Letters: Bill Self should hire the folks cut from Kansas welfare

Trump, Voltaire

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign has been inundated with vile and repugnant toxic ads with a platform of hatred and insecurity, dramatically lowering the bar for what is acceptable in presidential races.

But, as Voltaire, a Frenchman, once said, “I disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Sophia Myers

Prairie Village

Self employment

I have a great idea for Kansas basketball coach Bill Self, who we recently found out is exempt from paying most of his Kansas income tax. He can hire some of the people who the governor and the Republican-controlled Legislature just cut off welfare.

Of course, since they have reduced subsidies for child care for the working poor, he will mostly have to help pay for their child care.

Marcia Nicely

Mission

Kansas richness

Kansas for sure gives up plenty to write about. I can hardly decide where to start. In northeast Johnson County we have been proud of our school systems, and presumed the whole state was on par with us.

But all we have to do is look west to Topeka and see we have been short-sighted. After all, it was those very systems combined that gave us adults unable to think critically. What irony.

I get a charge from the politicians saying we spend too much on education already. I guess so, after all it turned them out.

Then the other day the thought came to me: We should change the name of the state flower to sundown flower, and the state bird to gooney. Do we have a state mammal? If not, it should be a dingbat.

We should move the seat of the government to the Menninger Clinic. The state politicians seem bent on going to an aristocracy, where only the uber-rich get help from the government, and all the rest exist only to serve their every desire.

Confiscate their salaries to help fix the deficit.

Dave Nash

Shawnee

Bathroom bills

Without replaying all of the arguments for these bathroom bills, I would only say that the last place anyone finds privacy is a bathroom or a locker room. In fact, one agrees to give up a degree of privacy when entering one.

I would encourage those who don’t want to allow transgender people to express their constitutional civil rights to admit the prejudice behind these bills and not hide behind fantasies of predators or arguments of privacy.

These bills are coming from states that wish to deny a woman’s privacy concerning her own body or, until surprisingly recently, denied privacy in one’s own bedroom. To deny privacy at home or of one’s own body but to require it in public is the ultimate in hypocrisy.

The word is “public” for a reason.

Stanley Stern

Prairie Village

Herbert column

Only in Gov. Sam Brownback’s Kansas and the right-wing May 11 913 column of Danedri Herbert, “They could have fixed that LLC loophole, but didn’t,” would Republican legislators trying to stave off bankruptcy of the state be labeled “liberal, radical Republicans.”

Ms. Herbert claims that House Sub SB 63 would have “fixed the LLC loophole.” While that gives her ammunition to go after Reps. Melissa Rooker and Barbara Bollier, it’s simply not true.

The bill would not kick in until fiscal year 2018, leaving the gaping $300 million holes in fiscal year 2016 and 2017. In addition, the triggers of the “March to Zero” would have remained, exacerbating deficits down the road.

Certainly, the so-called LLC Loophole should be repealed and Kansas business owners should pay taxes, but the bill in question was little more than window dressing in an election year, allowing the same legislators who helped create the mess to appear to be trying to fix it.

Kudos to Reps. Rooker and Bollier and the other 22 who did the right thing.

Scott Gregory

Roeland Park

Benghazi, Republicans

Not since Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone with the Wind” have I seen acting to match the Republicans ongoing furor over the Benghazi attack. They’re in such a dither about the deceit and incompetence involved in this disaster, acting shocked and betrayed

“Oh my!” they cry. “Pass the vapors, I think I might faint!”

If you compare the four Benghazi victims to the 4,000 Americans killed in the Iraq search for imaginary weapons of mass destruction, it is like a person being robbed of a $1 bill and a $1,000 watch. It takes amazing acting skills to somehow convince the American public (with a straight face) to be upset only about the missing dollar bill.

I frankly hope the American public will reply to these Republican actors with the same words Rhett Butler used when replying to Scarlett’s plea at that movie’s end.

George Lafferty

Fairway

Unifying Republicans

Even Mandrake the Magician couldn’t unify the Republican Party, let alone House Speaker Paul Ryan. He has been about as successful in doing so as his predecessor, Rep. John Boehner — whose parting gesture in vacating our nation’s highest legislative position was singing zip-a-de-do-da in relief of frustration accumulated in trying to lead a cantankerous cadre of tea partiers, freedom fighters and libertarians who refused to toe the party line.

Sure, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump needs to clean up his act. But he’s pliable, as his numerous recants suggest.

But how does Ryan get the recalcitrants in the House to abandon their far right demands and move closer to the principles of traditional conservatism and realism?

Jim Kudlinski

Overland Park

This story was originally published May 24, 2016 at 12:53 PM with the headline "Letters: Bill Self should hire the folks cut from Kansas welfare."