About Brownback's tax "reform"
Governor Brownback stated that the Kansas tax system should be made fairer. I agree with that. Currently the poorest quintile (20% of the population) pays an average rate of 9.2% in all state taxes. The middle quintile pay 9%, and the top 1% (those making over $424,000 a year) pay only 5.9%. (According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy)
Yet Brownback's idea of making this fairer is to give a 1.55% tax cut to those at the top and a .4% tax increase to those at the bottom.
Instead of allowing the temporary sales tax increase to expire as promised, Brownback would extend it. Probably the other 1% sales tax increase will not be allowed to expire either.
Brownback promises that this will bring prosperity. It might. A future prediction is hard to refute. There is no doubt at all, that it will be a tax break that favors the rich.
As far as prosperity, from 1980 to 2010, per capita income in Texas only grew 318%. That's barely different from Kansas growth rate of 302%. South Dakota, (my home state which also has no state income taxes) only grew by 334%. That's slightly better than Kansas, but SD still only has a per capita income of $33,865 compared to $39,737 in Kansas.
Other higher tax states like Massachusetts grew by 410% and New Jersey grew by 363%, and some states like Alaska and Nevada, which have no state income taxes, only grew by 240%. Nevada currently has 13% unemployment.
During his campaign, Brownback often stated that Kansas should be more like Texas. Yet when I looked it up, Kansas was already better than Texas in almost every category. Kansas has a lower crime rate, a lower poverty rate, a higher graduation rate, and a lower unemployment rate. The poverty rate in Texas is 16.2%, compared to Kansas at 12.5%. The unemployment rate in Texas is 8.1%, compared to Kansas at 6.5%.
If Brownback loves Texas so much, he could always move there instead of trying to drag Kansas down to Texas's level. For myself, Kansas is my home now, and in the words of a fictional Kansan "There's no place like home."
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