Letters: Readers discuss the Clay County election, NAACP travel advisory and the Chiefs
High tech?
On Tuesday, I used a so-called “paperless” voting machine at my polling place. I was shocked that an electronic ballot printed out — a ballot that I had to insert into a ballot machine.
What is “electronic voting” about a printed ballot? This is a glorified typewriter.
Kim Acton
Kansas City, Kan.
Worse problems
This nonsense — the NAACP travel advisory — borders on absurdity. (Aug. 2, 1A, “New law, racial attacks cited by NAACP in issuing Missouri travel advisory”)
Why doesn’t the NAACP focus on some real problems?
How about a travel advisory for east Kansas City, where the black-on-black murder rate is among the highest in the nation?
Peter Connors
Lee’s Summit
Fiscal accountability
Voters in Clay County have been urged to support a quarter-cent sales-tax increase as a way to serve children in the county. Supporters of the initiative assert that the fund will give attention to housing needs, suicide and addiction treatment and other intervention services. These are all worthy concerns.
But is Proposition 1 legal or wise?
It would establish a public tax that would be administered by a non-governmental organization. A flyer I received in support of the campaign states: “A committee comprised of non-agency, non-political volunteers will oversee the distribution of funds.” So, an unelected group.
If it were a government-established agency, it would be subject to governmental checks on the appropriate expenditure of tax monies; an NGO would not be so accountable. Even if the members of the board were of the highest character, would the citizens be able to hold them accountable?
The sponsors of Proposition 1 emphasize that the board would be independent and that there would be no “big government … overseeing the fund.” Apparently, the citizens would have no one overseeing these expenditures.
Is this a wise proposal?
Dean Dunham
Liberty
Trump’s circle
I read a disturbing report about national security adviser H.R. McMaster’s ousting of Ezra Cohen-Watnick, one of President Donald Trump’s top intelligence directors. McMaster previously forced out another official who had written a memorandum warning of internal and external “subversive forces” working against Trump.
It is bad that we have a political newbie as president, one who does not understand the first thing about governance and seems to stumble at every turn. But to turn over our security apparatus to Steve Bannon’s allies is very disturbing. Time will tell whether McMaster is able to wrest control from these people.
What is going on? Are we, McMaster and our highly trained intelligence community so naive that we won’t see it until we are toast?
I am not sure what is motivating Bannon and his crowd, but it is beginning to look like a war all right — one between the left and the right, and those of us in the middle will be swept up in it.
Now I am getting paranoid. Please report on this.
David Zoller
Kansas City
No go Chiefs
Another Chiefs season is here. It looks like another year without Metro bus service from Metro North and other locations around the city.
How sad. That means it’s another year to watch the Chiefs on TV.
Dale W. Lueker
Junction City, Kan.
Look at costs
Sen. John McCain finally did the right thing and voted no on the plan to repeal Obamacare.
If President Donald Trump is smart, he will try to get the two parties to work together to come up with a solution to the problem.
Trump campaigned on repealing Obamacare and coming up with a better plan. He can still live up to the second part of the promise if he can get Congress to give all the individuals buying insurance on the market the option to buy from an insurance company or to buy into a government-run insurance plan.
The government plan would probably be 20-25 percent cheaper, since it would not have to make a profit.
We are not talking about all insurance being handled this way. It would apply to only the 8-10 percent of people who are not currently covered by their employers’ plans, Medicare, VA benefits or Medicaid.
Once we stop talking about insurance, we can finally talk about the real problem of why medical costs are so high.
Bill Klinkenberg
Lenexa
This story was originally published August 4, 2017 at 6:14 PM with the headline "Letters: Readers discuss the Clay County election, NAACP travel advisory and the Chiefs."