Letters on re-electing Brownback, California facts, food sales tax, violent history

We re-elected Brownback, GOP

The reason Gov. Sam Brownback and his posse of bad economic policy worshippers are sure they can get away with advancing their own private self-righteous agendas is the mere fact that they were re-elected. The elections told them: “We the people are idiots.”

Brownback and his minions don’t even seem to care that their behind-closed-door deals having to do with public policy and government business are discovered on occasion. State budget director Shawn Sullivan should be fired for sharing budget proposals with lobbyists before the people’s own representatives have had a chance to review them.

Brownback and his legislative court jesters are smart enough to see Kansas is suffering critical damage during their reign. They know people and businesses won’t move to a state where school systems and our children’s futures are continually being sabotaged by the purse holders, where state park and recreation opportunities are far behind our neighboring states, where the largest city in the state has to beg for air transportation aid, where about 170,000 of poorer citizens have been denied Medicaid coverage that we have already paid for with our federal taxes, and where the public service retirement system is constantly being underfunded.

Brownback and his “regulators” are quite aware of all this, and yet they shrug their shoulders and continue working on their own best interests. And we approve, apparently. We re-elected them.

California facts

A woman from California wrote to deride Kansans as living in “fantasyland” (Feb. 13 Letters to the Editor). Having lived in California for the better part of 60 years, I thought I would add some other facts that she somehow forgot to include.

For example, California’s unemployment rate is 7 percent (49th in the nation), compared with Kansas’ unemployment rate of 4.2 percent (11th in the nation). California has a 17 percent poverty rate (34th in the nation) compared with Kansas’ 14 percent (20th in the nation).

Let’s not forget all the major businesses that have either left California or expanded to other states over the past decade, resulting in the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Middle-class California residents get to pay a 9.3 percent income tax rate; Kansans pay 4.9 percent. California’s tax on gasoline is among the highest in the nation.

Despite raking in massive amounts of money from the taxpayers, California ran out of money in 2009 and 2010 and resorted to paying creditors with IOUs. Even so, the good voters of California (including, I assume, the letter writer) re-elected the same liberal Democrats to state offices.

It would be more productive if the letter writer, rather than chide voters in a state where she doesn’t even live, directed her comments to Sacramento instead of Topeka.

Lower food tax

Kansas is my adopted home state of 40 years. It is the state where I chose to raise my children.

I came from a state with no sales tax on food. This would be more humane for Kansans.

I have also lived in states with a 3 percent sales tax cap on food, while other sales tax is much higher. I have lived in states that have no sales tax on clothes.

I was pleased with no sales tax on food but realize the realities of government revenues. Living in a state with the 3 percent cap on food was manageable and appreciated. This minor amount of sales tax on food still gave the state some much-needed revenue and gave the food shopper a reduced sales tax.

Property taxes may go up some, but it need not be a huge increase to help fill this revenue gap without cutting government services.

It is very doable. The Legislature just needs to do it.

Dark history

Throughout history there have been individuals and groups of individuals holding sway over others. They have committed atrocious acts, such as the during the Inquisition, in Rome, the slaughter and displacement of Native Americans, and the lynching of African-Americans here in the land of the free.

Our own recorded history reflects the fact that between 1882 and 1968 there were 4,743 recorded lynchings across America, often by individuals wearing hoods to hide their true identity.

When President Obama mentioned our own dark history of slaughtering other members of humankind in his National Prayer Breakfast remarks recently, there was a loud outcry by those who thought his remarks were inappropriate. However, there are others who applaud his remarks about our own dark periods of history.

We as a nation should stop trying to gloss over our true history and instead bring the facts from darkness into the light.

Let us not forget the tragedy of Jonestown, Guyana, in 1978 and what was posted in the compound where more than 900 members of humankind lost their lives. The inscription read: “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Letters deadline

Letters to the editor about the March 3 primary must be received by 1 p.m. Thursday in order to be considered for publication.

This story was originally published February 23, 2015 at 6:05 PM with the headline "Letters on re-electing Brownback, California facts, food sales tax, violent history."