POLITICAL MOJO from Mother Jones 3OKT14

POLITICAL MOJO FROM DAVID CORN, KEVIN DRUM, AND THE NEWS TEAM
MOTHER JONES October 3, 2014 TOP STORY Budget Cuts "Eroded Our Ability to Respond" to Ebola, Says Top Health Official By Gabrielle Canon On Tuesday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the first case of Ebola diagnosed in the United States; the infected patient was a man who traveled from Liberia to visit family in Texas. It's the latest development in the ever-worsening outbreak of the virus, which so far has sickened more than 6,500 people and killed more than 3,000. The United States government has pledged to send help to West Africa to help stop Ebola from spreading—but the main agencies tasked with this aid work say they're hamstrung by budget cuts from the 2013 sequester. [READ MORE] MOST READ How to Throw Shade The Creepy Language Tricks Taco Bell Uses to Fool People Into Eating There This Republican Who Wants to End the Weekend Is Probably Headed to Congress What's the Matter With Sam Brownback? TOP IN SOCIAL MEDIA Top on Facebook: Elizabeth Warren: Democratic Women Need a Seat at the Governing Table No. 2 on Facebook: How to Throw Shade Top on Twitter: The Creepy Language Tricks Taco Bell Uses to Fool People Into Eating There No. 2 on Twitter: Chart: It's Never Been a Better Time to Be Rich	IN OTHER NEWS Meet the Former Bike Executive Who Could Crush Scott Walker's White House Dreams By Andy Kroll These days, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's presidential dreams are hanging by a thread as he battles for reelection against a political neophyte whose only previous electoral campaign was a self-financed 2012 run for the local school board. Why is he vulnerable? Walker devoted his first term to ramming through a chunk of the modern conservative agenda: He limited collective-bargaining rights, slashed taxes on the wealthy, enacted new voter ID requirements, boosted funding for vouchers at the expense of public schools, curtailed abortion access, and weakened environmental protections. Mary Burke, Walker's opponent, is running as a McKinsey moderate, the anti-politician with business savvy who will jump-start the state's economy and heal a divided Wisconsin. She believes her pro-business message can win over those key undecided voters. In a nonpresidential year when turnout could decide the election, Burke's strategy is a gamble—and it just might work. [READ MORE] THIS WEEK'S NEWS ROUNDUP Ebola Patient in Dallas Had Contact With Several Children Ebola made its way to the United States this week, with the bad news that the patient, though he came from Liberia, was released from the hosptial and came into contact with several children. A humanitarian aid worker in Syria got frustrated with ISIS and tweeted the coordinates of one of its bunkers, leading the group to go on the offensive. Protests in Hong Kong has exploded in the last week. And the United States happens to be fighting pirates off the west coast of Africa.  Meanwhile, social conservatives are mad at the GOP for supporting two gay candidates, while Mitt Romney came up with new, crazy excuses for his 47 percent remarks. New Mexico's attorney general is looking into Susana Martinez's missing emails, and police departments across the country told Mother Jones about their (failing) efforts to return surplus military equipment like tanks and grenade launchers to the Pentagon.  [READ MORE] CHART OF THE WEEK: Chart: Half of All Income Goes to the Top 10 Percent [READ MORE] QUOTE OF THE WEEK: GOP Donor: Elect a Republican Sheriff in Case Obama Seizes Dictatorial Power [READ MORE] Become a fan of Kevin Drum on Facebook. Follow Kevin Drum on Twitter Follow David Corn on Twitter
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Kansas Economy Craters, Revenues down 45% as Brownback Blames Obama 1MAI14

 
I remember driving across Kansas one Summer three years ago. It was so hot the air conditioning in the car barely kept the temperature tolerable. When I stopped for gas opening the door was like opening an oven door, the blast of heat and dust from the wind ( always blowing hard) was not the least bit refreshing. The landscape was mostly flat and brown, scorched buy the sun and drought. The one time it did rain, in western Kansas the wind was blowing so hard the rain came down sideways. I was so glad when I crossed into Colorado. This from Daily Kos shows the weather and landscape aren't the only harsh, extreme aspects of life in Kansas, politics are as just as bad. While Kansans have no control over the weather but can only pray for rain and protections from tornadoes, I do not understand how they can continue to believe the lies, deception and propaganda of the right wing repiglican / tea-bagger extremist controlling their state. Gov sam brownback, with his gop / tea-bagger controlled state assemby, is leading them straight to fiscal hell, and Kansans are letting it happen, blinded by racism and their voluntary ignorance. Check this out, and let it be a warning for other states considering the Kansas "economic miracle".....

In a March 10 interview on Fox, Governor Brownback told the nation about the wonders that were taking place in Kansas.   He cited the reduction of taxes in Kansas as being key to helping the economic engine continue to run.
http://video.foxnews.com/...
Brownback discusses how Kansas tax plan and continued tax reduction would help the Kansas economy grow.
Why Just last Fall, Forbes Magazine called Brownbacks plan a way to 'take the region to school'
http://www.forbes.com/...

