Print edition: 
Senators don't care about country
Kansas Sens. Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback voted against an independent debt-reduction commission. Roberts and Brownback also voted against the pay-as-you-go rules requiring lawmakers to pay for spending increases or tax cuts (Jan. 31 WE Blog).
This kind of action is what led to the collapse of our economy. Tax breaks go to the big-money people without a plan to pay for the loss of income for the country or state. Middle-class Americans are left to pay, through job loss and no insurance for their families.
Roberts and Brownback don't have to worry about insurance coverage — the whole country is paying for it for them. They don't really care about the country as long as they can find fault with President Obama, who is trying to find help for the middle class and families without medical insurance. The total focus of Roberts, Brownback and Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, is to find any way to make our president look bad and to get the power back to the Republican Party.
Republicans are not working for America's good. Their answer to everything is "no, no, no." Only the Republican way is good.
Heaven help the people of Kansas survive such leadership.
M.J. LADD
Wichita
Borrow money
Pat and Craig are camping when a bear suddenly comes out and growls. Pat starts putting on his tennis shoes. Craig says, "What are you doing? You can't outrun a bear!" Pat says, "I don't have to outrun the bear. I just have to outrun you!"
With that in mind, the state should eliminate its balanced-budget requirement and just borrow the money it needs to pay its bills and obligations. All it has to do is outlast the federal government by one day.
If the federal government goes bankrupt and the dollar collapses, it's a moot issue anyway. If you combine the national debt and the underfunded Social Security and Medicare accounts, the federal government owes $56 trillion. With tax receipts shrinking and this administration's only solution to borrow even more money, I don't see how the dollar and this country can get through the 2010s.
Kansas should just borrow the money, and we can start partying like it's 1999.
STEVE W. CARTWRIGHT
Derby
Judicial activism
The cancer of big money in political campaigns has metastasized because of the U.S. Supreme Court majority's holding that "money equals speech." The irony of this outcome is that the people who underwrote a sizable part of the attack ads against "activist judges" achieved their goal through a most flagrant case of judicial activism.
As nominees to the court, both Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito told the Senate Judiciary Committee of their great respect for legal precedent. Since their installation to the court, they have ignored decades of precedent in a wide variety of cases. The latest ruling — transferring individuals' free speech rights to corporate structures that neither vote nor shed blood for the nation — is the most damaging of their pro-business, result-oriented decisions.
We will now see businesses spending big money in support of those they can count on to shift tax burdens to the less powerful and to stifle government's ability to protect consumers. The results will advance the creeping feudalism now apparent to anyone who goes to municipal court, where the poor pay large fines and court costs for minor indiscretions, thereby keeping property taxes low and restraining other levies that well-to-do citizens could more reasonably afford.
JIM LAWING
Wichita
Liberal way
Regarding "Conservative way" (Jan. 29 Letters to the Editor): I suppose the liberal way is better. Tax everything, including the air we exhale. Strive for economic "fairness" without regard to the drive, education or work ethic of the individual. Spend trillions of dollars we do not have for a stimulus that only stimulates the size of government and indentures our children and grandchildren to the government for repayment of that folly. Scream about freedom of speech, unless it is against the government.
Be acutely aware of the rights of our enemies while ignoring the rights of unborn children. Embrace millions of illegal immigrants while spitting on veterans. Have the government control our businesses and our health care, no matter what a disaster history has shown this to be. And when we are done handing over our liberty, property and lives to the government, shred the Constitution. Then we will surely have a poor, uneducated and desperate population hoping for a cure to our illnesses, standing in line for food and services, hoping for a better life that will never come because nobody will be there to save us from our benevolent government.
Do not laugh. This is the very thing the Soviet citizens lived through.
BRENT BRADLEY
Wichita
Different purposes
The Feb. 1 Opinion Line included this question: "Why spend all that money repairing Century II when we just built that arena?" The answer is that the two serve different purposes.
Century II is primarily a performing arts center with facilities to meet the needs of conventions (meeting rooms, exhibits and smaller general session capabilities), as well as facilities for theater and concerts. The Intrust Bank Arena is for large-scale performances (concerts and athletic events, etc.). For some citywide conventions, perhaps the arena could be used for very large general sessions exceeding the capacities available in Century II.
TED EBERLE
Wichita
