Politics Seeded With Tax Cuts, Kansas Harvests the Benefits

[Denny Crane]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/seeded-with-tax-cuts-kansas-harvests-the-benefits-1431729743

Unemployment has dropped to 4.2% from 5.5% in 2013, and wages and job growth are steadily climbing.

Liberals love to hate Sam Brownback, and for good reason. The Kansas governor threatens a central tenet of liberal orthodoxy: the belief that higher taxes are a price that must be paid for progress.

“If your objective is to grow the economy, would you rather put more money into government, or leave it in the hands of small business?” Mr. Brownback asks during a recent interview in his office at the state capitol. Three years ago Kansas enacted the biggest tax cut of any state, relative to the size of its economy, in recent history. Lawmakers reduced the top rate on the personal income tax to 4.9% from 6.45%. They also eliminated the income tax for small business owners who file as individuals, a broad group that includes sole proprietors, limited liability partnerships and S-corporations.

The governor declared that Kansas was “open for business” in such strong terms that he might as well have donned a sandwich board reading “Come to Kansas / Keep Everything You Earn.” He boasted: “Our new pro-growth tax policy will be like a shot of adrenaline into the heart of the Kansas economy.”

The comment was subsequently picked up by critics who wondered why the Kansas economy wasn’t suddenly leaping ahead at, say, 4%-5% growth annually. When Mr. Brownback ran for re-election last year, national reporters descended on the Sunflower State and quickly made Kansas the national symbol for the alleged depredations of “trickle-down economics.” A sampling of headlines includes: “How Tea Party tax cuts are turning Kansas into a smoking ruin,” L.A. Times, July 9; “Kansas’ Ruinous Tax Cuts,” the New York Times, July 13; and “The Great Kansas Tea Party Disaster,” Rolling Stone, Oct. 23.

Yet voters re-elected Mr. Brownback by a four-point margin. What the news coverage missed was that if Kansas hasn’t exactly catapulted into the front ranks in economic growth and employment, then it has at least moved a long way from the stagnation of recent decades. Consider:

• In March 2013, unemployment in Kansas stood at 5.5%. It has since dropped to 4.2%, tied for 14th lowest in the country.

• From 1998-2012, Kansas ranked 38th in private-sector job growth, according Bureau of Labor Statistics data crunched by the Kansas Policy Institute. In 2013—the first year after the tax reform—the state climbed to 27th place, and in 2014 it moved to 21st, placing it in the top half of states.

• In the second half of 2014, hourly wages in Kansas grew 3.5%, according to BLS data, far faster than the national average of 1.9%.

 

[Denny Crane]

Krugman is a fool.

 

[donkiez]

I suppose if you want to ignore the $400 million budget deficit and if you want to cherry pick your stats, then you can prematurely claim victory based on one article. The real situation there isn't as rosy and will probably lead to an increase of sales tax to meet the shortfall, even though it was just recently rejected. Another budget balance technique I read that is being considered is to increase existing tax on health maintenance organizations to allow Kansas to draw on more Federal funds. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news...king-up-bill-to-hike-sales-tax-to-f/?page=all



http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2015/apr/25/fact-checking-brownbacks-claims-economy/

Fact-checking Brownback’s claims on the economy: Only part of story being told

TOPEKA — Two competing views about the state of the Kansas economy emerged last week when state budget officials released their new forecast about state tax collections.

On one side, independent economists who took part in the process predicted the state’s economy would grow at a much slower pace than they had previously forecast.

“The Kansas economy appears to be growing somewhat slower than the nation as a whole,” said Ranney Gilliland, head of the Legislature’s nonpartisan Research Department, citing estimates that had come from the economists.

Overall, he reported, real personal income in Kansas is now predicted to grow 3.4 percent during 2015, down from the 4.2 percent growth rate the group had forecast back in November.

And the overall state economy, measured by the “gross state product,” or GSP, is expected to grow 2.3 percent this year, down from the 2.5 percent growth predicted earlier.

