Currents
July 2017
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aid subsidies and privatized the delivery of Medicaid,
and he dissolved four state agencies and eliminated
2,000 state jobs. The heart of his program consisted
of drastic tax cuts for the wealthy and eliminating
taxes on income from profits for more than 100,000
Kansas businesses. No other state had gone this far.
He was advised by the godfather of supply-side eco-
nomics himself, the Reagan-era economist Arthur
Laffer, who described the reforms as “a revolution in
a cornfield.”
Brownback had Republican
majorities in Topeka, which
became more decidedly right-
wing after the 2012 elections.
This gave him near-complete
freedom to create a conservative
utopia.
And Republicans cheered him
on. “This is exactly the sort of
thing we want to do here, in
Washington, but can't, at least for
now,” Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell told Brown-
back. Influential conservatives in
Washington even started talking
about him as a promising presi-
dential candidate for 2016.
It did not occur to them that
less than two years later, Brown-
back would be struggling even to
win reelection in a reliably red
state, his party in disarray and his
conservative castle crumbling.”
Not all Republicans were on
board:
“TOPEKA - Gov. Sam Brown-
back on Tuesday described his tax
cuts as a “real live experiment,”
which drew the disapproval of a
group of fellow Republicans.
Appearing on Morning Joe on
MSNBC in New York, Brownback
was interviewed about the recent
tax cuts he signed into law that
will reduce individual rates and
eliminate income taxes for the
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