Now THIS is tough

I can’t recall a time when I saw a headline as forceful as this one directed toward a state’s governor in a major newspaper:

The relentless lies of Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback

The author, Barbara Shelly, enumerates countless instances of what she calls lies on the part of the former Senator and now Governor Brownback.

There’s the $876-in-the-bank lie, which Brownback has repeated in three state-of-the-state addresses, on national broadcasts, in multiple interviews and as recently as a September campaign debate. That’s the one where he inherited a measly $876 in the treasury and through his amazing governance converted it into a $500 million surplus in two years.

Complete hokum. Money was flowing into the state treasury when Brownback took office in January 2011 because his predecessor, Democrat Mark Parkinson, signed into law a one-cent sales tax increase to rescue Kansas from the devastating effects of the 2008 recession. The state had $251 million in its bank account when Brownback was sworn in, and the revenue flow was strong until his income tax cuts kicked in.

There was the “I shrunk government spending by $2 billion” lie, which Brownback enshrined into a power point presentation. The claim was debunked

There’s more, plenty more. If you live in Kansas or have friends or family who do, you might want to forward this column to them before they vote tomorrow. Ms. Shelly pulls no punches at all in her takedown of what she considers Brownback’s failed policies, from supply-side economics to defunding education.

3 Comments

  1. That is a pretty bold statement, considering most people describe him in such a way to say he was, more or less, merely mistaken.

    But, in the face of evidence of failure, he persists… and that is an indication that maybe he’s being dishonest. But also could be that he was simply believing the people who fund him, and is now too proud to admit that didn’t work out. That wouldn’t be a surprising character defect in a politician.
    But I think quite a few people believe that the results are exactly what he and his financial backers and some other supporters wanted. And that no matter how bad things get, they’ll stick to their story because they actually LIKE the bad results.

    At any rate, he makes PA Gov. Tom Corbett look successful. And that’s not easy to do!
    Although I’m not sure Gov. Brownback has stuck his foot in his mouth so spectacularly as Corbett does regularly.

    Though Brownback does seem to have another thing in common with Corbett, in that even constituents of his own party are quite dissatisfied with him.
    I have family in Florida, and the sentiment they hear there is quite the same against Scott.

    But we will see these kinds of comprehensively problematic politicians being in office as long as there are people with priorities that make them want to sell their souls for one issue.

    I say this because for the most part, people in PA seem to me to be very mixed or just moderate in their political opinions.
    But they are often swayed into prioritizing issues that either:
    A) aren’t even going to be possible for the people they elect to address anyhow (abortion)
    B) could actually be better addressed if they supported another issue more aggressively (hiring of undocumented immigrants)
    C) are moot issues because the Democrats & Republicans are either the same or not far away from each other on the issue (gun control)

  2. Seems to me from what little I know of Pa. that those who want decent schools for their or their neighbors’ kids should be voting against Corbett and his fellow Republicans. If you’re in the center of the state you’re likely to be agin’ all them Pitchburgh/Philly politicians, and you don’t care about their kids anyway, right?

  3. I assume those home schooling their kids just don’t care about decent schools.

    People in the south central pa, and in the western part of the state other than Pittsburgh & Erie think everything’s fine, because they claim there’s nothing wrong with their roads or their schools… and that they shouldn’t have to pay toward fixing the roads in the northern tier (north central, aka “upstate pa” or fracking land) nor northeastern pa, Pittsburgh or Philly.
    There’s nothing wrong with their roads because there are no main thoroughfare roads where they live! Unlike the eastern part of the state and Pittsburgh area, where there’s a lot of interstate traffic, which makes for more maintenance being necessary. And the northern tier which is inundated with gas tanker traffic.

    As for who voted for Corbett… I personally know nobody who mentioned that they would be voting for Corbett.
    I know of one person who may have voted for him the first time, but had definitely changed their mind about him after seeing him in person, since they compared him to the Devil character in the Left Behind series.
    Several months ago 2 people spoke in front of me about him. One brought the topic of the governor up, to complain about complaints that had been made about the governor. That person was defending the governor. The other person present said something favourable about the governor, but only to say “at least he kept Obamacare from coming to PA or else employers would have to fire people because of being mandated to provide insurance”…
    I was in a situation where I just had to bite my tongue too, about the many ways that was a completely inaccurate statement!!
    But anyway, as far as people I know or have talked to personally, nobody has ever come out gushing over with praise for Corbett. Most complain about him – and it is a fair bit more complaining than Rendell. (And loads of us complained plenty about Rendell, so that’s saying something.) And then some people have spoken very harshly about Corbett, but in fairness, that was after a few drinks after a union meeting, when a couple of people got to complaining about the Koch brothers.

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