Those predictions factored into the revised revenue forecast, which now shows the state in an estimated $400 million budget hole.

But Gov. Sam Brownback’s budget director, Shawn Sullivan, painted a rosier picture.

“There are kind of two things I want to point out,” he said during a press briefing about the new forecasts. “The first is, we believe there are positive trends in the private-sector economy, and those are things we’ve seen over the last few months.”

Specifically, he pointed to employment growth, which he said was stronger in the first quarter of 2015 than it was during the same period a year earlier.

“There were 17,200 jobs that were added from January through March 2015 compared to January through March 2014, so that appears to be heading in the right direction,” Sullivan said.

“The second positive indicator is with wage trends with Kansas workers,” he said. “We’ve been at above 2.5 percent growth since the summer of 2014, which places us above our regional border states.”

But a review of economic data for Kansas from the U.S. Department of Labor shows the administration’s claims are only partly true and are based on figures that show only part of the overall picture.

Employment growth


Photo by Peter Hancock

Kansas private-sector employment, Jan. 2013 - March 2015.

Brownback's press secretary, Eileen Hawley, said the figure of 17,200 new jobs referred to private-sector job growth from January 2014 through March 2015. But the Journal-World could not find any set of data, either on the state or federal Labor Department websites, to support that figure, and Hawley wasn't immediately able to provide the source for that number.

However, numbers from the Kansas Department of Labor's monthly labor market reports do support the claim that job growth during the first quarter of 2015 was slightly stronger than a year earlier, when growth was relatively flat.

But those numbers routinely fluctuate from month to month, so different conclusions can be drawn simply by choosing different starting and stopping points on the time line. For example, while the preliminary number for March is higher than it was in January, it is still well below December 2014, which was the high mark for the last two years.

Overall, though, private-sector employment in Kansas has been on a generally upward trend for the last couple of years.

But private-sector employment is only one part of the total labor market, and according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, total employment in Kansas grew only 1.1 percent over the last 12 months, which ranks Kansas 40th in the nation during that period.

Also missing from Sullivan’s description was any description of the types of jobs being added.

According to BLS figures, the largest growth was in the low-wage “leisure and hospitality” industry, which added 5,300 jobs, or 4.35 percent. Construction jobs grew by about 1,800 jobs, or nearly 3 percent.

Other key sectors of the labor market shed jobs over the year. Manufacturing fell by 1,100 jobs, or about 0.7 percent, and government service, which was down 700 jobs, or about 0.3 percent.

Wages and income

Speaking to reporters last week, Sullivan cited a 2.5 percent growth in wages in Kansas since the summer of 2014.

According to BLS information, that statement is accurate. The average hourly wage for a Kansas worker in March was $22.59, up 2.5 percent from the March 2014 wage of $22.03 per hour.

Nationally, average wages rose only 2.1 percent, to $24.86 an hour during that same period.

But hourly wages are only one measure of how individuals are faring in the labor market. BLS defines that number as a worker’s, “straight-time wage rate or, for workers not paid on an hourly basis, straight-time earnings divided by the corresponding hours.”

In making their new estimates of state revenue, however, economists on the Consensus Revenue Estimating Group looked at a broader measure of earnings, “personal income,” which takes into account other types of income including earnings from investments, rents and royalties, and business income.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Economic Analysis, personal income in Kansas grew 2.9 percent last year, well below the national rate of 3.9 percent, ranking Kansas 42nd in the nation.

In November, the university economists who serve on the Consensus Revenue Estimating Group had predicted that personal income would grow 4.2 percent during 2015. Last week, they revised that downward to 3.4 percent, which would still be higher than the 2014 growth rate.

The three university economics professors, from Kansas University, Kansas State University and Wichita State University, who participate in the consensus estimating group historically have refused to speak publicly about the process they use in making their predictions.

