It appears that Republicans are finally getting the message: middle class economics works.
At least eight Republican governors have ventured into this once forbidden territory: There are proposals for raising the sales tax in Michigan, a tax on e-cigarettes in Utah, and gas taxes in South Carolina and South Dakota, to name a few. In Arizona, the new Republican governor has put off, in the face of a $1 billion budget shortfall, a campaign promise to eliminate the unpopular income tax there.
But why?
Still, the shift is striking, and it comes in the wake of problems that Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas, a Republican, suffered after pushing though sharp cuts in business and income taxes. Governor Brownback, who found himself in an unexpectedly tough race for re-election in part because of a budget deficit fueled by the tax cuts, recently called for raising cigarette and liquor taxes and slowing planned reductions in the income tax rate to help reduce the shortfall.
By most accounts, the proposals emerging from state Republican lawmakers seem like acts of pragmatism rather than shifts in philosophy for the Republican Party.
Pragmatism indeed.
Speaking of pragmatism, it looks like Scott Walker could sure use some. If only he had embrace the now proven to be enormously successful economic policies of Mark Dayton here in Minnesota. Perhaps Wisconsin would have then been named the best state in the country.
12 comments:
Brownback's problem wasn't just reduced taxes - he had proposed spending cuts too that his fellow Republicans in the legislature wouldn't enact (after all, there is NOTHING. LEFT. TO. CUT. according to liberals). It is utterly impossible to stop spending because the world will FUCKING end if govt doesn't spend every possible dollar it possibly can.
And which state has the largest percentage of its population living in poverty?
Not Texas, Florida or Wisconsin. Nope, not Mississippi either or Oklahoma or Louisiana.
True blue California. That wonder of one-party rule under the enlightened leadership of LA and SF liberals.
What other economic indicators support your assertion that California is as bad off as you say it is?
The worst poverty rate in the country isn't enough?
How about terrible income inequality (7th worst in the country)? Just ahead of Texas but behind DC and NY. California is well on its way to being the France of this side of the Atlantic.
Let's see some sources.
You're fond of wiki as a source... (see how lazy you are)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_poverty_rate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_Gini_coefficient
Now, following form you are going to argue about the source rather than the substance. Or are you going to surprise me?
So, let's be clear about this...you are asserting that the reason for California's high poverty rate and inequality are due to liberals and their policies, correct?
I freely admit that I don't know that much about California's economy as say, someone like you who has lived there. So, what should I do when I read something like this?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/oct/04/california-failing-state-debt
And then this, five years later
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/10/us-usa-california-budget-idUSKBN0FF2G520140710
State Controller John Chiang said on Thursday that California wrapped up June with a positive cash balance of $1.9 billion. This suggests the state has reached a stable financial foothold with enough money in its day-to-day operations budget to meet obligations without borrowing from other state funds or from Wall Street.
Or this...
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ucla-economic-forecast-20140911-story.html
The recovery in Los Angeles, although it has quickened in the last two years, continues to trail the state and nation because the city and county economies plunged more deeply during the recession.
It seems to me that California's problems were largely caused by conservative economic policies started under Bill Clinton and continued under George W Bush. They were hit harder by the recession because the housing bubble fiasco originate in California (CNBC's House Of Cards).
What about this?
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article2604184.html
Dire predictions about jobs being destroyed spread across California in 2012 as voters debated whether to enact the sales and, for those near the top of the income ladder, stiff income tax increases in Proposition 30. Million-dollar-plus earners face a 3 percentage-point increase on each additional dollar.
“It hurts small business and kills jobs,” warned the Sacramento Taxpayers Association, the National Federation of Independent Business/California, and Joel Fox, president of the Small Business Action Committee.
So what happened after voters approved the tax increases, which took effect at the start of 2013?
Last year California added 410,418 jobs, an increase of 2.8 percent over 2012, significantly better than the 1.8 percent national increase in jobs.
California is home to 12 percent of Americans, but last year it accounted for 17.5 percent of new jobs, Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows.
America has more than 3,100 counties and what demographers call county equivalents. Eleven California counties, including Sacramento, accounted for almost 1 in every 7 new jobs in the U.S. last year. .
Why did you leave all this information out of your analysis, juris?
More homeless camps are appearing beyond downtown L.A.'s skid row, apparently thanks to California's burgeoning economy.
It's be nice if that op-ed actually cited some references for the numbers he claims. Simply saying "BLS" is a Markadelphian way of making verifying those numbers an experience in pain trying to navigate a large, complex site with many different tables of numbers and trying to figure out, "Which one(s) did he use?" It's not obvious, and what I could find didn't match what he claimed. I assume that's because I didn't find the precise thing he was looking at, but blindly trusting partisan op-eds is like trusting Bill Clinton not to that thing in your mouth that he promised he would do. I'm not that trusting, but I'm sure Markadelphia and Nikto know exactly what I'm talking about.
you are asserting that the reason for California's high poverty rate and inequality are due to liberals and their policies, correct?
No, I am asserting that liberal policies have certainly done nothing to ameliorate those conditions.
t seems to me that California's problems were largely caused by conservative economic policies started under Bill Clinton and continued under George W Bush
LMAO, nice try. Very desperate and transparent, but you didn't have much to work with.
...which took effect at the start of 2013?
Funny how things that you like have immediate effects and things you don't take decades. Do you feel like you won now? I hope so because I know how important that is to you.
trusting Bill Clinton (or Barack Obamanot to dothat thing in your mouth that he promised he wouldn't do.
Then again, that would just make you love them more, like the little Lewinksiite you are.
No, I am asserting that liberal policies have certainly done nothing to ameliorate those conditions.
So, the facts presented above aren't proof that they have improved the situation?
It doesn't look like much when plotted visually: Senate net jobs chart
From the BLS we get a table showing that California added a net 320,300 jobs in 2014. However, that's just 12.6% of the 2,541,100 jobs added nationwide. Honestly, without citations of actual data, his descriptive numbers seem about as trustworthy as any used car dealer's. He sounds like a political "booster".
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