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Time for some updates! As you may recall, Kansas had for most of the year struggled and floundered to get its goddamn budget under control after slashing both taxes and spending to the bone and ended up facing a 400 million dollar deficit. Here's a unique insider look at what was going on between the Republican factions and how fiercely they were battling it out (the writer is the nephew of one of the Kansas Republican Legislators): quote:Finally, on June 11, Brownback made a personal appeal, a mixture of abashed pleading and brash threats. At a joint caucus of the House and Senate Republicans, in the chandeliered Old Supreme Court room on the capitol’s third floor, he said that he needed a tax increase by Monday, or he would have to balance the budget on his own, using his veto pen or his statutory authority to make the cuts himself. A line-item veto of the entire operating budget for the state’s six public universities, his budget director noted, would conveniently fill the hole. You guys might also remember the law that Legislators were proposing that would've placed a 25$ limit on ATM welfare money withdrawals , which is stupid on multiple levels (increased ATM fees, logistical difficulties in getting to an ATM, how most ATMs only spit out money in 20$ increments...). Well that plan is dying, thank God. Lagging on job growth? What do you mean? If you only focus on the private sector it's looking pretty not-horrible! I mean public sector jobs aren't even real jobs amirite? quote:Kansas gained 3,600 private-sector jobs during the first six months of 2015 – a growth rate of about 0.3 percent. At this rate, the state would add 7,200 private-sector jobs during the calendar year and a total of 28,800 over four years – about 70,000 less than the number Brownback promised. Also, the jobless rate rose to 4.3% in June while nationally it's been declining gradually.
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Aug 7, 2015 15:37
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It's me, I'm one of those people with a state job (IT for a school district if you're curious) who got laid off as a part of the budget cuts. My position was a 12 month one, so I nominally work over the summer and had about 2 weeks warning before my last day. This mind you, after getting a letter from the superintendent back in May that said everyone's job was safe from budget cuts. Turns out not only was I cut (slashing tech manpower by a third for support on 7 buildings worth of technology) but they also gutted paras by half and sold the kitchen service off to a third party who then cut kitchen staff in half as well. It's all good for me at least for the moment, I now work tech support for a storage company based out of an active salt mine and get paid like 40‰ more than I did with the school and deal with significantly less hassle and drama. DeathSandwich fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Aug 7, 2015 |
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Aug 7, 2015 16:38
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So, by being forced out of your public-sector job, you came out ahead in private-sector employment. The system works!
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Aug 19, 2015 01:01
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Hello Sailor posted:So, by being forced out of your public-sector job, you came out ahead in private-sector employment. The system works! Absolutely! Making sure my massive porn collection is backed up has got to be more important than whatever it was he was doing before.
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Aug 19, 2015 03:35
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Kansas loses jobs while Missouri gains them. Those tax breaks will bring jobs in any day now.
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Aug 22, 2015 05:26
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fknlo posted:Kansas loses jobs while Missouri gains them. I think you'll find that the reason Kansas sucks so hard while it's neighbors are getting better is because they're all free riding off the magic of the Kansas economic miracle. Especially those goddamn potheads to the West.
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Aug 22, 2015 17:40
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Here's a handy chart showing the health of the Kansas economy using an aggregate of economic indicators: Source: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/08/brownback-crash-continues-kansas
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Aug 22, 2015 18:44
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ShadowCatboy posted:Here's a handy chart showing the health of the Kansas economy using an aggregate of economic indicators: Holy poo poo It may not look like much, but for a state's economy to actually decline during a national period of economic growth is mind bogglingly terrible
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Aug 22, 2015 22:48
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Scrub-Niggurath posted:Holy poo poo The same thing happened in Wisconsin after Walker promised more jobs for the state.
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Aug 23, 2015 05:35
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Obviously it means that they didn't cut taxes enough.
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Aug 23, 2015 06:04
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The divine Laffer curve has taken offense at our trespasses and will not bestow us the bounties of faith until the very last public school has been burned to the ground.
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Aug 23, 2015 06:57
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Cut taxes to zero, increase war budget to infinity. We'll get through this eventually. 
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Aug 23, 2015 09:20
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So on all the whole, playing the fiddle while Kansas burns, how do I get out? I haven't had a job before, so I have no real bank of anything, and what I'm more concerned about is trying to get my foot in the door jobwise. How do I just pick up and move and actually live while trying to find a job in somewhere new? Or is it just something something bootstraps I'm hosed no matter what?