The estimating group meets behind closed doors, usually twice a year, to analyze economic trends in the state and project what total revenues will be for the current fiscal year and the next year. By law, their numbers must be used as the basis for the budget that the governor submits to the Legislature as well as the final appropriations bill the Legislature passes in the spring.

 

[Denny Crane]

They need to cut $400M in spending.

 

[Denny Crane]

Cherry picking.

Unemployment decline, job growth up, wages up. Good things to cherry pick.

Also this:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rexsinq...x-cuts-making-kansas-a-more-prosperous-state/

State Department of Revenue Secretary, Nick Jordanreported this week that while total March tax receipts were $11.2 million below what was expected, individual income tax receipts were $8.7 million higher than expectation. Jordan stated, “While the monthly receipts show a temporary shortfall, sales and use tax receipts for the fiscal year to date are $40 million more than during first nine months of the prior fiscal year. I’m pleased to see individual income tax receipts $8.7million above what we expected, driven in part by strong employment growth.”

 

[donkiez]

Cherry picking.

Unemployment decline, job growth up, wages up. Good things to cherry pick.

Also this:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rexsinq...x-cuts-making-kansas-a-more-prosperous-state/

State Department of Revenue Secretary, Nick Jordanreported this week that while total March tax receipts were $11.2 million below what was expected, individual income tax receipts were $8.7 million higher than expectation. Jordan stated, “While the monthly receipts show a temporary shortfall, sales and use tax receipts for the fiscal year to date are $40 million more than during first nine months of the prior fiscal year. I’m pleased to see individual income tax receipts $8.7million above what we expected, driven in part by strong employment growth.”

depends on what time periods and what qualifiers you are looking at. Your article makes it sound awesome, mine makes it sound desperate and both numbers are right depending on your perspective.

 

[Denny Crane]

You really need to look at the before and after.

Brownback was reelected even though Democrats were widely panning the tax cuts as a miserable failure. At the time, unemployment was much higher, budget deficit much worse, etc. They were touting the state's performance in relation to neighboring states. All those things are no longer true.

It takes a while to undo all the damage done by the previous tax&spend policies. We saw that in the 80s with Reagan's tax cuts - the recession he inherited got worse before it got way better.

What's going on in Kansas is similar. It's already showing signs of economy taking off.

 

[barfo]

Denny, let's revisit this in ten or twenty years. My bet is that at that point, Kansas will still be Kansas. That is, a place with very little economic activity for a fundamental reason. No one wants to live there.

Would you move to Kansas, Denny, even if they eliminated all state and local taxes entirely?

barfo

 

[Denny Crane]

Denny, let's revisit this in ten or twenty years. My bet is that at that point, Kansas will still be Kansas. That is, a place with very little economic activity for a fundamental reason. No one wants to live there.

Would you move to Kansas, Denny, even if they eliminated all state and local taxes entirely?

barfo

Kansas state government has $7.5B in revenues, so it's not that little economic activity.

 

[MarAzul]

Denny, let's revisit this in ten or twenty years. My bet is that at that point, Kansas will still be Kansas. That is, a place with very little economic activity for a fundamental reason. No one wants to live there.

Would you move to Kansas, Denny, even if they eliminated all state and local taxes entirely?

barfo

Ha! Whether you want to live there or not has little bearing on what is a workable tax policy. I don't want to live there either so I don't, the railroad police ran me out of the state. But that has nothing to do with tax policy either, but both the railroad police (Union) and prior tax policy of the State have much to do with why the Santa Fe railroad went bankrupt, headquartered in that state.

 

[MARIS61]

Hmmm...this article tells a completely different story.

The Kansas City metropolitan area is ground zero for measuring the impact of Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback’s income tax cuts on job creation.
It is an article of faith among Brownback and his supporters that slicing taxes for selected Kansans will convince people and companies to jump the state line and work in Kansas.
That crowd includes St. Louis multimillionaire Rex Sinquefield, who wants to eliminate Missouri’s income tax; right-leaning economist Stephen Moore; and Dave Trabert, president of the Kansas Policy Institute, an ultra-conservative think tank.
Trabert recently said, “You can observe firsthand businesses that have moved across the state border into Kansas in the Kansas City area.”

