When you tell Kansans that you're going to "inject adrenaline into the economy" by cutting taxes, and then when that doesn't happen, you resort to cutting education, that is just dishonest. If the education cuts were only necessary if the tax cuts are in place, that points to culpability lying with the tax cuts. If you already gave away the few hundred million that your missing in your budget, then you fronted the money to the private sector, without telling the public sector, that since we are going to be giving the private sector an extra few hundred million, everyone is taking paycuts and a reduction in services. That conversation never happened.
If Brownback had told Kansans that reduced tax rates means reduced revenue, and they would have to make some tough choices, that would have been an honest debate the Kansan people could have had. Instead he told them a lot of supply side voodoo was going to happen, and when it didn't, reality set in. Kansas mandates a balanced budget, so, he had to balance the budget on the backs of teachers. My personal recollection of the events in Kansas isn't as clear as it could be, but from what I understand, after public outcry and budgetary quagmires, the statehouse overrode Brownback's veto this year, to raise the personal income tax slightly. I could be mistaken but, that's my best recollection of the events of Kansas.
My gripe is with the dishonesty. If Kansas wants to impose austerity be honest. Don't tell Kansans that this great era of supply side gold is coming, that the rich are going to make it rain jobs on to the lower classes, because that's just not going to happen. Demand creates jobs, not the rich's overflowing purses. Even on a small business level. A small business owner could keep an extra 10 grand a year, and never hire anyone extra. Because if the demand was there for them to hire an extra person, the demand would pay for the job, not an extra 10g windfall. So, the argument that supply side is done for the express purpose of the small business owner is fallacious. Supply side is done to give the ultra rich insane amounts of extra money because they profusively donate to politicians. And then when the big "whoopsie" moment comes along when doing the budget, Republicans can make cuts or impose austerity and say, their hands were tied. (We just had to give massive tax breaks to the rich.) Except they can then blame Democrats, social programs, and immigrants.
Brownback should've had an honest debate about a lower tax burden and a reduction in government services, that includes k-12.
Edit: I'm sorry not all of my post pertains to your discussion. Disregard irrelevant parts.
We can have a seperate discussion on whether or not being incorrect about something as complex as revenue projections is the same thing as dishonesty, if you like. I just wanted to point out that there is a real difference between "not taking something" and "giving something".