Red State, Blue State: Kansas & Washington

[swag]

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2015/06/kansasseattle/

We have interesting experiments going on in the state of Kansas and the city of Seattle. Herewith a brief update on both.

. . . the state of Kansas, under Sam Brownback’s awesome tax cuts, recorded the third-worst jobs performance in the country over the past year. Data are easily accessible just by clicking through.

It was almost three years ago – July 2012 – that Brownback touted the awesomeness of his economic plans via an op-ed:
In short, it did none of the above. In fact, faced with the dire consequences of Brownback’s Laffer-inspired, misbegotten plans, Kansas schools had to implement early closures:

“It’s crazy times,” Sanders said. “The ideology in this tax experiment has gone too far. It’s almost as if they’re hell-bent on proving their point, no matter the damage it causes.”

Indeed. The beatings will continue until morale improves.

. . . And yet, amazingly, supply-side trickle down is somehow still a thing. Where is John Oliver when you need him?

Moving on from Kansas to the Emerald City and a different sort of experiment. Let’s see what the data have to say there about their gradually stepped-up minimum wage. Keep in mind that the increase was voted into law over one year ago, and the first bump was enacted a few months ago. (It’s important to note the timing of the legislation’s approval for the following reason: Market participants (which include restaurateurs) act on information immediately, i.e. as soon as it becomes available. In this case, information about an impending rise in wages was known over one year ago.)

. . . more

[HassleCat]

1. Happy I live in WA

Sure, we have Tea Partiers, and we see the confederate flag, and I know a guy who calls the president "the ni88er in chief," but this is a pretty tolerable place. I don't know about Kansas, but I have driven through several times, maybe stopped for gas and coffee. It sounds unpleasant. I get the feeling it would be very tough to be a Democrat there.