But is that really happening at a measurable amount?
The recent data won’t please Brownback or his allies. In fact, the Kansas side of the metropolitan area has lost its longtime advantage in employment growth over Missouri since the tax cuts took effect in January 2013.
Take a look at federal Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, released on a monthly, non-seasonally adjusted basis for the area. (Note: The total workforce on the Missouri side is a bit larger than on the Kansas side.)
▪ In the most recent year, from January 2014 to January 2015, employment on the Missouri side of the state line rose 3.7 percent vs. 2.6 percent on the Kansas side.

The Missouri side gained 20,300 jobs in that year while Kansas added only 11,300.
This is especially notable because it occurred when — if Brownback’s theory were working — more companies, firms and individuals likely would be expected to take advantage of the tax cuts and roll into Kansas.
▪ In the two years the Brownback tax cuts had been in place from January 2013 to January 2015, employment on the Kansas side was up 4.5 percent, which Missouri nearly matched with job growth of 4.2 percent.
That’s only a small advantage for Kansas. And the Missouri side actually added more jobs than the Kansas side did during this time — 23,000 vs. 19,200.

▪ Overall, the Kansas side of the metropolitan area added fewer jobs after the tax cuts took effect than it did during the first two years of Brownback’s term before the cuts were in place.
Meanwhile, total employment growth on the Missouri side the last two years has been more than three times higher than its job gains the previous two years.
Brownback’s backers can note that, since he took office in January 2011 and through January 2015, employment growth on the Kansas side of the metro area had eclipsed that of Missouri’s, 9.7 percent vs 5.6 percent.
However, the more recent figures show the Kansas portion of the metro area has gone from being a big winner in the battle for job gains to a point where it nows lags a surging Missouri.
Advocates for lower income taxes argue it will take more time to see whether firms will leave Missouri when their leases are up, for example, or finally decide the costs of moving are worth it.
But the takeaway for now is a rebuke to Brownback and his backers. The tax cuts have not spurred magical job growth on the Kansas side of the state line in the last two years.
Meanwhile, the cuts have produced huge revenue shortfalls that have gained national negative attention. Funding plans for K-12 schools, higher education, roads and public pensions are embroiled in legislative tugs of war, while higher taxes are on the table to plug the fiscal gaps.
With all this turmoil and potential declines in public services in Kansas, the Missouri side of the state line could be looking a lot more attractive to employers and employees.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/editorials/article19411242.html#storylink=cpy

 

[MARIS61]

Kansas' minimum wage, which was $2.65 (the lowest in America) for years, was finally raised to $7.25 in 2010. Kentucky exempts any workers covered under the federal FLSA from state labor laws.

 

[Denny Crane]

http://news.investors.com/ibd-edito...creating-machine-shows-that-tax-cuts-work.htm

Where the jobs are really showing up is on the Kansas side of Kansas City. Because tax rates are lower in Kansas than in Missouri, the Kansas side of the metro area produced twice as many jobs as the Missouri side from 2012 to 2014.

The Kansas Policy Institute ran the numbers and found that "over the last two years — post-tax reform — private-sector jobs increased by 5.6% on the Kansas side of the metro and only 2.2% on the Missouri side." KPI president Dave Trabert notes: "You can observe firsthand businesses that have moved across the state border into Kansas in the Kansas City area."

Wages are also growing in Kansas. Before the tax cut, workers on KC's Kansas side earned 40 cents an hour more than Missouri workers. Now the gap is $3.

 

[Stevenson]

You can disagree with Paul Krugman, but he is no fool. In 2008, he was the sole winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics.

