An excerpt from the Wichita Eagle blogs, published in today's paper:

An editorial in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal headlined "What's Right With Kansas" praised Gov. Sam Brownback for calling the bluff of GOP tax-cut opponents and "signing the biggest tax cut in Kansas history," declaring that in contrast to the fiscal actions in France and Washington, "some enlightenment reigns in the American heartland." The editorial concluded: "Low tax rates aren't the only policy needed for growth, and Kansas would be better off had Senate Republicans agreed to reduce loopholes while cutting rates. But the tax cut will force state politicians to restrain spending, and above all it sends a signal to businesses and taxpayers that Kansas wants more of both." The editorial made no mention of the schools and social services that will bear the damaging brunt of the restrained spending. The Wall Street Journal editorial board has singled out Brownback for praise repeatedly this year.

Even before Rupert Murdoch bought up the Wall Street Journal, the editorial page there could be depended on to relish any policy that might help make the rich richer, regardless of its impact on everyone else. In the 1980s they championed Arthur Laffer's supply side doodles. In a pointed reminder of how reigning public thought has refused to learn anything from the repeated economic debacles of conservative rule, Brownback used state funds to hire Laffer to propagandize his tax cut scheme.

The tax cut is projected to almost immediately throw the state into deficit, which the "starve the beast" devotees will insist on meeting with spending cuts. Given how severely education and public works have already been cut, it's not clear where more cuts are going to come from. (Jails? Police? Only real way to cut that would be to legalize marijuana, which doesn't seem to be on the agenda although it's not totally off the radar.) But one thing that should be obvious is that growth isn't in the cards. One good thing about state spending is the money gets spent (and multiplied) in-state. But tax cuts for the rich don't result in more local spending. The main beneficiaries are guys like Phil Ruffin, who puts most of his money into Las Vegas.

Of course, that's a level of detail that the Wall Street Journal could care less about. They're happy as long as the rich get richer, and if in the process government in Kansas becomes dysfunctional, no skin off their teeth.