The Effect of Sam Brownback’s Gubernatorial Tenure on Kansan Opinion of Supply-Side Economics

Governor Brownback’s keystone policy was always based in his economics; as governor, he was a proponent of supply-side economics, the same kind favored by Ronald Reagan. This theory of economics purports that the best way to grow an economy is by lowering taxes and decreasing regulation, and letting this extra wealth ‘trickle down’ from the top of the economy to the bottom. By the end of Brownback’s terms, in our experience as Kansans, many moderate Republicans were questioning the efficacy of this policy. With this in mind, we wanted to examine statistics related to this and see whether the trust of moderate republicans in this traditional conservative economic theory was lessened by Brownback’s gubernatorial tenure, or whether the shift in political landscape that led to Laura Kelly’s election stemmed from another factor.