 

[Denny Crane]

You can disagree with Paul Krugman, but he is no fool. In 2008, he was the sole winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Nobel Prizes have become political and a joke. Case in point, Obama, Carter, and Araffat have one.

 

[MarAzul]

Nobel Prize

Ha! Jima has one of those too. err so does Obama.

 

[MarAzul]

Araffat! I forgot him.

 

[MARIS61]

http://news.investors.com/ibd-edito...creating-machine-shows-that-tax-cuts-work.htm

Where the jobs are really showing up is on the Kansas side of Kansas City. Because tax rates are lower in Kansas than in Missouri, the Kansas side of the metro area produced twice as many jobs as the Missouri side from 2012 to 2014.

The Kansas Policy Institute ran the numbers and found that "over the last two years — post-tax reform — private-sector jobs increased by 5.6% on the Kansas side of the metro and only 2.2% on the Missouri side." KPI president Dave Trabert notes: "You can observe firsthand businesses that have moved across the state border into Kansas in the Kansas City area."

Wages are also growing in Kansas. Before the tax cut, workers on KC's Kansas side earned 40 cents an hour more than Missouri workers. Now the gap is $3.

The article I just posted refutes that jobs are moving from Missouri, and the wage rise is due to a Federally-forced 300% hike in the minimum wage (which is what most Kansans are being paid.

How much will I earn working a minimum wage job in Kansas?
A full time minimum wage worker in Kansas working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, will earn $58.00 per day, $290.00 per week, and $15,080.00 per year1. The national poverty line for a family unit consisting of two people is $14,570 per year.

What is the Kansas under 18 minimum wage?
Kansas employers may pay 18 year olds and minors the youth minimum wage of $4.25 for the first 90 days of employment. Other labor law exemptions for minors in Kansas may exist.

 

[MarAzul]

The article I just posted refutes that jobs are moving from Missouri, and the wage rise is due to a Federally-forced 300% hike in the minimum wage (which is what most Kansans are being paid.

Not to worry Maris, Oregon will never follow with the boneheaded pinkos we send to Salem.

 

[barfo]

Ha! Whether you want to live there or not has little bearing on what is a workable tax policy.

Actually it does. Because the explicit claim is that businesses (and therefore workers) will move to Kansas because of the tax policy. I don't believe that's going to happen.

barfo

 

[jlprk]

Every article I have read about the Kansas disaster has been negative until now. Denny managed to find the only one praising Brownback.

It takes a while to undo all the damage done by the previous tax&spend policies. We saw that in the 80s with Reagan's tax cuts - the recession he inherited got worse before it got way better.

Reagan inherited no such thing. His assistants (he wasn't smart enough to do things) created a recession on purpose (nowadays the EU calls it austerity) that lasted his whole presidency, and from which subsequent presidents never escaped because of his monstrous deficits. (He had been elected because he had promised in every speech to balance the budget.)

 

[MARIS61]

Ronald Reagan INCREASED taxes on the poor and middle-class more than any President in history.

But back to Kansas, where Brownback has created Death Panels to drive out the needy.

Mon Apr 27, 2015 at 02:40 PM PDT
"Fleeing Kansas Saved My Life" A Teen Unable to Get Cancer Treatment Finds Hope in Tennessee
byChris ReevesFollow forKansas & Missouri Kossacks

• 7 Comments / 7 New

When Levi Ross was diagnosed with Cancer things looked bleak. A High School Senior looking forward to his future, the diagnosis of a form of spinal cancer called epitheliod sarcoma had put his life in jeopardy - moreso when his diagnosis was combined with Sam Brownback's for profit KanCare.
http://www.rawstory.com/...

“There’s no way that by staying in Kansas that I would have stayed alive,” Ross explained. “I feel pretty good considering I’ve had a massive surgery.”
“It’s really sad,” he said of the KanCare experience. “It’s very upsetting that we divide ourselves by states.”

