Yael Abouhalkah: New Kansas Jobs Report Universally Bad: "Lather, rinse, repeat: The Kansas jobs numbers out on Friday morning for September are bad, bad, bad, bad and bad... (Live from the Kansas Republicans' Self-Made Brownback Gehenna)
...Brownback’s recent tour touting his 2012 income tax cuts as a ray of “sunshine” for the state’s employment market is a total sham.... Bad: Kansas had 600 fewer jobs in September than in August. Bad: The Sunflower State had 2,100 fewer private sector jobs in September than in August. Bad: The unemployment rate went up again to 4.4 percent, from 4.3 percent in August. Bad: Over the last year, Kansas had the 6th worst jobs “growth” rate in the entire nation, at minus 0.4 percent. That equals a loss of 5,900 in total employment. Bad: Kansas has now gained a grand total of 500 jobs in the entire 20 months of Brownback’s second term — in which he had pledged to add 2,000 jobs every single month.
That’s right. Instead of having about 40,000 newly employed people in that time, Kansas has 500....
The numbers have been exasperatingly low for months. Kansas has been in the bottom 10 of national jobs growth for most of the last 18 months.... Yes, Kansans are used to seeing this kind of dismal information and shaking their heads at it. It all wouldn’t be so galling if Brownback would just fess up and admit that the state has big problems, starting with the excessive and reckless tax cuts he championed four years ago. Instead, he barges forward on some kind of hollow victory tour, oblivious to the economic problems he has created for the Sunflower State. It’s yet another reason voters need to send more moderate Republicans and Democrats to the Legislature on Nov. 8.
