Kansas.com: Opinion

Kansas views (March 22)

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 05:44 CDT

Democratic leaders —An unusual chain of events has led Kansas to a state leadership situation that probably is unique in Kansas history and is unlikely to occur again anytime soon. With last week's appointment of Securities Commissioner Chris Biggs as the new Kansas secretary of state, five of the state's six top elected offices now are held by Democrats. Even stranger is that the only Republican in the group, Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger of Lawrence, also is the only official still serving in the office to which she was elected. A string of resignations and appointments by two Democratic governors has led to the current situation. On one hand, it's unsettling that so much power lies in the hands of people not chosen by the voters. On the other hand, it's comforting to know that our system of government allows such transitions to occur so smoothly that they go almost unnoticed by the state's residents.— Lawrence Journal-World

Early education — Early education is about more than preschool for young children eager to learn. Many early education programs also offer the only therapy some parents can afford for children with disabilities in their most formative years. Should those services be cut back as part of the state's budget solution, we'll see more costs in later years for those same children. Without early intervention for some children, such as those on the autism spectrum, they are likely to need more special education services later, and they'll be less prepared for school and life in general. Early education proponents would also argue that even the average developing child would be set back by a reduction in preschool opportunity, particularly children in poverty who could especially use a head start.— Hutchinson News

Opinion Line (March 22)

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 05:44 CDT

We have to have fresh water at any cost. So go ahead and raise the rates. Quit pouring water on your lawns just to impress your neighbors. It's wasteful.

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With the new proposed water rates, if a building catches fire, wouldn't it be cheaper just to let it burn?

Leonard Pitts: The Gospel according to Glenn Beck

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 05:44 CDT

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

—Matthew 5:6

Ultimately, I suppose, what we're talking about is a clash between the sweet by and by and the fierce urgency of now.

Letters to the editor on sales tax, high school sports, Limbaugh, Obama's citizenship

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 05:44 CDT

All would share in sales-tax increase

I am writing something I never thought I would say: I am in favor of a tax. A tax that I would have to pay. And every thinking Kansan, in good conscience, likely would agree that it is a good tax, and be happy to pay it, too.

It comes about because the Legislature faces a grave situation that affects us all — a budget shortfall so great that essential state services will have to be cut, or other even larger taxes levied, likely inequitably, on certain populations or sectors.

Jonah Goldberg: An American divide

Jonah Goldberg — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:05 CDT

John Edwards, when he wasn't fixing his hair or cheating on his wife, liked to talk about "two Americas." In one America, things were pretty bad, somewhere between "The Grapes of Wrath" and Thunderdome. In the other America, where Edwards himself lived in a McMansion, things were going swimmingly.

Edwards was hardly the only one to use this two-Americas formulation. It's been a popular talking point for years. Socialist intellectual Michael Harrington helped to inspire the Great Society with his book "The Other America."

As serious analysis, this bifocal vision of America has always left me cold. The American economy is too dynamic, the American people too optimistic, to talk so glibly about haves and have-nots as permanent classes, the way French aristocrats talked about the peasants. More than half the people in the poorest 20 percent pull themselves out of it within a decade. Moreover, it's all based on a kind of class envy that has never flourished in the United States the way it has elsewhere.

Opinion Line Extra (March 22)

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:05 CDT

The people who keep complaining about being cramped in arena seats are probably cramped in an airplane, too. Have you thought about losing weight?

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I pay Intrust Bank Arena a good amount of money for a seat. I get an uncomfortable seat, and then I have to watch somebody's butt in front of me all through the concert. Now, am I stupid enough to return?

Budget dance continues in Topeka

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 07:32 CDT

These are strange times in Topeka. The governor is a lame duck, and one of five state officeholders who weren’t elected to their jobs.

The speaker of the House is fighting an ethics probe because he’s the lead attorney in a lawsuit against the state over funding.

Perhaps eight state senators are juggling legislative work with their campaigns for Congress or statewide office.

Opinion Line (March 21)

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 07:46 CDT

Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich changed his vote on the health care bill after talking to President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, his wife, his friends and probably his dog. Maybe he should have talked to the constituents who elected him.

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Every Kansan should be thanking Kathleen Sebelius today. She prevented Anthem from buying Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas in 2002, and Anthem just announced it would raise insurance rates in California by nearly 40 percent.

Rules about filibusters are not carved in stone

Dave Seaton — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 00:04 CDT

Republican senators repeatedly have used the threat of a filibuster to stymie health reform and other legislation. Democrats, when they were in the minority, used the threat to prevent confirmation votes on a number of President George W. Bush's judicial nominees.

But filibuster rules are not carved in stone. A Kansas senator helped create the current rules, and there is a lesson in that 1975 change that could help bring reform today.

A filibuster is when one or a few senators try to talk a bill to death. The tactic was most dramatically used by Southern segregationists, all Democrats, against civil rights legislation in the late 1950s and 1960s.

Letters to the editor on CEO salaries, spending, taxes, party of reality, health care, David Warren, covenant marriage

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 07:46 CDT

CEOs aren't worth exorbitant salaries

Boeing CEO Jim McNerney's pay dipped to $13.7 million (March 16 Business Today). Poor fellow. How is he going to survive on such a pittance?

Maybe the Boeing Co. should lay off more productive employees. If that isn't sufficient, perhaps it should outsource more work. Surely the directors can come up with a solution to return the CEO to a reasonable wage. Notice that I didn't refer to it as earnings, as no CEO is worth such exorbitant salary.

Leaders: Continue city's water legacy

H. Edward Flentje — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 00:04 CDT

We Wichitans take the availability of low-cost, good-quality water for granted. But beginning in the late 1940s, water restrictions and absolute cutoffs of water occurred with some frequency during periods of peak demand. This crisis was precipitated by the dramatic war-induced growth of the 1940s and early 1950s and compounded by inaction in City Hall.

