Readers share views on Kansas legislation, the texting scandal and Medicaid expansion
Kansas bioscience bill
A bill suddenly under consideration in the Kansas Senate would eliminate the Kansas Bioscience Authority. That bill, SB 305, should be rejected.
When the state established KBA, it was a message to the nation that Kansas was open for business, actively supporting and recruiting bioscience companies, creating new jobs and boosting the Kansas economy. KBA is one reason the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility is now under construction in Manhattan.
Closer to home, KBA assistance was critical in securing National Cancer Institute designation for the University of Kansas Hospital. Here’s yet another example from the private sector: thanks to KBA’s funding and tax incentives, Ceva Biomune built a $25-million manufacturing facility in Kansas.
The result: the employee count went up 80 percent; payroll has grown to $21 million; Ceva’s export sales have grown 756 percent; and Ceva does business with 669 Kansas companies.
KBA is a unique tool in Kansas’ economic toolbox. It allows the state to develop and grow a key industry sector — biosciences — creating the kinds of high-paying jobs and economic activity Kansas should want to attract.
A hearing is scheduled for Monday. Please contact your legislator and urge “no” on SB 305.
Terry Dunn
Chair
Greater Kansas City
Chamber of Commerce
Leawood
Texting scandal
So let me get this straight. Two suicides caused by members of their own party and now a sexual-texting-to-a-college-freshman fiasco, and these Republicans still call themselves the Christian party (5-14, A1, “Missouri House Speaker admits to relationship with college intern”)?
Yes, we may all be sinners, but we don’t all claim to take our instructions from God and be above sin and above the law.
John Diehl was speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives and on the Ethics Committee, and opposed same-sex marriage for goodness’ sake.
It’s time to clean the House in Jefferson City.
Karen Marie Zentz
Raymore
And we read yet another story about sexual shenanigans involving powerful men.
Heartfelt apology to all they have hurt.
Ever since I can remember, I knew it wasn’t smart to put anything in print or photos that could embarrass me if seen by others.
It reminds me of the National Enquirer’s discovery of John Edwards cowering under motel stairs in his attempt to hide after visiting his lover.
Margaret Kensinger
Raytown
Medicaid expansion
The failure to expand Medicaid in Missouri has left our Missouri hospitals with a hefty tab of $1.1 billion for uncompensated care costs.
A thousand health-care jobs have been slashed in Missouri because of the failure of our legislature to act.
Experts have shown how expansion would help create 24,000 jobs in Missouri. Legislators have used the excuse that expansion isn’t a “good deal” for Missouri.
Actually, it is a great deal. For every dollar that Missouri invests in Medicaid expansion, $13.41 in federal funds would flow into the state.
Expanding Medicaid likely would generate state savings and revenues that exceed expansion costs.
So far, 29 states and Washington D.C. have approved expanding Medicaid, including the most recent, Michigan.
It’s time for Missouri legislators to concern themselves with the health of Missourians and our economy.
As a Kansas City resident, I call on Missouri legislators to do the right thing, the smart thing, and pass Medicaid expansion.
Karen S. Wright
Kansas City
Barring bigotry
Do we as a people believe that freedom of religion is the freedom to discriminate?
Does religious liberty give us the right to dust off the old signs from the 1950s about the right to refuse service that tried to hide the ugliness of racial prejudice?
The Founding Fathers clearly separated church and state so we could tolerate the beliefs of others without forcing them to conform to our intolerance of their actions and practices.
The shamelessness in the attempt to conceal the true nature of the recent disingenuously named statehouse bills exposes the contempt part of the evangelical community feels for the willingness of our modern society, but especially for the business and corporate world to make equality a reality.
If people believe that dancing, eating shellfish or even plowing on Sundays is a sin, we recognize that they are entitled to their beliefs in the privacy of their faith even as they lament their neighbor’s road to perdition.
That is freedom of religion.
Honest people saw the Indiana monstrosity, misnamed as it was, for its end goal — institutionalized bigotry.
David Grant Gray
Prairie Village
Coal pollution
How can a politician speak to the health of the thousands of individuals living next to coal-fired power plants? How can elected officials say with such confidence that burning coal poses no threat to the Earth when they are reaping monetary benefits from those who are themselves in the coal business?
It’s no secret that corruption exists everywhere — especially in politics. Money places a film of sugary-coated bliss on top of reality.
Sure, we could turn a blind eye to “minor” issues in exchange for a few dollars. But at what point will those minor issues turn into disastrous outcomes for everyone?
If the planet is destroyed, then even those with all the money in the world will be affected. Politicians need to consider the people who help put them in office and resist voting according to party trends.
Elected officials need to take a step back from the façade and really think about how their actions affect the lives of thousands.
Stop coal-fired plants from endangering human lives.
Here in Kansas City we aren’t immune to the effects of burning coal — our dirty air in the Northeast and high asthma rates prove it.
Siara Stahl
Kansas City
Cuts in Koch plan
The sun is shining in Kansas.
You’ve probably read about massive budget shortfalls, benefits to children in poverty being slashed, schools closing early because they’re running out of money and more.
How did we get in this mess?
Kansans have always valued education and taken care of the least among us. Luckily, we have a road map to the destruction of our values by none other than David Koch.
Another liberal rant, you say?
In 1980, David Koch ran for vice president. If you Google “David Koch, vice president, 1980,” you will find his platform.
These may sound familiar: abolition of Medicare and Medicaid, no universal health care, repeal Social Security, repeal all individual and corporate income taxes, repeal the minimum wage, end compulsory education, abolish public education and abolish all aid-to-the-poor programs.
And the Republicans are not finished.
So keep that in mind when the Legislature solves its self-created hole in the budget by raising regressive sales and property taxes while allowing the wealthiest Kansans to avoid paying individual taxes.
This is all part of the plan set in motion in 1980. For conservative Republicans, the sun is truly shining in Kansas.
Pete Henderson
Basehor
Constitutional rights
Isn’t it astonishingly inconsistent that the National Rifle Association and gun rights supporters (by the way, this writer has guns, too) do not stand for any attacks, limitations or infringement on their Second Amendment right to bear arms while they support legislative attacks, limitations and infringements on their Seventh Amendment right to trial by a jury of their peers?
Has it really become OK in America to enforce only the parts of the Constitution that one likes and to trample on the rest? There’s another word for this inconsistency, and it begins with “h” for hypocrisy.
Tom Jones
Kansas City
This story was originally published May 15, 2015 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Readers share views on Kansas legislation, the texting scandal and Medicaid expansion."