Letters on revenue drop, budget cuts, illegal immigrants, Koch Kool-Aid, dark money, Medicaid expansion, missing dads

Revenue drop no fluke of data

Yet again, Kansas has failed to meet revenue expectations (“Kan. revenue $15 million off forecast in October,” Nov. 3 Eagle). This is despite the Governor’s Office consistently saying that these are merely flukes of data and it will all be OK in the long run. It’ll be fixed by more jobs, they say.

They have yet to come up with a plan in case we blow through our budget, which is likely. Their supporters say the only solution is to spend less.

We passed the largest tax cuts in state history and slashed spending, but now have teachers leaving and hospitals closing. Conservative Republicans have had everything exactly their way in Kansas, yet the results have been miserable. How long does an experiment in conservative governance need to go before we return to responsible governing?

Failed to cut

In its 2012 analysis of the law that changed how pass-through businesses are taxed in Kansas, the Tax Foundation concluded: “Kansas is on the right track by broadening its tax base and lowering its rates, but should be cautious about favoring some businesses over others. A better path to encouraging economic growth is creating a tax environment that is not overly burdensome and treats all businesses well. Further, while tax reductions can have positive economic benefits, they will cost revenue and will ultimately have to be paid for either by cutting spending or increasing taxes elsewhere.”

One reason this particular tax change has added to the state’s impoverishment is that an equal cut in spending did not accompany it. Another reason is that businesses do not make decisions to grow product lines and employment based on taxes they pay, but instead on the growth they experience.

The state’s political leadership is sincere about growing the Kansas economy. Its problem rests with its indifference to downsizing the state’s government and obliviousness to the negative impact the federal tax code has on the nation’s economy. It seems it has no choice but to reverse course and hope that recovered lost revenue remains enough to keep the state balanced in its current size and scope.

Don’t scapegoat

Rhetoric about “illegals” has no place in the controversy with the Sedgwick County Commission over its dangerous and illogical public health decisions.

Without going into the millions of dollars pumped into our local economy from the immigrants who live, work and buy gas, groceries and other consumables in Sedgwick County, I would note that undocumented immigrants rent or buy their own homes. In addition to payroll taxes, they pay into the sales and property taxes that fund our local government and the very local services that Commission Chairman Richard Ranzau and his cronies are griping about.

Scapegoating immigrants for the commission majority’s asinine public health proposals plays right into a false narrative that these immigrants unfairly benefit from services they do not also contribute toward. Keep the focus on the commission majority’s war on public health, which affects the entire community, and the public health funds that every resident in the county pays into just by living here.

Remember, these immigrants and their children could still be members of this community long after Ranzau and Commissioners Karl Peterjohn and Jim Howell get voted out, and discouraging their access to local public health services only serves to put the entire community at risk.

Koch Kool-Aid

Another front-page Charles Koch article (Nov. 1 Eagle)?

The Eagle article made a valiant attempt at portraying this poor multibillionaire in a sympathetic light. His father made him work when he was 6 (my folks called it chores), he’s on the terrorists’ hit lists (aren’t we all), and he is incensed he has to take millions of dollars in corporate welfare from the despised federal government.

Koch believes in limited government and deregulation of business. The free market will work its magic and take care of all. We tried that at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and ended up with monopolies, stock-market manipulation, industrial pollution, child labor, discrimination against races and sexes, harmful food and drugs, and rampant political corruption.

The free market did not and would not have resolved these issues. Only government, as bureaucratic and inefficient as it is, can steer society toward the common good.

Give Koch his due as an amazing businessman, but when it comes to his politics, don’t drink his Kool-Aid.

Dark money

“I believe the huge sums of unlimited and often secret money pouring into our politics is a fundamental threat to our democracy.... The middle class will never have a fighting chance in this country as long as just several hundred families, the wealthiest families, control the process” of elections, Vice President Joe Biden recently said.

I agree. The concerns of the middle class – nutrition for babies, education, courts, clean air, and earth and water – are blocked by “dark money,” the big bucks buying lawmakers who’ll protect the investors, not the voters. A horrifying U.S. Supreme Court decision almost six years ago enables these sly megabucks. This furtive money is additive to financing lobbyists, entertainment and gifts, and groups such as the American Legislative Exchange Council and Americans for Prosperity.

President Obama can change this instantly. He can and should sign an executive order requiring government contractors to disclose their political spending.

Obama has spoken out against dark money. Congress definitely won’t take action, but people are. Petitions with 750,000 signatures will be delivered Tuesday, a year ahead of the 2016 elections.

Though an executive order will not correct all political corruption, it would be a bright light shining on the dark money that’s disabling our democracy.

Let them eat cake

I read the recent commentary on why Medicaid should not be expanded (“Expansion is wrong solution,” Nov. 3 Opinion). It was noted that two of the writers belong to the Heritage Foundation, an extreme right-wing think tank in Washington, D.C., and the third to the Kansas Policy Institute, a Koch brothers-front think tank in Kansas. It should also be noted that the Heritage Foundation first floated the idea of the individual insurance mandate (Obamacare), and it was first instituted in Massachusetts under then-Gov. Mitt Romney.

The essence of the commentary was rich people telling poor people that they do not deserve to have health insurance. The writers said that the poor simply weren’t working hard enough, or that they should simply “take a better-paying job.” Of course, to get such a better-paying job would require more education. Getting more education is really not a viable option when every scrap of money you have is used to keep body and soul together. After all, it is hard to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when don’t even have any boots.

So here is the deal, all you lazy poor people: Work harder, because you sure don’t deserve any help from the government, as big corporations and rich people do.

Bring dads back

An Eagle editorial suggested that taxpayers could save millions of dollars by changing the way we sentence and incarcerate criminals (“Reform justice system,” Oct. 25 Opinion). There is a better way that could save billions.

Father absence is the main cause of crime. I challenge church, civic and business leaders to offer valuable prizes in a nationwide contest searching for the best plan that will bring fathers back in families, taking care of their children and guiding them away from prison.

We need exciting prizes that would motivate every man, woman and child to think about getting fathers back in families. Then we need to pray that someone comes up with an idea that really works.

This story was originally published November 7, 2015 at 6:04 PM with the headline "Letters on revenue drop, budget cuts, illegal immigrants, Koch Kool-Aid, dark money, Medicaid expansion, missing dads."