A coalition of community leaders emerged to address the water crisis as well as other growth-related issues, and a protracted battle over the future of the city unfolded. Over the next eight years, naysayers fought City Hall literally at every step that required public investment in the future of the city.

In the end, however, city leaders along with city voters persevered to invest $47 million to acquire the city water utility from its private owners and build Cheney Reservoir. These decisions assured an abundant water supply in support of our regional economy for the next 50 years.

Kathleen Parker: Independents' day

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 07:46 CDT

Independents — neither right nor left, but smack-dab in the broad middle — today constitute 42 percent of the electorate, according to a recent CBS/New York Times poll.

About 70 million strong, these are America's new homeless class, people who are equally disgusted with both traditional parties and the special interests that control them. They're all ages, sexes, races and ethnicities, though younger Americans are crowding the front rows. Of those born after 1977, 44 percent self-identify as independent.

Independents as a group outnumber either party, in other words. Yet given the hyperpartisanship that began under George W. Bush — and that has accelerated during President Obama's first year, thanks in large part to the enabling mechanism of the Internet — one would think that America were divided into hard left and hard right.

Opinion Line Extra (March 21)

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 07:46 CDT

Hello, Congress: You're not listening to me. I am 100 percent opposed to these reforms, and I do vote and I'll be watching how you vote.

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Rather than filling out a tax return this year, I believe I will just deem my taxes paid.

Clarence Page: Should there be a national DNA database?

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 02:10 CDT

As if President Obama didn't have enough on his platter, he's calling for accused criminals to have their DNA samples collected and stored in a national database, whether they're convicted or not. He's a brave man to open that can of worms.

Just think: Will those Americans who bitterly oppose registration of their guns, for example, go along quietly with the registration of their genetic codes?

That's not quite what Obama is calling for, but it's a short slide down the slippery slope from keeping the DNA profiles of arrestees to keeping the profiles of everybody.

Opinion Line (March 20)

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 02:10 CDT

The census, as usual, has caused a great uproar. Everything being asked is on public record. Wouldn't it be more efficient if the states just submitted what they have every 10 years — birth and death records, transfers of property ownership, income-tax filings, etc.?

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Enough is enough. It's time for Republicans to shut up and get out of the way so Democrats can fix this mess for the American people.

Letters to the editor on GOP cries, Obama lies, Census letters, nuclear waste, arena praises, revival

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 02:10 CDT

GOP's faux cries of procedural foul

Conservatives and Republicans are screaming that the U.S. Senate should not use the process called reconciliation to pass health care reform, completely ignoring the fact that since 1980, reconciliation has been used 16 times when Republicans controlled the Senate, and only six times when Democrats controlled the Senate. In addition, it should be noted that the health care reform bill has already passed the Senate with a supermajority vote of 60. Reconciliation would only be used to fine-tune the bill.

On the other side of Congress, the Republicans are screaming that the "deem and pass" rule is unconstitutional and should not be used. Again, they are ignoring the fact that this rule has a long and bipartisan history. Republicans used the rule 36 times in 2005 and 2006 when the GOP controlled Congress.

Opinion Line Extra (March 20)

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:04 CDT

Mr. President: One of your own supporters said long ago, "It's the economy, stupid." Remember this in November, when you are blaming everyone but yourself for the Democrats' crushing defeat.

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If Republicans really believe the Democrats will lose Congress in the fall if they force health care through, then why are they spreading lies at a fever pitch to fight it? Because they know the public wants it and will reward the party that delivers.

Keep insisting on open government

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:01 CDT

Without access to the documents and conversations that drive government decisions, the public is left to wonder what it doesn't know about the work of public officials at the local, state and federal levels. Each denied request for information or access invites distrust.

Which is why there is a need for Sunshine Week, a national initiative meant to foster open government and freedom of information.

This year's observance, March 14-20, finds too many in public life still treating citizen and media access as a threat or nuisance that interferes with their work. The room for improvement extends from Washington, D.C., to the Kansas Statehouse to communities big and small.

Myths and misrepresentations about health care reform

Carl Leubsdorf — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:01 CDT

President Obama's top strategists have belatedly challenged the Republican argument that Congress should kill his health care reform plan because the American people have rejected it.

White House counselor David Axelrod noted on several Sunday shows that when Americans are asked about key provisions, they support such things as ending the denial of coverage due to pre-existing conditions and requiring all Americans to have health insurance.

Obama pollster Joel Benenson wrote in the Washington Post that, in the few polls that asked detailed follow-up questions, "a significant number of people who oppose current plans do so because they don't go far enough." His argument: If it passes, they'll be on the administration's side.

Soda tax isn't about improving health

J. Justin Wilson — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:01 CDT

Politicians are usually at their most creative when the opportunity for raking in money is at hand. Now state legislators have a new idea: Tax soft drinks to make Kansans slim down (March 10 Eagle). But in reality, it's just another nutty scheme by politicians to shake $90 million out of Sunflower State residents while creating a pretense of dealing with serious issues.

Public health activists have declared sugar-sweetened beverages — soft drinks, fruit juice, sports drinks and even chocolate milk — a supposed menace in an effort to get the government to tax them. State Sen. John Vratil, R-Leawood, has downed this activist Kool-Aid in claiming that adding a tax on soft drinks for every teaspoon of sugar they contain will do our bodies good.

There's no convincing evidence that "fat taxes" on food or drinks are an effective way to force weight loss. Writing in the Review of Agricultural Economics, a team of researchers determined that a small tax on snacks "would have very small dietary impacts." As for a larger tax, it "would not appreciably affect" the average person's diet.