Letters on legislative concerns, impact of oil and gas decline, massages
Share your concerns with state lawmakers
I believe that Gov. Sam Brownback and lobbyists have sold the majority of the Kansas legislators on some ideas that are bad for Kansas and will have serious consequences for you and me, now and in the future. The following list points out a few of my concerns:
▪ State revenue has been inadequate for enough years to conclude that Kansas needs to restore the taxes that the Legislature exempted in 2012.
▪ It is foolish and unethical to delay funds owed to the state pension system when there is no reasonable plan to generate revenue to make up the payments later.
▪ The governor said that he wants to encourage businesses to move to Kansas, but what employer would move to a state that repeatedly takes money away from the K-12 public schools and state colleges, and from our public highways? Businesses need trained employees and a good road system.
▪ Our children need a great education to succeed in the future.
▪ Legislators are disregarding court-ordered education funding mandates, and that places our public schools in danger of being shut down. That would affect you, your children and grandchildren.
Please write or call your legislators to share your concerns.
John Cochran, Pratt
How large is small?
Wichita State University economist Ken Kriz warns against overstating the “role of the commodity market” in the state budget shortfall (April 23 Eagle). Agriculture aside, is he referring only to the decrease in oil and gas severance tax? Is he taking into account the decrease in county ad valorem taxes, sales tax revenue from oil and gas industry-related sales lost, payroll taxes lost due to canceled oil field projects, and also purchases canceled or put off by the thousands of Kansas oil and gas royalty owners because of decreased revenue? There are an estimated 147,900 royalty owners in Kansas.
I would be curious to know the sum of these “small” pieces. To paraphrase Everett Dirksen, small here and small there can add up to large.
Leon C. Smitherman Jr., Wichita
Regulating massages
Kansas should follow the federal model and regulate massage parlors by defining which and how different portions of the body should be massaged, who should do the massaging, and how much each variety of massage should be taxed (“Red-lit rooms: Inside a Wichita massage parlor,” April 20 Eagle). All morality aspects would be controlled by the religion of the customers.
Ross D. Rash, Winfield
Letters to the Editor
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Phillip Brownlee at 316-268-6262, pbrownlee@wichitaeagle.com.
This story was originally published April 27, 2016 at 7:04 PM with the headline "Letters on legislative concerns, impact of oil and gas decline, massages."