Williams Does the Full Wingnut Monty

The next time your septic tank gets clogged, don't ask David Williams for help.

He'll burn your house to the ground and form a committee of your neighbors to figure out how to improve the plumbing in the home you no longer have.

From the Herald:

Republican nominee for governor David Williams wants to eliminate state personal and corporate income taxes as part of his plan to create and retain jobs in Kentucky.

Williams’ plan, released Wednesday, also recommends several short-term tax suspensions designed to jumpstart Kentucky’s job market and several changes in the law, including allowing local voters to decide if their county should have a right-to-work laws. The plan also allows local voters to decide if local governments should have to pay the prevailing wage for public works projects.

Williams faces Democratic incumbent Gov. Steve Beshear and independent Gateood Galbraith in the Nov. 8 general election.

The plan also calls for creation of a commission of economic and tax experts to come up with a new state and local tax structure that would receive an up-or-down vote in the legislature.

Reporter Jack Brammer, who certainly knows better, simply transcribes this insanity as if it had a chance in hell of creating a single job rather than destroying what's left of Kentucky's economy.

Cutting. Taxes. Never. Creates. Jobs. When even proud "Capitalist Tool" Forbes magazine says so, the debate is over.

It’s a mainstay of conservative orthodoxy that tax cuts create jobs. In fact, the complexity of the tax code does create jobs for high-priced tax attorneys and accountants. But do tax cuts create “real” jobs?

The answer appears to be no for companies big and small. After all, U.S. public companies pay well-below the official 35% tax rate while 13.5 million American workers search unsuccessfully for jobs And start ups tell me that tax cuts don’t affect whether they’ll create new jobs. In short, the tax cut rhetoric, while effective politics, is lousy economics.

George H. W. Bush wisely pointed out in his 1980 debate with Ronald Reagan that expecting to balance the budget with tax cuts and defense spending increases was “voodoo economics.” But along with Reagan’s ascendancy came the rise of huge budget deficits — that Bush wisely helped end when he agreed to raise taxes in 1990.

Kentucky's tax system desperately needs reform, but Williams' plan is treating a brain tumor by cutting off your head. The operation was a complete success - the tumor's gone. Too bad the patient died.