How Kansas Governor Brownback Schooled Missouri On Tax Cuts, And Showed The Region How To Grow

I am sitting atop a limestone bluff overlooking the Osage River at my home in Folk, Missouri, and it seems as if the only way to get Congress to reform this country’s tax code is to ask for an intervention by the Great and Powerful Oz. But, here in the nation’s heartland, results from an experiment in state income tax policy just might provide other states with a roadmap to real growth.

You may recall from a past Forbes column by me that laid out the landmark legislation signed into law one year ago by the forward thinking Kansas Governor Sam Brownback.  Brownback’s tax plan flattened and simplified the tax code, cut personal income tax rates for most earners from 6.45% to 4.9%, and got rid of small business income taxes.

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Kansas returns health insurance exchange grant

REUTERS, 8/9/2011 by Alina Selyukh (Hat tip: Steve)

• Brings returned grants amount to some $90 million
  
• HHS likely would have to set up Kansas exchange

WASHINGTON - Kansas became on Tuesday the second U.S. state to return a large federal grant meant to help it create a prototype health insurance exchange as part of the Obama administration's healthcare overhaul. ✧ Republican Governor Sam Brownback said the state would give back the $31.5 million it received from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to become an early leader, along with six other states, in establishing health insurance exchanges that other local government could use as a model. Read more at Reuters... Read More......