Not a Bug in the System but a Feature
Posted on March 14, 2016
It is high time to recognize that the Brownbackian destruction of Kansas’s credit rating is not a bug. It is a feature.
Actually, it is emerging as a central feature.
In the “starve the beast” strategy, it is not enough to merely reduce the tax base to the point where services viewed by the majority can no longer be maintained. Instead, it is necessary to:
1. create a huge debt so that future tax increases will go to debt service rather than government service, and
2. destroy Kansas credit rating so that we cannot take out loans for infrastructure and the the like.
From University of Kansas Political Science Professor, Burdett Loomis:
Although I agree that these effects are real and continuing, I’m loath to conclude they are all intended. That gives Brownback and his allies way too much credit. A lot of their actions simply reflect short-term scrambling. Still, overall they do want to shrink government. But the intentional story implies competence, which I don’t buy.
Basically, they have a broad ideology, and antagonism toward government, and substantial majorities in both chambers of the Legislature. So they don’t have to aim very carefully. And have you talked to many of these legislators? Though some are calculating, a lot are just blunderbusses, continuing to go off. Still, ALEC, Americans for Prosperity, etc. can and do take them by the hand.