While Ross's story tells us of a patient who managed to leave the state and receive lifesaving care, it also brings to mind those who are trapped with minimal to no resources, who find that Sam Brownback's KanCare is exactly what the Republican warned against: a death panel.

Kansas Department of Health and Environment had hoped that cases like Ross would provide a testament to how efficient and well managed privatizing medicaid would be - saving money and lives. KanCare providers, however, had the ultimate final say. In the end, the goal of a treatment out of state to save his life wasn't something they were willing to provide to the Ross family. Thanks to charitable giving of St. Jude's hospital in Tennessee and attention to his plight, Levi Ross has a future ahead.

It would be one thing if the situation with Ross' family was unique, but over the last year more Kansas families have found themselves receiving the short end of a privatized system that Governor Brownback imagined would save money.

http://www.pitch.com/kansascity/kancare-sam-brownback-finn-bullers/Content?oid=4031015

 

[Denny Crane]

Actually it does. Because the explicit claim is that businesses (and therefore workers) will move to Kansas because of the tax policy. I don't believe that's going to happen.

barfo

It already is.

Don't believe it anyway.

 

[Denny Crane]

Every article I have read about the Kansas disaster has been negative until now. Denny managed to find the only one praising Brownback.



Reagan inherited no such thing. His assistants (he wasn't smart enough to do things) created a recession on purpose (nowadays the EU calls it austerity) that lasted his whole presidency, and from which subsequent presidents never escaped because of his monstrous deficits. (He had been elected because he had promised in every speech to balance the budget.)

Austerity.

Look at the pretty graph. what does the red line going up mean?

 

[Denny Crane]

Jimmy Carter. Nobel Laureate. Anti-semite (well, he hates jews, but loves arabs, so not technically).

http://observer.com/2014/08/the-moral-disintegration-of-jimmy-carter/

The Moral Disintegration of Jimmy Carter
By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach | 08/11/14 10:00am

For years I have been defending Jimmy Carter against charges of anti-Semitism. Maybe I just didn’t want to believe that a President of the United States – the freest country in the world – could dislike Jews.

So I chalked up his animus toward Israel and his awful accusations of Israeli apartheid to a faulty moral compass. Even the other day on NewsMax TV my friend Steve Malzberg asked me point blank if Jimmy Carter is an anti-Semite and I said no, blaming his inane statements on Israel to his being what Vladimir Lenin described as ‘a useful idiot.’

Mr. Carter always sides with the weaker party in a conflict notwithstanding their immorality. Let us never forget that the Carter Administration tried to seat the exiled Khmer Rouge as the rightful government of Cambodia even though they slaughtered one out of three Cambodians in the 1975-78 genocide. For Mr. Carter, weakness was itself a sign of righteousness.

But Mr. Carter’s recent accusations of Israeli war crimes, his demand for a United Nations investigation into Israel’s actions in Gaza, and his call for Hamas – a genocidal terror organization – to be recognized as a legitimate political partner by Israel is making it near impossible not to ascribe to Carter some nasty feelings toward the Jewish state.

Where is Mr. Carter’s call for the world to recognize the legitimacy of Al Qaida or the Taliban? Why isn’t Mr. Carter calling on Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan to recognize the legitimacy of Boko Haram? Why is it only the Jews who have to recognize the legitimacy of the terror organizations sworn to their annihilation?

Mr. Carter’s pronouncements on the Middle East have become so toxic that had he not once been the American Commander-in-Chief they would be dismissed as the ravings of a man utterly out of touch with reality. But notwithstanding all the damage to his credibility, and notwithstanding his own grandson Jason, currently running to be Governor of Georgia, basically asking him to shut up, he remains obsessed with the Jews and Israel. While ISIS is trying to carry out the slaughter of Yazidis and Christians in Iraq, while Libya descends into a hellish morass of violence, and while hundreds of thousands die in Syria, Jimmy Carter remains fixated on the crimes of the Jewish state.



