Sam Brownback took office as Kansas’ chief executive more than three years ago, promising a conservative revolution. By all accounts he has kept his promise.
Mr.
Brownback, 57, has overseen the largest income tax cuts in state
history, an expansion of gun rights, restrictions on abortion, sharply
reduced welfare rolls, increased voter-registration scrutiny and a
paring of state government bureaucracy. To accomplish his goals, he
helped push the Republican-majority Legislature further to the right by
working to oust moderate Republicans, deepening a longstanding rift
within the state’s G.O.P.
“We believe this is a strategy that builds a strong state in the future on the red state model,” Mr. Brownback said in an interview in his Capitol office here.
The red state model?
As Ezra Klein pointed out a few years ago (and as many others have since), with the exception of oil-rich Texas, red states generally receive more in federal spending than its residents pay to the federal government in taxes. In other words, according to the map below taxpayers in blue states are subsidizing those in red states.
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