title:  Kansas Tea Party Governor Gets His A** Handed To Him As Republicans Vote To Reverse Disastrous Tax Cuts
text: It s about time Kansas Republicans saw the light and told Governor Sam Brownback to go f*ck himself.Kansas has been taking a beating because of Brownback s trickle-down economics policy of slashing taxes. And Republicans in the state have finally done something about it.In 2012, Brownback convinced the Republican-controlled state House and Senate to pass massive tax cuts for businesses and wealthy individuals. For the first time, conservatives employed their trickle-down policy over an entire state. And the experiment turned out to be an immediate disaster that has destroyed the state financially to the point where little revenue was coming in, creating an unsustainable budget shortfall of hundreds of millions of dollars that was only going to get worse.Republicans desperately tried to plug the budget hole by cutting education and other programs, which caused a lot of Kansans to suffer. Basically, Republicans refused to admit that their tax policies failed and hoped they could the problem without reversing the tax cuts.Unable to do so, and facing a $348 million shortfall, Republicans in Kansas passed legislation in the House and Senate designed to  raise income tax rates and end a tax exemption for roughly 330,000 business owners.  In other words, Republicans rejected Brownback s tax policy.Brownback, of course, vetoed the legislation. But lawmakers in the Kansas House formally overrode his veto on Wednesday by a huge margin of 85-40. The legislation now heads to the state Senate.If enough state senators have the backbone to stand up to their unpopular governor, revenues will start pouring into government coffers to cover the budget hole he dug and Kansas will avoid future financial ruin.For four years, Republicans denied reality by insisting that tax cuts on businesses and the wealthy somehow generate more revenue and they continue to insist on such a policy at the national level. The problem is that Republican tax policies have only created a skyrocketing national debt and trillion dollar deficits that cannot be filled by slashing things like food stamps, which only accounts for less than 4 percent of federal spending.The fact is that taxes make civilization possible. If we want things like good education, healthcare, roads, food aid, and Social Security, then we need to pay taxes to pay for them. And that includes businesses and the wealthy. Arguing otherwise on their behalf like Republicans have been doing for decades is unpatriotic and un-American. And Kansas  failed experiment proves it.Featured Image: Win McNamee/Getty Images