Why do Missouri lawmakers want to copy the Kansas tax-cut disaster?

It wasn’t long ago that Gov. Sam Brownback was feeling pretty good about April.

Bean counters who work for him painted a sunny outlook on the state’s finances. By the end of the month, once the state added up all the money headed its way, proof would emerge that Brownback’s tax-cut plan was working.

Then news came yesterday that Kansas missed revenue projections by $92 million. There aren’t two ways to put it: Kansas revenue figures are ugly. The state has $480 million less at this point in the year than the same time the year before.

Brownback laid the blame at the feet of President Barack Obama’s capital gains tax policy.

“What we are seeing today is the effect of tax increases implemented by the Obama administration that resulted in lower income tax payments and a depressed business environment,” Brownback said in a statement.

Funny how, if that was the entire reason for the state’s budget woes, that the state’s accountants didn’t predict the effect of the capital gains tax earlier in the month. Funnier still is how Brownback’s administration wasn’t praising Obama when the state’s economic future seemed bright.

And what about Missouri, where revenues are increasing over last year? Wouldn’t Obama’s policies crater their budget book, too?

Brownback’s faith-based accounting dictates that when things look good, credit goes to Brownback; when the going gets rough, pass the buck to the White House.

It seems that when Brownback wants to make a lofty statement about the economic direction Kansas is headed toward, the facts muddy up the story. Last year, Brownback hit the road with pronouncements about how much government spending he had cut until the Wichita Eagle showed his calculations were $2 billion off the mark and that he was, in fact, spending more than his Democratic predecessor, Mark Parkinson.

Brownback’s own advisers in March wrote that Kansas is lagging behind neighboring states and the rest of the country in a number of key economic metrics.

So why do a majority of Missouri lawmakers want to follow that path? The Missouri General Assembly passed Senate Bill 509, which in many ways mimics the Kansas tax policy. 

Gov. Jay Nixon thinks the bill is foolish, a position supported by facts and Thursday’s news that Kansas’ bond rating got downgraded in part because revenue cuts haven’t been met cuts in spending.

Nixon vetoed S.B. 509 while in St. Louis on Thursday, a move that was expected.

“Senate Bill 509 is an unfair, unaffordable and dangerous scheme that would defund our schools, weaken our economy, and destabilize the strong foundation of fiscal discipline that we’ve worked so long and hard to build,” Nixon said in a statement.

The measure goes back to the General Assembly, where lawmakers want to try and mount an override of his veto, which has a reasonably realistic chance of happening.