you? This is Arizona. We like to make our OWN mistakes to learn from. Or not, as the case may be.
There is an obvious reason that Texas can get by without an income tax and Kansas can’t – Texas is still producing (and taxing) a lot of oil, and Kansas….isn’t. It’s just like saying “Nevada doesn’t need an income tax, so we don’t either!”, without legalizing gambling in your state.
Just a reminder: In 2012, 63,000 votes went uncounted in Pima county, 631,000 went uncounted state-wide. A record number of people registered as independents, but the counted votes were primarily democrats and republicans. Demand your vote be counted, and elect a new Pima County Recorder in 2016.
10 dislikes already, eh? Truth hurts, don’t it?
Douche-y. Crazies. Nutjobs. Flying monkeys. Ass clowns. And those of us on the right are the uncivil ones. As far as Texas having lots of low paying jobs. I’d rather go to a less than desireable job everyday and earn my own keep than sit on my ass and wait for my check from the Govt. I guess it’s called self-respect.
I called him “Doug Dookie” at first, but Douche-y works just as well. Before Danehy even wrote this, my line for people griping “what good does voting do?” is “a year from now, I do NOT want to be pining for the good ol’ days of Jan Brewer.”
Call him whatever you like. Pretty soon you’ll be calling him Governer.
Good old, and I do mean old, CW13 all butthurt cause we are calling him uncivil. Demoncunts? Atomic asshole? Are these the names a civil person would call someone? I think not. It’s just as well, I have no intention to being civil to assholes that are as uncivil as him.
Atomic asshole, yes. Demoncunts,sorry not me. But I do like it. Besides I never claimed to be civil. It’s you dicks on the left that cornered the civility angle. Since when is being in your early 60’s some kind of crime. I know you’re too stupid to understand this, but please continue to call me asshole, uncivil and any other names you care to. Just like when you fools hit dislike, it makes my day.
I just wish the old dumb white retirees would have to live the principles they barf up. I am one, but I appreciate my pension and social security and Medicare. If right wing old white retirees had to live their believes it’s would be all over. Those libtards and union commies got those pensions, social security and Medicare for you. Remember since the early 1900′ s the right wing has been on the wrong side of EVERY issue in this country, child labor laws, women’s vote, social security (all those Depression era people should have just got off their asses and get a job, rather than those welfare King WPA, CCC jobs), Medicare, Veterans benefits, wage and hour acts, etc, to the end.
And Doug Dum-dum’ s so-called business success should have been done without the taxpayers supporting all the failed Cold Stone franchises via SBA loans. It should have been a rule that when a SBA default occurred the franchise fee should have been refunded, out of Dougie’s success pocket to the US taxpayers.
Pretty bitter eh, Tommy. I’m white,retired and right wing. However, don’t include me in the anti-union crowd. That would make me a hypocrit as every month I get a rather hefty pension check from the International Union of Elevator Constructors for all my years of building high-rise elevators in the Big Apple. When I almost got killed on the job Local One took care of me. Otis gave me dick.
And how do we spell Fife Symington?
AZ and the USA needs to vote overwhelmingly BLUE so we can be rid of the antagonistic, bigoted, chauvinistic Block & Blame Republicans and their exclusionary hateful input for any & all public policy decisions that scrape the backs bloody of people who are not straight but are definitely crooked rich white religious Republicans.
Hang in there and take care, everyone.
All the best,
Warren
Warren G. Richards
Advocate, Socio-political Writer
And how do we spell Fife Symington?
Off your Meds again, Warren?
Anybody else here feeling compassion for CW13?
Such an obviously lonely fellow he is…
Oh woe is me.
Insults are all the left has…their policies have failed to heal the economy.
Hillary is so wrong. Democrats are the only entity that can’t create NON governmental jobs.
So now you know it. Vote accordingly. I don’t need to call anybody names.
DUCEY. DUCEY. DUCEY. READ EM’ AND WEEP GIRLS !!!