Letters to the editor: Yoder’s support of cancer research, Brownback’s ‘emperor’ moment, shopping in Missouri, Amtrak’s losses

Cancer research

Rep. Kevin Yoder and a dozen other members of Congress from both sides of the aisle put aside partisan politics and supported a robust increase in cancer research funding at the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network and Stand Up to Cancer’s launch of the #OneDegree Project this spring in our nation’s capital.

This month I traveled to Washington, D.C., with 130 cancer-fighting advocates from across the country for One Voice Against Cancer’s lobby day to continue urging Congress to let their action speak louder than words with a robust funding commitment for lifesaving cancer research.

As a cancer survivor, I’ve benefited from the effect of cancer research and prevention programs at the National Cancer Institute, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This year, 14,440 Kansans are expected to be diagnosed with cancer, and some 5,550 will die from the disease. With this many lives on the line, we can’t afford to let promising research languish in labs or allow people to suffer because of a lack of preventive and diagnostic options.

Congress, let’s work together to save more lives. We are One Voice Against Cancer, and we will be heard.

Leesa Gabel

Olathe

Emperor Brownback

The pronouncement by Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback that his tax increase is really not a tax increase takes me back to my childhood days when my mother entertained me by reading a fairy tale entitled “The Emperor’s New Clothes. (6-17, A4, “Budget plan still rankles”)”

The fact that the emperor’s clothes didn’t exist and that he strutted naked before his subjects seems entirely in keeping with Emperor Sam’s most recent falsehood.

David Thomas

Olathe

No to tax increases

I just say no to any tax increase in Johnson County. The Johnson County Commission recently considered approving spending $20.75 million through bonds to fund the development of the white elephant building at 8788 Metcalf Ave. in Overland Park — also known as the former King Louie Lanes.

We need to get rid of the waste in Johnson County and use the money to support schools and real needs of our community. I say sell the building, take our lumps and move on.

Doug Carolan

Leawood

Crossing state line

I guess, I’ll be doing all my shopping in Missouri. Food. Gas. Everything.

It’s close enough, and I don’t see why I should foot the bill for tax-dodging Kansas business owners. How is getting “robbed” by the government at the store any different from getting “robbed” by government at work? (Unless I’m not getting robbed but just being asked to carry my fair share of the civic costs of society? ...no...no, that doesn’t make sense.)

Whatever. The limited license companies can contribute nothing to society, and I can take my business elsewhere like the rational capitalist consumer that I am.

Sarah Kabala

Overland Park

Hold legislators’ pay

Because our Kansas Legislature was supposed to have only a 90-day session, and it cost Kansas taxpayers $43,000 per day for every day over 90, then these Kansas legislators should not be paid for those days — either salary or per diem. That might just influence them to do their job.

Fred Andrews

Prairie Village

Brownback’s tears

The governor earlier this month was tearing up (6-12, A1, “Brownback makes tax hike plea”). He was begging his fellow Republicans (who currently hold the lion’s share of political power in the Legislature) to do something about Kansas’ budget problem.

Seriously? It was long past the time for crying in the Kansas Statehouse. Now is the time to take a huge bite of humility, and this includes Gov. Sam Brownback and all the other recalcitrant conservatives who have turned their heads away from the common good and still refuse to admit it.

Moderate Democrats and Republicans alike throughout the state had cried out for weeks for sensible action in Topeka that would protect education, health care, jobs, the arts, the needy — you name it. But the only entities apparently deserving of protection, in the eyes of the governor and the other politicians of his ilk, were those at the top of the financial heap, whose outrageous tax breaks should be repealed.

Instead, middle-wage earners and those at the bottom will be saddled with an even more astronomical sales tax, which hits all the necessities, not just extras.

It was not a good feeling to watch the legislators bumbling, listen to regretful explanations by strapped moderate legislators to their constituents, and then find myself looking with suspicion at my neighbors, a great number of whom obviously voted these non-achievers into office. One letter writer praises The Star for respecting the lawmakers’ humanity; I praise the newspaper for being a watchdog for the voters of Kansas and keeping us aware that our state is in exactly as much trouble as we think it is.

Janelle Lazzo

Roeland Park

Amtrak losses

Let’s call Amtrak what it is — a government-run charity that is funded by the American middle class. Amtrak offers reduced rate transportation to anyone interested in getting to their destination eventually.

Unionized Amtrak employees receive great pay and benefits while the railroad loses money every year. For their never-ending support of this nonprofit railroad, the taxpayers deserve a charitable tax deduction.

Ed Geither

Overland Park

This story was originally published June 23, 2015 at 2:51 PM with the headline "Letters to the editor: Yoder’s support of cancer research, Brownback’s ‘emperor’ moment, shopping in Missouri, Amtrak’s losses."