Sam Brownback and Scott Walker - two peas in a pod. Two Republican governors keen to do the bidding of the Koch Brothers and turn their respective states into demonstrations of how conservative Republican policies "work".
Or, rather, how they don't, as the jobs data released Friday demonstrates.
First up, Kansas. Reporting from the Kansas City Star:
New, whopping loss of jobs sabotages Gov. Sam Brownback’s tax-cut strategyThe piece goes on to make some other Kansas/Missour comparisons:That giant sucking sound Kansans hear in May was the loss of a whopping 3,800 jobs from the Sunflower State economy.
The monthly employment report released Friday brought especially grim news to Gov. Sam Brownback and all the sycophants who believe in the trickle-down theory.
The news could hardly have been worse for the governor or for Kansans. It came right on the heels of the just-concluded, 113-day legislative session in which the governor claimed his 2012 tax cuts for business owners were bringing more employment to Kansas.
Brownback bullied the Legislature into keeping the income tax reductions, even though some of his Republican colleagues were questioning how well they were working and whether it was fair that some business owners paid no taxes to the state.
And this all occurred in a session where the Legislature — with Brownback’s ardent support — hiked the regressive state sales tax from 6.15 percent to 6.5 percent.
In short, the jobs explosion that Brownback has been championing clearly is not happening.
The state Department of Labor reported that the number of jobs in May was 1.398.5 million, down from 1.402.3 million in April.
By the way, the state of Missouri gained 6,600 jobs in May, and did that without destructive tax cuts.
*In the last year Kansas has gained only 6,500 jobs, a growth rate of only .5 percent.
Missouri has added 22,000 jobs, a growth rate of .8 percent.
*That figure works out to 550 new jobs a month. Brownback's reelection campaign was promising 2,000-a-month.
*Kansas has actually lost a total of 1,100 jobs since reaching the 1.399.6 million mark in October.
Now then: On [to] Wisconsin (did you see what I did there?)
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has produced a nice infographic detailing job growth in Wisconsin during Walker's first term in office, comparing it to its neighbors:
*Michigan 11.4%
*Indiana 9%
*Minnesota 8%
*Ohio 7.7%
*Iowa 6.5%
*Illinois 6%
*Wisconsin 5.7%
So the obvious question is: Why isn't Sam Brownback running for president, too?