Dire future possible

There is nothing about the GOP platform that would lead one to conclude that the Republicans care about the middle class or the poor. Repealing the Affordable Care Act and placing the burden of health care reform on states, whose budgets are already strained, is crazy.

For the poor, it would be a step back in time. Cutting taxes on the rich and withdrawing regulations on big corporations and banks are prescriptions for economic disaster.

Furthermore, decimation of entitlement programs will lead to wider unemployment, furthering economic instability. Overzealous patriotism and myopic, arrogant nationalism will lead to increased defense spending and ultimately a war with Iran, which will take us back to 1929 in a heartbeat.

Voucherizing Medicare will lead to the death of Medicare, not its preservation, and seniors will die earlier and as paupers, as they did decades ago.

Repealing Roe vs. Wade will return us to the 1950s and the horrors of coat-hanger abortions.

For the wealthy, their elite way of life will continue, and the chasm between the rich and the 99 percent will grow and over time will bring tremendous unrest. Who knows what will happen then?

Robert Stuber, M.D.

St. Joseph

Obama, gas price drop

President Barack Obama was criticized for the high gasoline prices this summer. With the price declining about 30 cents a gallon in recent weeks, will the president get credit for that?

Charles Beucher

Kansas City

Court appointments

With the frenzy of campaigns, I hope that people will remember that whoever gets elected may have the opportunity to appoint one or two new Supreme Court justices. If you liked the anonymous unlimited donations, you will love a 6-3 conservative court.

Bob Deal

Kansas City

Romney for president

Did any of you drones for President Barack Obama, who will vote for him despite his dismal record, ever think of this? If something happened to Obama, then Vice President Joe Biden would become president.

That should scare you enough to change your mind and vote for the candidate who can save our country.

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is not self-promoting, so it is hard for him to overcome the media bias.

If Romney does not care about the poor, why does he give 30 percent to charity? He has helped a lot of poor families but flies under the radar because of his modesty.

If you still vote for Obama, then you deserve what you get. I just wish you wouldn’t drag me along with you.

Joanne McKenzie

Peculiar

Vote no for Romney

I recently viewed the tape on which Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney stated he was not concerned about 47 percent of the American people, calling them losers and moochers. How could anyone vote to elect Romney after hearing what he really thinks of almost half of the American people?

I strongly believe that before people vote for Romney they should view this tape. If they still want to vote for him, then they get what they deserve because they have an almost 50 percent chance of being included in Romney’s 47 percent of no-goodniks.

And remember, he is not concerned about you losers. God help us.

I think with a Romney administration, the America I love will never be the same.

Delores Mair

Kansas City

Shakespeare, U.S. voting

When William Shakespeare penned these words, “O mischief thou art swift to enter in the thoughts of desperate men,” could he have been foretelling Republican efforts to suppress voting rights of Americans?

Ron Fugate

Overland Park

Vote no for Obama

I am a 47-percenter, and I understand what Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney was talking about. These are not the people on Social Security or our service personnel.

He was talking about the freeloaders who want the government to take care of them. There are those who need help, but there are some who don’t work if you give them a job.

Where is the common sense people are supposed to have? If something isn’t done, we won’t have Social Security or Medicare.

President Barack Obama says anything he wants and gets a pass, and Gov. Romney states a fact and it is in the newspapers for a week.

All I have is Social Security, and my grandson is in the Marine Corps.

I’ll vote for Gov. Romney to fix the mess we have gotten from President Obama.

If Obama is re-elected, we won’t have a country. It will be bankrupt. Obama goes on a photo op to “The View” while the Middle East is on fire.

I am 87 years old, and my mother taught me common sense. But all of the educated people are complaining. Where is their common sense?

Berniece Stutzman

Kansas City, Kan.

Preachers, politicians

No one has explained to me why the preachers get more time on television networks than presidential candidates and other politicians do. The preachers have the privilege of campaigning for money and power without the general population’s votes.

Scaring the hell into people and making God seem vindictive is included in the reasons. No one ever paid his or her way into heaven.

If there is no paradise in the afterlife, then there is no point in having a religion.

Eli D. Byler

Nevada, Mo.

Cigarette tax increase

The voters of Missouri will decide Nov. 6 whether to pass Proposition B and raise the cigarette tax in our state from our current lowest in the nation 17 cents to 90 cents per pack. The national average state cigarette tax is $1.49.

Health issues caused by smoking costs Missouri taxpayers $532 million annually. That averages to $565 every year for each Missouri household.

Fifty percent of the new tobacco tax revenue would go to funding schools, 20 percent would be dedicated to tobacco-use prevention and tobacco-cessation programs, and 30 percent would go to public colleges and universities.

Proposition B would save millions in taxpayer dollars, reduce youth smoking, help smokers quit and reduce premature births.

Smoking in Missouri costs all taxpayers.

It is time to allow the smokers to carry a portion of their load and free up funds for tobacco prevention, public schools and colleges.

Please vote yes on the tobacco tax (Proposition B) on Nov. 6.

Jim Blaine, M.D.

Chair, Missouri State

Medical Association’s

Public Affairs Commission

Springfield, Mo.

Vote for McCaskill

Sen. Claire McCaskill is right about earmarks. Federal laws, like the Clean Water Act, have provisions for a system to periodically make a priority list, which targets those entities that have the highest need for that law’s funds.

Typically, these priority systems slug through a lot of discussion and data-gathering to establish the highest needs per the law’s requirements. Those with the highest needs are then listed as the first for funds.

When politicians, like former Sen. Kit Bond, set a funding earmark for whatever reason, the earmarked entity leapfrogs over the priority system leaders and are the first to receive funding. This results in higher-priority folks missing out on appropriations meant for the highest-priority projects and projects with lesser importance getting funds.

Earmarks allow funding of lesser projects and are inefficient. We cannot afford them. McCaskill deserves our vote for her stand on this issue.

Bob Steiert

Kansas City