NPR - Members of Congress might want to familiarize themselves with the story of Kansas' failed tax-cutting experiment as they begin deliberations on President Donald Trump's tax-reform plan.
It could serve as a cautionary tale because some elements of the president's updated proposal mirror pieces of the tax-cut plan that Republican Gov. Sam Brownback pushed through the state legislature in 2012, promising it would deliver a "shot of adrenaline" to the Kansas economy.
It didn't. Instead, revenues crashed, forcing Brownback and lawmakers to resort to spending cuts, borrowing and accounting tricks to maintain a balanced budget.
...William Gale of the centrist Brookings Institution called the Kansas tax cuts "a lab test for how supply side tax cuts may work at the federal level."
Not well, he concluded in a July blog post.
"The Brownback plan aimed to boost the Kansas economy, but instead led to sluggish growth, lower than expected revenues and brutal cuts to government programs," Gale wrote.
...In Kansas, business owners responded by restructuring their companies as limited liability corporations to avoid paying income taxes.
State revenues plummeted by hundreds of millions of dollars and continued to miss projections for several years.
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