John Galt Has Left the Building

[Winstonm]

This is a link to an open letter to the state of Kansas in the U.S., and it is from the CEO of Pathfinder Health Innovations. It made me wonder if the systemic dismantling of state governments isn't the endgame of the far right. Some highlights from the open letter (emphasis added):

 

More importantly, there’s a motivation of conscience that factors into it, too. It’s not so much that I’m moving the company to Missouri as I’m moving it away from Kansas.

Please note – this is a personal blog post, reflecting my views on the performance of the Kansas government, and specifically Governor Brownback

 

In recent years, Kansas has become a battleground for conservative ideals. Traditionally, Kansas was a moderate state, with the governorship switching every other election between Democratic and Republican governors. But the election of hyper-conservative Sam Brownback as governor heralded a new age of far right wing ideology.

 

It wasn’t just that Brownback was conservative; it was that he is seen as a tool of the Koch brothers and ALEC, a conservative think tank and lobbying organization. Brownback used his influence and funding to eliminate “moderate” republicans from the Kansas legislature and install his hand-picked conservative cronies. He couldn’t do the same with the Kansas Supreme Court, which has ruled a number of the conservative legislature’s laws as unconstitutional, so Brownback’s administration decided to threaten to cut off funding to the court system and is actively pursuing legislation to impeach the Supreme Court.

Kansas has become a test center of “trickle down” economics, espoused by economist Arthur Laffer during the Reagan years. Nowhere has there been as thorough an implementation of Laffer’s policy recommendations… and nowhere has there been as dramatic a failure of government.

Jeff Blackwood, CEO of Pathfinder Health Innovations

 

I wonder sometimes if this "failure of government" isn't actually a win for the far right ideology as the ultimate goal may well be to strip government down to the most basic of services. Kansas may well be playing the role of an ultra-libertarian Utopian dream state - a state run on the concepts found in the fictional world of Ayn Rand. If so, Homey John Galt don't play that game!

[sfi]

Planet Money covered this experiment about two years ago. You can find the podcast here.

[sfi]

Here is another Planet Money podcast. This one looks at some other reasons companies move from state to state - particularly between Kansas and Missouri. It's not as directly relevant as the first episode, but is still an interesting take on the complexity of the situation.