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Aug 23, 2015 19:26
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Eimi posted:So on all the whole, playing the fiddle while Kansas burns, how do I get out? I haven't had a job before, so I have no real bank of anything, and what I'm more concerned about is trying to get my foot in the door jobwise. How do I just pick up and move and actually live while trying to find a job in somewhere new? Or is it just something something bootstraps I'm hosed no matter what? Well where in Kansas are ya? It should be easy enough to get a job across a border if you're near a border, as compared to if you're stuck down in the middle.
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Aug 23, 2015 19:28
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Nintendo Kid posted:Well where in Kansas are ya? It should be easy enough to get a job across a border if you're near a border, as compared to if you're stuck down in the middle. Near KC, so I'm near the border enough that hoping over wouldn't be horrible. Granted the training I just finished is for Pharm Tech and I just got the license for Kansas, so I'd have to pony up for a Missourri license if I wanted to work on that side.
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Aug 23, 2015 19:34
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You might want to try working in Kansas for a while if you can. If you don't have the cash or support networks moving is going to be pretty hard.
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Aug 24, 2015 01:00
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Eimi posted:So on all the whole, playing the fiddle while Kansas burns, how do I get out? I haven't had a job before, so I have no real bank of anything, and what I'm more concerned about is trying to get my foot in the door jobwise. How do I just pick up and move and actually live while trying to find a job in somewhere new? Or is it just something something bootstraps I'm hosed no matter what? Des moines is booming, can probably find something here.
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Aug 24, 2015 03:09
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Eimi posted:Near KC, so I'm near the border enough that hoping over wouldn't be horrible. Granted the training I just finished is for Pharm Tech and I just got the license for Kansas, so I'd have to pony up for a Missourri license if I wanted to work on that side. Just keep in mind that you'll get shafted on state taxes a bit if you cross the state line to work. If you're in KC, rent is usually cheaper on Missouri side, too.
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Aug 24, 2015 03:28
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Work where you're at doing what you can, save up some money, then move somewhere nice. It ain't rocket surgery.
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Aug 24, 2015 08:53
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At this point I want Kansas to sink as low as possible so that it becomes impossible to ignore as a massive failure of Republican fiscal policies. It's pretty hilarious to read opinions in pro-business media outlets about how everything is going great, though. http://www.forbes.com/sites/rexsinquefield/2015/05/04/kansas-economic-growth-is-on-the-rebound-look-at-the-real-numbers/ http://www.wsj.com/articles/seeded-with-tax-cuts-kansas-harvests-the-benefits-1431729743
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Aug 24, 2015 09:15
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There's probably a huge perception bias too because Wichita, the biggest city in Kansas got hit by the recession hard then had a robust recovery. If your surroundings go from abandoned strip malls and vacant houses to a brand new river walk and poo poo to do downtown with boutique shopping, it probably won't dawn on you that the economy is going to poo poo.
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Aug 24, 2015 10:43
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Brownback's economic plan is genius. By burning the state to the ground, he's left it nowhere to go but up uP UP!
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Aug 24, 2015 13:49
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There are still going to be legions of people claiming that Kansas has been a massive success story for regressive policies. I'm not entirely sure what arbitrary/meaningless thing they will point out to back up their claim, but I don't think lack of evidence will stop them. The year of our lord two thousand and fifteen.
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Aug 24, 2015 15:26
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No you see, any good things that happened to Kansas are because of the republicans. All the bad things? Obama's fault.
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Aug 24, 2015 17:10
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Well look here, you live in Kansas and you're a good person, aren'tcha? Do you think the good people of Kansas like you would vote someone into power that would do bad? Shucks, even if things didn't go as good as planned I'm sure they meant well. At the very least we can agree on Obummer.
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Aug 26, 2015 07:01
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Eimi posted:Near KC, so I'm near the border enough that hoping over wouldn't be horrible. Granted the training I just finished is for Pharm Tech and I just got the license for Kansas, so I'd have to pony up for a Missourri license if I wanted to work on that side. Just get the Pharm tech job where you live, or look near Overland Park, lots of new jobs opening there and it's the rich area. Honestly, as long as you're not earning under $10 an hour, Kansas isn't a bad place to live. Woe be to you if you get a minimum wage job though. In Education news (Holy crap look at how soulless those eyes are.) Wasn't there a chart that shows something like "if you're making under $24K you'll save $6 a year!" That is by far the funniest drat thing I've ever seen. That's just enough for one whole pack of cigarettes extra a year! Then the cicigarette taxes went up, and nope!
