The red state model is collapsing. Pay attention.
Republicans really have taken the low-taxes-low-services model as far as it can be. It turns out that cutting school to four days a week to pay for tax cuts for the rich doesn't make the economy grow more.
Who could have known!
Who could have known!
The most predictable part of all this is that Republicans, like former Kansas governor Sam Brownback, called this tax-cutting a "real live experiment" ... and then didn't change their minds at all when it failed.
You might even call this an obsolete dogma....
You might even call this an obsolete dogma....
State GOPs are showing us the problems that the national GOP is going to run into soon. States *have* to offset their tax cuts with spending cuts, so there's no hiding that people are losing essential services, like education.
The national GOP hasn't had to deal with this because the federal government can and does run deficits all the time. But it's going to become an issue pretty soon as the Baby Boomers start retiring in bigger numbers and Social Security & Medicare spending go up more.
Republicans would actually have to cut Social Security & Medicare at some point. Now, there are a lot of true believers like Paul Ryan who are itching to do exactly that ... but a lot of other ones know that would mean the end of their political careers.
So Reaganism might only work as long as "starve the beast" is something that's used to justify deficits, not put into action. Which is to say that spending—or rather "spending"—is only unpopular until it's actually being cut.
Read @paulwaldman1 on all of this: "If you commit to never raising taxes for any reason, then you’re almost guaranteed to create an underfunded school system that will struggle to attract and retain good teachers." washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-lin…
