Posted on 10/09/2014 6:17:42 AM PDT by cotton1706
Four years ago, Sam Brownback was elected the governor of Kansas in a landslide. Within two years, he was able to elect a conservative majority in the state senate, a goal that had alluded GOP activists for decades. Then Brownback did what he said he would do — cut taxes, reformed education, and opposed Obamacare, earning the praise of many on the right, including Grover Norquist.
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So why is Brownback, facing re-election, now fighting for his political life?
First, it has become a truism that when a Republican governor aggressively takes on the left, he or she will be viciously attacked. Brownback has succeeded in enacting a solid conservative agenda. He eliminated income taxes on small businesses, and reduced income taxes on everyone else. He fought to keep coal as part of electricity generation feedstock. He refused the money and mandates of the Obamacare Medicaid expansion. Combine Brownback’s bold reforms with his longtime reputation as a culture warrior, and you get a tantalizing target for the left.
It’s true also that Brownback’s agenda, much like the national reforms orchestrated by Thatcher or Reagan, will grow Kansas’s economy, but this economic medicine will take time to work. The early news is positive, as more than 50,000 jobs have been added to the state’s economy, and there are actual examples of businesses moving from neighboring Missouri to Kansas, which now has zero business income taxes. But, the governor inherited a terrible budget situation that was exacerbated by irresponsible decisions by his Democrat predecessors, including the infamous Kathleen Sebelius. Brownback took over when Kansas was in a hole, and it will take time for him to dig the state out.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Cannot wait to vote for Brownback. He’s kept his RINOism firmly in check and has done an excellent job.
I’ve been a fan of Brownback for a very long time.
The fact that he is struggling to stay ahead in the polls means that Kansas isn’t as conservative as I thought.
I believe Romney would have done the same as POTUS. We'll never know.
You have to factor in the free publicity the rats get. Every single night, on the local news...and in the short news updates on the radio, we are given a small dose of anti-Brownback propaganda. Every single day, we are given subtle hints that Brownback is borderline evil.
Unless you are paying attention, it can add up in a person’s mind.
Add to it that he in particular has ticked off the teachers. And the teachers complain to their students...and the students complain to their parents...and when the parents meet the teachers, the teachers complain directly to the parents.
He’s become quite a boogeyman...makes me somewhat optimistic about Kansas voters that at least half of us see through the white noise.
Can't say that yet. Not that any such occurrence is my preference.
Go Sam Go!!!
Nor mine but the news this morning showed Romney involved in a bunch of fundraisers and campaign stops.
It’s probably big city liberals trying to drag him down. I would imagine what’s called “flyover country” to be solidly Republican, if not Conservative.
What did Brownback do to anger the teachers in the state?
Did the Spectator really let that slip? In that case, I am eluding to their lack of editing skills.
Took their lunch money?
Exactly what we get in WI with Gov Walker’s enemies. The left is devious as they will try to attack from the right, using old, old tricks. Complaints that the economy isn’t good enough is their favored approach - you just have to step back while you look for something to punch. Nothing the dummies offer is real - it is all pie-in-the-sky. They screw up everything they touch.
I hate it when an otherwise well written argument has a typo in its first paragraph. I blame the editor.
“Within two years, he was able to elect a conservative majority in the state senate, a goal that had alluded GOP activists for decades.”
Alluded. verb: make a more or less disguised reference to.
Eluded. verb: if something eludes you, you do not succeed in achieving it.
“Within two years, he was able to elect a conservative majority in the state senate, a goal that had eluded GOP activists for decades.”
The article doesn’t really mention how much of the Kansas GOPe opposed Brownback’s budget cuts...The establishment pigs want to keep feeding at the gummint trough..
First some background:
Around this nation, teacher unions are waging a war in the courts, state by state. Most state constitutions have some clause in them stating that the people have the right to a ‘suitable education’.
So, the teacher unions take our tax dollars, and use them to pay lawyers and lobbyists to sue the state...because the funding level for education is not ‘suitable’. Eventually they find a judge who orders a minimum level of state funding to be ‘suitable’....eliminating the legislature from the budgeting process and negating the will of the people who vote for the legislature. This happened around 15 years ago in Kansas - and we have a court ordered level of funding.
Brownback ignored it in his budget proposal. We don’t have the money.
So the teacher unions sued again, and got a judge to order him to fund it to the ‘suitable’ level.
Brownback said fine, but then he eliminated teacher tenure in the state :)
And in general he has annoyed all styles of government unions, including teachers. In particular, he has maneuvered to eliminate automatic payroll deduction of union dues. And why not - the government should pay its employees, and let them spend the money as they please. They shouldn’t be a collections arm of the union.
He’s done a lot of good things.
Sounds good to me. I wish I lived in Kansas so I could vote for him.
You've hit one of my pet peeves. The biggest am Talker in the area is WOOD AM in Grand Rapids. They carry Beck, Rush, Hannity, etc. But every half hour, they give us an injection of left wing opium. Don't they know who their audience is? I always turn of the radio at the top and bottom of the hour and don't miss a thing.
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