Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Will the Brownback failure in Kansas change any minds?

Here’s the question of the day: How much pain and punishment will voters endure before they realize Republican ideas are rubbish? Unfortunately for the people of Kansas, the answer seems to be “a lot.” Republican Governor Sam Brownback won a tight race last November even after it was clear that his experiment in supply side economics was failing miserably and creating a huge budget deficit.

Today, the deficit stands at $344 million and his answer to this dilemma is to further cut funds for education, syphon off money from the state’s pension program and raid funds for essential infrastructure projects. Oh, and yesterday he took time out from his slash and burn activities to remove gender identity and sexual orientation from the classes of protected Kansas government employees. Busy boy.

Aside from the reality that Brownback is a genuinely horrible human being, the facts in this case seem indisputable; Brownback’s economic experiment is a disaster by every standard and is sucking Kansas into a quagmire of debt. This was already evident last November prior to the elections, yet voters again gave him the green light to savage the state even further. The loyalty of conservatives to their ideological foundations is incredibly strong and will not be shaken by reality. Reality is wrong, they answer through their votes.

How bad will things have to get before the people of Kansas, and the United States, say enough to failed conservative ideology?

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