Kansas City is using facts to more efficiently spend hundreds of millions in tax revenues to deliver better basic services to local residents. Citizen satisfaction reports and a new study show some progress has been made. But much more is needed.
Missouri’s 2013 session was good for gun owners and wealthy individuals who would benefit from income tax cuts. For most everybody else, the session was a bust. Missouri deserves better than what it gets from this legislature.
Law enforcement needs tools to pursue criminal investigations, but lawmakers must weigh that against privacy, personal digital security and business needs. Americans should be able to chat online and store their data in the cloud without worrying that Uncle Sam or someone worse is peeking.
The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education’s White Rose annual essay contest tries to educate coming generations about the Nazi-led genocide of European Jews in World War II in the hopes that nothing like that will happen ever again.
Kansas law makes it possible for law enforcement to tightly seal records about criminal cases. But this same kind of information is routinely available to the public in most other states, including Missouri.
It’s infuriating that Jackson County officials are asking 18,000 homeowners to stand by while the county takes part in a do-over for a reassessment process it had two years to get right in the first place.
Here is news for President Obama: No leak is as dangerous to the American public as his administration’s attempt to compromise a newsgathering organization. He should apologize to The Associated Press and make sure such an intrusion doesn’t happen again on his watch.
For the IRS to single out groups of any political stripe is disastrous for public trust. The IRS must be independent of politics. Employees at any level who don’t understand that should be fired.
Johnson County Community College trustees have made a wise decision to promote Joseph Sopcich to become the college’s new president. He would have been difficult to pass over. Since arriving at the college in 1992, he has achieved impressive successes in several executive positions.
City officials logically have long contended that residents might save millions of dollars a year if some police functions were finally consolidated with similar ones at City Hall, basically eliminating employee positions along the way.
The new-look Penn Valley Park — fresh off a $10 million transformation using mostly public funds — is a better and more popular amenity than it has been in years.
Lawmakers in Missouri and Kansas have stacked the decks against vulnerable citizens in starkly cruel fashion. Missouri pitted impoverished senior citizens against disabled children and the blind. Kansas staked the disabled against the disabled. A pox on both their houses.
Schools are an abused or neglected child’s first — and sometimes last —line of defense. Teachers know when a student is hungry, or shows signs of abuse, or when they vanish without explanation. They are mandatory reporters of abuse and neglect, and that duty should extend to notifying authorities when a child can’t be found.
In reality, it would allow far more efficient collection of taxes already owed to states and others. Right now, many Internet customers are simply scofflaws, not paying their fair share of taxes.
Victims need to know that reporting assaults won’t derail careers, that abusers will be punished by prison and ouster from the military, and that arcane rules will be amended to prevent commanders from tossing aside military jury convictions.
The governor’s tax increase would at least save Kansas from falling faster. Lawmakers should pass it, and close some tax loopholes as well. Then they should begin a soul-searching process aimed at steering back to a fiscal policy that the state’s traditional values, like good schools and services.
Veterans need the benefits to pay bills and get the medical help they deserve for serving the nation.
In a decade, life expectancy in Afghanistan lengthened by 20 years, rising from 42 in 2002 to 62 in 2010. Deaths of newborns fell dramatically, as have maternal deaths.
The area economy can expect to gain an additional two jobs for each one that Ford adds because of benefits to area supplier companies and demand created from workers’ spending now that they have better-paying manufacturing jobs.
Despite the widespread popularity of the current three-terminal design, Aviation Department officials have brought forth some responsible reasons for at least pursuing the single terminal.
For the last 16 months, The Star has been following the promises and progress made by the Kansas City water department. So how are things going?
A flurry of questionable bills in Kansas means more jobs, but not the kind most expected.
Both legislatures have been blatantly disrespectful of the federal government, of law enforcement officers and of the union itself. They have shown callous disregard for the many families who have lost loved ones to gun violence and who want to see reasonable safety measures enacted.
Sometimes taxpayer-subsidized projects work out just as advertised. Putting SummitWoods Crossing in Lee’s Summit on the full tax rolls will provide an extra $4.8 million a year in sales tax and property tax revenues for taxing jurisdictions.
The Constitution Project determined that “it is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture.” Given that dishonor, continuing to operate the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, only deepens the damage already inflicted on the nation’s laws and values.
One of the biggest sources of complaints from Kansas City International Airport users is poor shuttle-bus service. Unfortunately, the City Council has been unwilling to do anything meaningful about it.
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback appears increasingly detached from the fiscal realities he has imposed on his state. Thanks to the disastrous moves to severely roll back income tax rates, the state remains strapped with painful fiscal choices.
Poorly paid Third-World workers are dying — literally — to produce low-cost clothing that’s sold at leading retailers around the United States and the world. The latest tragedy to strike the low-wage garment industry in Bangladesh was also one of the most horrific in years.
Attempts by Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon’s administration to avoid releasing records involving child abuse incidents are amateurish and deceptive, and must stop. When a child is harmed, the public deserves to know whether the harm could have been prevented.
But soon the little word was squirting all over the place and the original irony was lost and what you have now is a weak, flaccid, cringing indirectness. The linguistic real estate once held by once-proud problems has been almost fully engorged by a wimpy upstart.
