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The new “red-state model” seeks to turn your state into Mississippi.
The GOP has plans for a comeback. But it may cost you a lot. The idea is to capitalize on recent Republican state takeovers to conduct an austerity experiment known as the new “red-state model” and prove that faulty policies can be turned into gold.
We already have a red-state model, and it’s called Mississippi. Or Texas. Or any number of states characterized by low public investment, worker abuse, environmental degradation, educational backwardness, high rates of unwanted pregnancy, poor health, and so on.
In Kansas, the Wall Street Journal reports that Governor Sam Brownback is aiming to up his profile “by turning Kansas into what he calls Exhibit A for how sharp cuts in taxes and government spending can generate jobs, wean residents off public aid and spur economic growth.” In remarks quoted in the same article, Brownback announced that "My focus is to create a red-state model that allows the Republican ticket to say, 'See, we've got a different way, and it works.’ "
Brownback’s economic inspiration is Reagan-era supply-side economist Arthur Laffer and the folks at Americans for Prosperity, the conservative outfit backed by the deep coffers of the Koch brothers.
This new austerity talk focused on “fiscal innovations” is emboldening Republicans in other states that have been gerrymandered into submission to the GOP, including Indiana, Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, and alas, my home state of North Carolina.
In North Carolina, where the two-party House vote was 51 percent Democratic, 49 percent Republican, the average simulated delegation was seven Democrats and six Republicans. The actual outcome? Four Democrats, nine Republicans — a split that occurred in less than 1 percent of simulations. If districts were drawn fairly, this lopsided discrepancy would hardly ever occur."
the GOP red-state model is based, first and foremost, on efforts to flagrantly disregard the will of the people.
NC state senator Bob Rucho is pushing a plan to eliminate the state's income taxes altogether. Such plans go hand-in-hand with calls for increasing the sales tax. Because low-income people pay a higher proportion of their income in sales taxes, abolishing income taxes and raising sales taxes shoves tax burdens onto them. Obviously, the Republicans will not give up on their passionate desire to cut taxes on the wealthy and stick it to the poor and the middle class.
The GOP economic plans not only subvert common sense and the lessons of history (being played out right now in places like the U.K., where austerity has failed dramatically), they also flip a giant middle finger at the American voter. Unable to win support at the national level for their foolhardy economic programs, Republicans have turned their attention to state-level action because that’s where gerrymandering really works wonders.
Slashing taxes, squeezing workers and throwing out environmental protections can indeed lure businesses to states where they won’t have to pay their fair share and can get away with all sorts of abuse
is a headlong race-to-the-bottom whereby the states losing business will be pressured to slash their taxes and burden their workers and ordinary citizens, too. Nobody wins in that game -- except the 1 percent.
The blue-state model, evident in high-income states like Massachusetts, has long been associated with high levels of state investments in education, transportation and other public goods. And guess what? It's also associated with economic strength. The red-state model, on the other hand, is linked to backwardness, second-rate educational systems and economic weakness.
http://www.alternet.org/economy/gop-...t=2&paging=off
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your contribs are right up there with TBand other extreme, ideological right wingers.
Your retort right up there with alternet and other extreme, ideological left wingers.your contribs are right up there with TB
lol coward.
TB
You don't even have a case, coward. You cut and paste from a ty, no-content blog from your confirmation bias feed.
lol coward.
TBYou don't even have a case, coward. You cut and paste from a ty, no-content blog from your confirmation bias feed.
lol coward.
boutons_deux you such a lib .
red state model working well in Texas imho
Broken schools and testing system, crumbling infrastructure and inefficient electrical grid, inferior social services for the working poor, elderly, retired...
Just Peachy!
Hows that blue state model working in Cali?
it's not a blue state model, it's anti-gov right-wingers putting up no-tax referendums for decades, and super-majority legislative requirement constipating financial bills.
CA is superior to TX economically in many ways, eg: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP, and it's not because CA doesn't have millions of brown and black moochers.
If you look at exports by state, TX exporting is dominated by oil, oil products, oil machinery, while oil is only 5th export for CA. iow, TX is basically an oil exporter while CA has moved non-oil sectors ahead of their oil sector (which will explode if CA can figure out how to get at Monterey shale which is 4x bigger than Bakken).
As opposed to the blue state model having all that plus no jobs and no budget surplus
Broken schools and testing system, crumbling infrastructure and inefficient electrical grid, inferior social services for the working poor, elderly, retired...
Just Peachy!
No budget surplus? California is straight up broke.
If the Bakken was centered in CA, they would still be on the exploratory stage.
Yup. The Goodhair Election Campaign Plan has really worked out swell. But the testing systems isn't entirely a state prob.
Broken schools and testing system, crumbling infrastructure and inefficient electrical grid, inferior social services for the working poor, elderly, retired...
Just Peachy!
The big picture is that Repug states are cutting taxes, increasing tax expenditures, on business and wealthy, and increasing taxes on what the Repugs trash as moochers/takers/47%.
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