Opinion Line (May 26)

“Rome is burning” and the only thing the Kansas Legislature can get passed is fantasy football and Uber. Way to go, and with overtime pay at that.

Uber is one more nail in the coffin of public transportation in Wichita and the state of Kansas as a whole.

Why should smokers and drinkers have to pay for the stupid actions of the state government? The governor and the Legislature should have to pay for their errors, just like the cashier if the register comes up short.

How much revenue is raised from the tax on cigarettes, and will this create another shortfall in the state budget if the campaign to stop smoking actually succeeds? It’s been 40 years since my last cigarette, but the cost alone would have made me quit long since.

Perhaps all legislators who benefit from the small-business tax exemption should declare a conflict of interest and let the rest of the legislators vote on whether some level of taxation should be on every business, no matter how little or humongous its business income is.

Brownback should just borrow a page from the Democrat playbook, which emphatically states that the U.S economy would have been much worse if Obama’s stimulus measures had not been enacted. The governor should apply the same logic to his Kansas measures and watch them squirm.

The Eagle’s almost giddy article about Brownback’s use of private e-mail proved the left-leaning agenda of this paper. The GOP will forever be doubly scrutinized by this liberal publication that delights in digging up dirt on those in opposition.

If The Eagle is “a shill” for anything, it’s sports.

Texas is going to stop cities from banning oil fracking – so big oil can do what it wants. If Kansas legislators do same, their law should include that big oil will pay for all property damage and relocation costs of Kansas residents.

The question shouldn’t be, “If you knew then what you know now, would you have invaded Iraq?” The question should be, “If you knew Obama was going to turn tail and run and create a vacuum for ISIS to fill, would you have invaded Iraq?”

Republicans critical of our president’s policy in Iraq need to keep in mind it was a Republican administration that got us mired in that mess in the beginning.

Obama’s “mission accomplished” speech was Dec. 14, 2011, when he said “we’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq.” Once again, he couldn’t have been more wrong.

Why doesn’t anyone know how to pronounce “exit”? It’s not “egg-sit.”

This story was originally published May 25, 2015 at 7:05 PM with the headline "Opinion Line (May 26)."