Brownback enacting Tea Party agenda in Kansas

Washington Post:

If you want to know what a Tea Party America might look like, there is no place like Kansas. 

In the past year, three state agencies have been abolished and 2,050 jobs have been cut. Funding for schools, social services and the arts have been slashed. The new Republican governor rejected a $31.5 million federal grant for a new health-insurance exchange because he opposes President Obama’s health-care law. And that’s just the small stuff. 

A new “Office of the Repealer” has been created to reduce the number of laws and regulations, and the Repealer is canvassing the state for more cut suggestions. 

In the upcoming legislative session, Gov. Sam Brownback (R) plans to roll out proposals to change the way schools are funded, taxes are levied and state pensions are administered. 

A year after voters vaulted hundreds of tea party candidates to power in Washington and in state capitals, the movement’s goals are being pursued aggressively in states such as Wisconsin, Ohio and Texas. 

But in Kansas, as nowhere else in the country, tea party fervor is reshaping government. The same political forces of the Republican Party driving the confrontation over taxes and spending in Washington are now completely in charge in Kansas. 

The GOP now controls the state’s House of Representatives with the biggest majority in half a century. Emboldened by this power shift, Brownback — the state’s former two-term U.S. senator — has embarked on his overhaul at a breathtaking pace. 

“It’s a revolution in a cornfield,” said Arthur Laffer, the 71-year-old architect of supply-side economic theory and former economic adviser for President Ronald Reagan who is now working with the governor. “Brownback and his whole group there, it’s an amazing thing they’re doing. Truly revolutionary.”

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While the article is long it is short on the impact of the changes, other than the expected grousing from Democrats who would rather spend other peoples money.  The last half of the article seems devoted to the Koch family and their influence on the politics of the state.

Brownback's policies seem similar to those of Rick Perry in Texas where they have been very successful.  Perhaps there will be a follow up article on the success of the policies in Kansas.  Before these changes, Kansas has been steadily losing population.  Some natives joke that the state tree is a telephone poll.