(Proving once again Jews vote against their own interests @stephenson)

 

[Denny Crane]

Kathleen Sebelius was governor of Kansas from 2003-2009 before joining the Obama administration to do damage on a national scale.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_state_budget_(2008–09)

Kansas, like many other states, is facing a $186 million gap for fiscal year 2009 and according to early estimates approximately $1 billion deficit for fiscal year 2010.[1][2]However, more recent estimates place FY 2010's shortfall at $654 million.[3]




Sure looks like tax cuts caused big deficits.

 

[BlazerCaravan]

Austerity.

Look at the pretty graph. what does the red line going up mean?

Reagan was tax-and-spend?

 

[Denny Crane]

Reagan was tax-and-spend?

Tax cuts increased revenues, congress spent faster than the revenue increase.

 

[MARIS61]

Jimmy Carter. Nobel Laureate. Anti-semite (well, he hates jews, but loves arabs, so not technically).

http://observer.com/2014/08/the-moral-disintegration-of-jimmy-carter/

The Moral Disintegration of Jimmy Carter
By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach | 08/11/14 10:00am

For years I have been defending Jimmy Carter against charges of anti-Semitism. Maybe I just didn’t want to believe that a President of the United States – the freest country in the world – could dislike Jews.

So I chalked up his animus toward Israel and his awful accusations of Israeli apartheid to a faulty moral compass. Even the other day on NewsMax TV my friend Steve Malzberg asked me point blank if Jimmy Carter is an anti-Semite and I said no, blaming his inane statements on Israel to his being what Vladimir Lenin described as ‘a useful idiot.’

Mr. Carter always sides with the weaker party in a conflict notwithstanding their immorality. Let us never forget that the Carter Administration tried to seat the exiled Khmer Rouge as the rightful government of Cambodia even though they slaughtered one out of three Cambodians in the 1975-78 genocide. For Mr. Carter, weakness was itself a sign of righteousness.

But Mr. Carter’s recent accusations of Israeli war crimes, his demand for a United Nations investigation into Israel’s actions in Gaza, and his call for Hamas – a genocidal terror organization – to be recognized as a legitimate political partner by Israel is making it near impossible not to ascribe to Carter some nasty feelings toward the Jewish state.

Where is Mr. Carter’s call for the world to recognize the legitimacy of Al Qaida or the Taliban? Why isn’t Mr. Carter calling on Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan to recognize the legitimacy of Boko Haram? Why is it only the Jews who have to recognize the legitimacy of the terror organizations sworn to their annihilation?

Mr. Carter’s pronouncements on the Middle East have become so toxic that had he not once been the American Commander-in-Chief they would be dismissed as the ravings of a man utterly out of touch with reality. But notwithstanding all the damage to his credibility, and notwithstanding his own grandson Jason, currently running to be Governor of Georgia, basically asking him to shut up, he remains obsessed with the Jews and Israel. While ISIS is trying to carry out the slaughter of Yazidis and Christians in Iraq, while Libya descends into a hellish morass of violence, and while hundreds of thousands die in Syria, Jimmy Carter remains fixated on the crimes of the Jewish state.



(Proving once again Jews vote against their own interests @stephenson)

In April 1978, President Jimmy Carter declared the Khmer Rouge "the worst violator of human rights in the world."

The only truth in this smear piece is that Denny Crane posted it in the wrong thread.

Israel is a rogue terrorist state who's government not only sanctions, plans and commits numerous assassinations of perceived enemies around the world, most of whom are simply working stiffs who have no axe to grind, but also continues to spend our grandchildren's money stockpiling nuclear weapons to turn the arab world to glass.

 

[Denny Crane]

What a moronic post. If Israel wanted to nuke the Middle East or kill all the Arabs, it would have been done long ago.

My preference would be peace and prosperity for all parties there.

Iran is a product of Carter's presidency. Just as ISIL is a product of Obama's. ISIL sounds just your speed.