I am sitting atop a limestone bluff overlooking the Osage River at my home in Folk, Missouri, and it seems as if the only way to get Congress to reform this country’s tax code is to ask for an intervention by the Great and Powerful Oz. But, here in the nation’s heartland, results from an experiment in state income tax policy just might provide other states with a roadmap to real growth. You may recall from a past Forbes column by me that laid out the landmark legislation signed into law one year ago by the forward thinking Kansas Governor Sam Brownback.  Brownback’s tax plan flattened and simplified the tax code, cut personal income tax rates for most earners from 6.45% to 4.9%, and got rid of small business income taxes.

Why, Kansas economy is humming like a bird according to Forbes!  Job Creation!  Tax Growth!  The state could be rolling in money! So, you have to imagine some of the shock and dismay Republicans feel today as the sales tax returns start showing that for all the praise they might be wrong.

So, when the May 1 report on Sales & Income tax returns came in, someone should have been surprised:

TOPEKA — Tax revenue in April dropped 45 percent from a year ago, the Kansas Department of Revenue announced Wednesday. The state’s revenue for the year is $92.9 million less than projected earlier this month.
The unexpected news weighed heavily on a joint committee of senators and House members who worked late into the night, trying to hammer out a budget in a wrap-up session that started Wednesday.
“It’s certainly impacting decisions. I mean any decision that would have included more spending is out the window obviously,” said Sen. Ty Masterson, R-Andover.
The state has taken in $480 million less overall than it had by this point in the last fiscal year.
The governor and other Republican leaders attributed the April drop to federal tax changes. Democrats called that claim ridiculous and said the revenue numbers showed the governor’s tax cuts are unsustainable.

http://www.kansas.com/... That's right.   Kansas is on track for a nearly 1.3B tax shortfall this year, and in April we endured an unprecedented income drop of over 45%.  That's right.  The state economy lost 45% of its tax income.
But maybe Kansas isn't the only state experiencing the problem.  Maybe it's the whole region.
https://www.moodys.com/...

The downgrade reflects Kansas' relatively sluggish recovery compared with its peers, the use of non-recurring measures to balance the budget, revenue reductions (resulting from tax cuts) which have not been fully offset by recurring spending cuts, and an underfunded retirement system for which the state is not making actuarially required contributions. In recent years the state has appropriated funds from or shifted costs to the State Highway Fund to help balance the general fund budget. The phasing in of increasing income tax cuts, along with rising pension costs, will continue to exert pressure on the budget.

Whoops.  Kansas job revenue market grew at a slower rate then nearby states (like Missouri) and Kansas revenue estimates led to Moodys downgrading state bonds, increasing the cost to borrow. Despite the analysis from outside agencies that other states are performing significantly better than Kansas in equal economic situations and that Kansas tax policy led to the downgrade of Kansas Debt, Governor Brownback issued this statement today:

“What we are seeing today is the effect of tax increases implemented by the Obama administration that resulted in lower income tax payments and a depressed business environment,” Gov. Sam Brownback said in a statement.

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/... Apparently, Obama's policies just want to hurt Kansas more than ... anywhere else I suppose.   We just must be in that Obama is out to get us vortex for Moody to make the analysis that others are not suffering this kind of economic crater effect.
Kansas Republicans have a plan for this though.   Today, they began debating ending the Mortgage Filing Fee, a tax of .26 cents for every 100 dollars financed that goes back to county offices to use for emergency funds.
Because we all know, with a drop of 45% in expected revenue, there is no way they will ever need emergency funds for basic services.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/01/1296248/-Kansas-Sales-Economy-Craters-Revenues-down-45-as-Brownback-Blames-Obama?detail=email 

How evil will a Republican be to deny a poor person health care? This evil. 22APR14

verse of the day

For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light- for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.
- Ephesians 5:8-10

voice of the day

“God has identified himself with the hungry, the sick, the naked, the homeless; hunger not only for bread, but for love, for care, to be somebody to someone; nakedness, not for clothing only, but nakedness of that compassion that very few people give to the unknown; homelessness, not only just for a shelter made from stone but for that homelessness that comes from having no one to call your own.”
- Mother Teresa 
ALL these Christian politicians are bragging about the way they are fighting Obamacare and Medicaid expansion. The sick and poor, children and elderly are being left without health insurance and health care. I have to wonder what Jesus thinks about these politicians and their supporters?????
Joan McCarter

Dozens wait the night for free medical treatment. Just what Republican like to see.

Back in February, news broke of Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal's efforts to make sure that no governor of Georgia could ever decide to take Medicaid expansion, giving the legislature veto power over any future governor's decision to do so. But it's not just Deal. Kansas's Gov. Sam Brownback (R) is doing it too.

Georgia and Kansas have left a combined 487,000 residents uncovered under Obamacare because they refused to expand Medicaid. And, though the law remains unpopular, a recent poll found that majorities of Georgians (54 percent) and Kansans (55 percent) support Medicaid expansion.

One of the architects of the Affordable Care Act, Jonathon Gruber, told Harold Pollack that the Republican resistance to Medicaid expansion—leaving nearly 5 million people deliberately out of the system—is "almost awesome in its evilness." With Deal and Brownback, I think we can get rid of that "almost" qualifier.

Originally posted to Joan McCarter on Tue Apr 22, 2014 at 03:24 PM PDT.

Also republished by Obamacare Saves Lives and Daily Kos. 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/22/1293881/-How-evil-will-a-Republican-be-to-deny-a-poor-person-health-care-This-evil?detail=email