Change government

Google these facts. They are all out there from credible sources.

The U.S. spends 40 percent more than it takes in. Only about half the population of the U.S. pays income taxes.

By the end of this decade, as most baby boomers retire, almost 65 percent of the U.S. population will be getting some sort of entitlement check every month from the government — me included. Raising taxes on companies slows the growth of hiring and is simply passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices.

The expectations of the government go up every year as politicians promise more and more. Congress and the Senate are spending the country into insolvency.

The U.S. government spends $435 million an hour or $10.46 billion per day.

This is nuts.

Something has to change or there is no hope.

Tom Fournier

Lee’s Summit

Mutual sacrifice

It sounds as if President Barack Obama did not mean what he said before the election about working with and compromising with the House.

Fine, I put this out there.

Let’s work together to solve this budget issue instead of grandstanding. Let’s all compromise. The George W. Bush tax cuts should have expired for everyone.

We are all in this together, so let’s all pay for it together. If taxing the wealthy more will bring more jobs and growth, then taxing everybody will bring ever more jobs and growth.

We can afford it. Or are we too darn selfish and plan to spend now and let someone else pay for it, like our children and their children and their children?

Tom Porter

Kansas City

Krugman column

What I would like to read in your paper is a balanced opinion of what Democrats and Republicans want for this great country.

An example is the Jan. 5 Paul Krugman column, “Obama wins fiscal cliff battle with Republicans,” in which he writes, “Democrats want to preserve the legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. ... Republicans want to roll all of that back, making room for drastically lower taxes on the wealthy.”

How do you print such nonsense? All Americans want these programs to succeed by making them solvent and affordable and not destroying our future generations’ ability to pay for them.

Why not use the funds set aside during the fiscal cliff debates earmarked for NASCAR and Hollywood as a start?

Your opinion pages are politically biased and need conservative input and fact-checking to counter the world of Robert Reich and Paul Krugman.

Your paper has become too much a voice for the Democratic Party and needs to broaden its scope and represent opinions of all residents of the Kansas City area.

Bill Kornitzer

Kansas City

Positive teen experience

You see it on TV. You hear it from friends. Teens today are bored, spoiled individuals who would rather “plug in” than “pitch in.”

True? Not where I live. My autistic 15-year-old goes to Shawnee Mission South High School and is continually awarded for this or that score.

It is a great school. However, it has never been awarded for the most important thing — its heart.

You see, the school has this interpersonal skills program that has two amazing teachers who get paid. And then there are the teachers who need to be lauded by all of us — the teens.

My son, Ben, went to his first party ever recently. I was so excited as I drove him there. I relished the thought of him being able to connect with other special-needs kids from the class.

He needs a friend. What I saw when we got there made me cry as I drove him home after the party.

I met a cheerleader, popular young men and other “mainstream kids” who spent their time and energy to get to know our kids and make them feel part of the high school experience.

Jacque Jones

Overland Park

Floundering America

In the ’60s and early ’70s, three actions were taken that resulted in the slide of America. Abortions were legalized, prayer and reading the Bible were taken out of schools, and we decided the Ten Commandments and other Christian truths had no place in public life.

Now, we are redefining marriage. We have excluded God from our lives and country.

We are beginning to see the fruit of such exclusions. Our economy is in danger of cracking because of the tremendous welfare burden of supporting single parents and children.

The country seems to have lost God’s blessing. It has been hit with 9/11 and natural calamities such as Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy.

We have politicians who are only interested in advancing themselves. They don’t know the difference between a truth and a lie. Voters seem to support whoever promises the most.

Kids grow up without parents or self-discipline. Many are abused.

There’s still hope for America if we turn back to God and Christian standards.

Leonard Stoll

Corder, Mo.

Light rail to nowhere

Many issues come to mind while pondering the merits of a capital investment in a streetcar line for Kansas City. Not many of them are positive.

These include the massive cost overruns evidenced from other mass-transit projects in St. Louis, Portland, Ore., and Norfolk, Va., to name a few. Given the opaque nature of funding, the annual operating expense is troublesome.

There also is the legal maneuver to “lend” Kansas City’s credit rating to the development district.

The St Louis Federal Reserve weighed in on the supposed economic benefits of mass-transit projects in 2004 and concluded “the general consensus from the academic literature and the findings presented in this report is that light rail is not a catalyst for economic development.”

Be skeptical. Be very skeptical.

Paul Cox

Kansas City

Mercy, not violence

“Oh, Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder consider all the works Thy hand has made. I see the stars.”

In light of this, Rome (and its contemporary counterpart) is trivial.

For the Christian, better to obey the one who condescended with the purpose of revealing exactly how to conquer evil and death than be significantly part of the group that consistently fails in its attempt to secure survival. I refer to the state.

Survival is guaranteed for the Christian. Christians can’t do in a group what their Lord and savior said not to do individually.

Better to follow Jesus than a mere human being, according to St Augustine.

In the words of an old Italian psychiatrist discussing the justified violence allowed to be taught by the church and Jesus’ way of total rejection of violence to accomplish any end, taught by the church, “attempting to adhere to both is schizophrenic.”

Jesus is the example for us of how to achieve God’s will in our lives. God’s purpose is consistent with God’s nature — overwhelming mercy. Mercy is only achieved without recourse to violence.

When violence enters this world, a solution is provided: repentance, not justification.

Margaret Burns Kerbawy

Kansas City

Star’s faith coverage

I see that Helen Gray is retiring, and I hope this doesn’t mean less coverage of religion in The Star (1-5, C8, “She covered KC for more than 45 years”).

Local religious organizations are active in many areas in addition to regular worship — speakers, music, theater and social services.

Kansas City’s religious communities have been leaders in interfaith relationships. What happens here can’t be covered by news services from New York.

May you rise to the challenge of finding writers who can bring us thoughtful, enriching articles about this very important aspect of life.

Pat Schroeder

Shawnee

Good food is lacking

Growing up in the public school system, I’ve seen plenty of changes in school lunches, and over the past 11 years I’ve been impressed with the amount of effort that has been put in to improving what we have to eat.

With the federal regulations that are in place now, we receive daily servings of fruits and veggies and our meals have less fat and salt, meaning healthier means right? Wrong.

The meat is mush, the fruit is discolored and the veggies resemble soup. The cookies, however, look just like Grandma’s and, as I’m sure you can imagine, are way more appetizing than the pineapple junk.

As students, we seem to face a daily ultimatum: Eat healthy with your eyes closed so you can’t see what you’re consuming and your nose plugged so you can’t taste it, or eat the junk food that you know tastes good but is bad for you.

I’m frustrated that we still haven’t found that happy medium. Why can’t we eat healthy and happily?

Mikayla Stevens

Kansas City