By SJ Otto
We are finally rid of Governor Sam Brownback. We do have a Republican
governor, Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer and he may be as bad as Sam Brownback—but there
is a chance that he is an improvement, and it wouldn’t take a lot to be an
improvement over the governor.
Brownback barely won re-election and in the six years he has reigned
over Kansas, he has cause massive damage to our educational system, brought a
massive deficit and flooded the state with unnecessary far to the right, conservative
policies.
Brownback admitted he was running an experiment in Kansas and that experiment
has failed and failed miserably. He slashed taxes for wealthy businesses, and
as most conservatives he tried to balance the budget on the backs of working
people. Kansas's
budget has for years resembled a wallet with a hole in it—every time the
state's bookkeepers peek
inside, they find less
money than the government
thought would be there. He took a lot of money out of our education system as
if it had no value.
Brownback treated poor Kansans as if they were some kind of enemy. He
has slashed the welfare system until it barely exists at all. He has come up
with some of the most draconian and humiliating rules for public assistance
that have ever been conceived.
He has refused to take part in any part of the Obamacare and he
actually sent back federal funding for that program, which cost the Kansas taxpayer’s
money and services that were already paid for. He refused to increase Medicaid spending
for poor people and that has caused a lot of poor people to die from lack of
health care needlessly.
It will take years to fix all the damage this man has done to our
state. His leaving is a welcome breath of fresh air. He is going off as an
ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom around the world for
President Donald Trump. Brownback’s selection was criticized by Equality
Kansas, the state’s leading LGBT rights group that has repeatedly clashed
with Brownback on the issue of religious freedom.
“Governor Brownback is unsuited to
represent American values of freedom, liberty and justice, whether at home or
abroad,” said Tom Witt, the group’s executive director. “His use of religion is little different than that of a
bully wielding a club. His goal is not to use religion as a way to expand
freedom, but to use a narrow, bigoted interpretation of religion to deny
freedom to his fellow citizens.”
Brownback leaves as one of the most unpopular governors in the history
of Kansas. And he deserves that.
Good Bye and Good Riddance!
Pix by Adventures of a Curly Girl.
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