The Koch brothers' top toady, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, taking a break from trashing his state's finances.
Data:
Menzie Chinn decided to check out whether conservative pro-growth policies actually led to high growth, and the chart on the right shows the results. Chinn compared scores on the ALEC-Laffer "Economic Outlook" ranking to actual growth in 2013-14 and looked for a trend. There wasn't one. "If there is any evidence," he concludes after a more detailed look at the data, "it suggests that a higher ALEC-Laffer Economic Outlook score is associated with a worse economic performance."
The full calculations can be found
here. More
here. But in short, the left column is the state rankings for economic growth, the bottom one is how closely aligned the state is with the ALEC-conservative agenda, with those to the left being more conservative. So if conservative policy was that conducive for growth, we'd see a nice 45 degree line from the bottom left to top-right. Instead, we see a line slightly heading the
other direction.
So you see Kansas, the wholly owned subsidiary of the Koch Brothers, on the wrong end of those growth rankings? Here's what it means in real life:
Citing a sluggish recovery from the recession, risk inherent in the governor’s tax plan and uncertainty over the Legislature’s ability to keep cutting spending, one of the nation’s two major debt rating agencies downgraded Kansas’ credit rating Thursday.
How about Gov. Chris Christie's New Jersey?
A major Wall Street credit-rating agency downgraded New Jersey’s debt again Thursday, unnerved by "both the scale and belatedness" of an $807 million budget gap disclosed this week by Gov. Chris Christie’s administration.
The action by Fitch Ratings followed a similar ratings cut last month by Standard & Poor’s. Earlier this week, Moody’s Investors Service called the shortfall a "credit negative development," forewarning that yet another downgrade may be coming.
Of course, this isn't a serious Republican Party. They have been wrong about everything, and continue to be wrong about everything. There's a reason they've been relegated to pursuing crazy Benghazi
conspiracy theories ("the talking points were EDITED!"). They've been wrong on the economy. They've been wrong on Obamacare. They're wrong on immigration.
What else do they have when reality refuses to cooperate with their Fox News Bubble of Death?