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Aug 26, 2015 15:53
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Anora posted:In Education news (Holy crap look at how soulless those eyes are.) gently caress Brownback seriously. What a loving rear end in a top hat. Hes going to wake a sleeping giant loving with JoCo schools.
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Aug 26, 2015 16:42
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Anora posted:In Education news (Holy crap look at how soulless those eyes are.) 
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Aug 26, 2015 23:14
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You are from a Jesuit university dude. What the hell?
Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 06:39 on Aug 27, 2015 |
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Aug 27, 2015 06:37
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Babylon Astronaut posted:You are from a Jesuit university dude. What the hell? Is it really that surprising?
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Aug 27, 2015 06:50
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Eimi posted:Near KC, so I'm near the border enough that hoping over wouldn't be horrible. Granted the training I just finished is for Pharm Tech and I just got the license for Kansas, so I'd have to pony up for a Missourri license if I wanted to work on that side. You're in the only viable place to find work in Northeastern Kansas, so that's good. I can only recommend that once you get enough money to get the gently caress out of Kansas and move to Missouri or Omaha or Des Moines if you still want that Midwestern lifestyle. I say this as a bloodied escapee from Topeka that's still living hand-to-mouth after moving away. My only solace is "at least I'm not in Topeka."
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Aug 27, 2015 06:58
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Lotka Volterra posted:Is it really that surprising? Aren't the Jesuits notable for generally not being fuckheads?
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Aug 27, 2015 12:59
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Wow, Kansas is doing worse than I expected. I'm sad that a lot of people are going to suffer for badly balanced fiscal policies, but I really hope that enough people see this as a failure of pure Conservative/Libertarian ideology. Unfortuantely, that may not happen. It's looking like they're just going to deflect the blame for failure to all the variables they can't control for.
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Aug 27, 2015 15:45
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SquadronROE posted:Wow, Kansas is doing worse than I expected. I'm sad that a lot of people are going to suffer for badly balanced fiscal policies, but I really hope that enough people see this as a failure of pure Conservative/Libertarian ideology. I moved out of Kansas in September of 2012 while unemployed, at the time they started attempting to collect about $200 in state taxes from me. Of course being unemployed they weren't getting poo poo out of me. Every fall since then I get some kind of notice about me paying that $200 and that they're going to add interest (they never do). Every time I get that notice I'm tempted to poo poo in a box and send it to Brownback. This year I got a robocall informing me that September 1 thru October 15 they'll have amnesty on penalties and interest for unpaid taxes  As far as I'm concerned that shithole of a state isn't getting another cent out of me.
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Aug 27, 2015 17:08
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SquadronROE posted:Wow, Kansas is doing worse than I expected. I'm sad that a lot of people are going to suffer for badly balanced fiscal policies, but I really hope that enough people see this as a failure of pure Conservative/Libertarian ideology. Well the government still exists, so clearly this is a failure of Big Government and only shows we didn't conservative hard enough.
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Aug 27, 2015 17:15
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Iron Crowned posted:As far as I'm concerned that shithole of a state isn't getting another cent out of me. Your federal tax refund will be intercepted to pay off your back Kansas debt.
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Aug 27, 2015 18:19
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VitalSigns posted:Well the government still exists, so clearly this is a failure of Big Government and only shows we didn't conservative hard enough. Literally the only way we'll prove conservative ideology is bad is if we experiment with it in a vacuum. This means that we need to control for EVERY variable. Thankfully we are getting closer to that with drones and automation, so we can take out the human factor.
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Aug 27, 2015 18:21
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I have to wonder in scenarios like this, is the rolling back of the sales-tax exemption on food part of the original plan, or just an easy target for sacrifice when the adults have to make Tough Decisionstm about how we are all gonna have to pitch in?
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Aug 27, 2015 19:17
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There was never an exemption to food in Kansas.
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Aug 27, 2015 19:24
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Pope Guilty posted:Aren't the Jesuits notable for generally not being fuckheads? He's not on faculty there. It's just where he got his MBA from.
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Aug 27, 2015 21:07
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