Print edition: 
Allow exceptions on air-quality rules
The Flint Hills were being burned before the existence of Kansas City and Wichita. The burn is essential. Celebrations of Independence Day and other events involve fireworks. Life quality will suffer if they are eliminated. Kansas City and Wichita are considerable contributors to the wealth of the United States and world. A necessary and natural byproduct of that contribution is lowering of air quality.
There are two or three days annually when fireworks or pastures are being burned and cities are not in compliance with air-quality rules. The Environmental Protection Agency cautions that cities must be in compliance or a considerable amount of money will have to be spent by governments, companies and individuals.
A simple solution exists without having to go to extremes: Waive standards when fireworks and burning are taking place.
The remedy is so simple that the EPA's reaction could very well be: "How can we enforce the regulations if we make those exceptions?"
That simple solution requires common sense to implement. If the EPA is so hardened that it cannot make exceptions, then it deserves to have the sun set on it, as many suggest. Let us, together, work for such sense to be applied.
JON E. EHRSAM
Wichita
Radical crossroads
Health care in this country is at a radical crossroads. Millions of American citizens are uninsured or underinsured and contributing toward our grossly inflated health care costs. The number living in poverty has risen by 14 million from 2002 to 2010. Despite the fact that the U.S. spends almost 2 1/2 times more than the average civilized nation on health care, our health outcomes are last in most categories.
The average American family is feeling these effects. Money spent on health, for a family of four, has doubled from 2002 to 2011.
A Kansas.com article ("Feds to design health insurance for the masses," Oct. 6) highlighted how President Obama and the federal government are working to correct these health issues. Designing a basic benefits package for privately insured citizens will standardize coverage at an affordable cost. Implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will expand health coverage for millions of Americans and is expected to shift health care from management of acute and chronic diseases to preventative care. This shift toward well-care is projected to save millions of dollars in comparison with our current focus on sick-care.
ASHLEY GRABER
Bel Aire
Dire prophecy
Recent talk of a double-dip recession misses the mark. American history has taught us to read the signs of impending or prolonged financial disaster.
The first years of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal called for increasing federal spending to $10 billion, while revenues were only $3 billion. From 1933 to 1936, government expenditures rose by more than 83 percent, debt skyrocketed by 73 percent, and unemployment climbed to 20 percent. Meanwhile, the income-tax rate rocketed to 79 percent, and later to an absurd 90 percent.
The bottom line: What should have been nothing more than a three-year recession plunged into a 16-year depression.
Sorry for the dire prophecy. But discussions of a second recessionary cycle should more correctly be viewed in the terms of a much more ominous depression looming larger with each extension of the national debt and each attempt at increased taxation.
President Obama, like Roosevelt, will not change course. He must go. Or one of the darkest, most difficult eras in our history will repeat itself.
SHELBY SMITH
Wichita
All have values
In a recent e-mail, Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Wichita, said he was going to attend the Values Voters Summit, an annual gathering of conservatives. The subtext was that only those voters who attended this summit had values worth consideration.
All of Pompeo's constituents have values. My values include loving my family, taking care of the poor and helpless, preserving the environment, and protecting women's reproductive rights.
Pompeo has said that the president's policies have failed the nation. I differ with this assessment.
Without Obama's actions, this country was headed for a depression the likes of which we haven't seen since 1929. The stimulus didn't go far enough, thanks to Republicans in Congress who refuse to take any action on Obama's proposals.
Pompeo refers to "pro-growth solutions," meaning we don't raise taxes on those who can best afford to pay them and we don't let pesky regulations get in the way of questionable business practices.
DIANE WAHTO
Wichita
Raked over coals
I find it interesting that a Jackson County, Mo., grand jury and local prosecutors went out of their way to indict Bishop Robert Finn of the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph for allegedly covering up child sexual abuse, even after the bishop's office was instrumental in reporting the miscreant priest's deeds to the authorities (Oct. 15 Eagle).
Now, let's juxtapose this news story against the article reporting that a professional ethics panel recommended indefinite suspension of former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline's law license (Oct. 14 Local & State). Kline literally has been raked over the coals for attempting to shine the light on what could be hundreds of cases as bad as or worse than the single case implicating the bishop.
TONY CATANESE
Wichita
