Readers share views on tax giveaways, pensions, presidential debate
Tax giveaways
I need a new roof, driveway, siding and curbs and resurfaced street. I want to get a tax increment financing deal of no taxes for 10 years. What a great deal for me! Anybody see where this is going?
Every company I’ve worked for knew it had to spend money on new equipment.
The city wants to have a bond issue of $800 million to take care of streets, sidewalks and a new animal shelter. A lot of these things should have been done with regular maintenance.
No one in the city knows how much TIF money has been given away. At least that’s what city officials say, which is hard for me to believe.
This program once had merit. Right now, this is the biggest boondoggle in our city’s history.
So far we’ve had TIF giveaways to the County Club Plaza, the Red Bridge shopping center and downtown, and we’re still giving away TIF money.
Now comes the biggest, dumbest idea yet — a tax giveaway on a luxury hotel on the Plaza and two luxury hotels downtown so they can remodel? Wouldn’t a room-rate increase work just as well?
Oh, that’s not our money.
Joseph T. Purcell
Kansas City
Pension logic
Let’s remember that pensions are pay for employees, exchanging wages today for future income (9-28, A1, “County pension change would allow double-dip”).
There should be some restrictions on working after retirement for the same employer or trade. Receiving a pension and working in a different field should be OK. Pensions are payment for work performed in the past.
Also, when employers or a state government (Kansas) do not pay into their employees’ pension system, is it not stealing the future promised income for labor done today?
Richard Cook
Overland Park
Presidential debate
After watching the first presidential debate, I was reminded that such a debate is not just about competing policy arguments (9-27, A1, “A furious fight”). The most important virtue for a president is grace under pressure.
People should ask themselves: In a time of national emergency, who can you picture sitting calmly in the Oval Office, looking into a camera, saying “My fellow Americans …” — and bringing strength and reassurance to the nation?
Who can deal with reality, not just reality TV?
That’s why I’m with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Phil Cardarella
Kansas City
Voting matters
I am a political guy. I was a party poll watcher first in 1968 and for most elections since, and in 2008 I was a member of the “army of lawyers” (a scary thought) to help those in Kansas who didn’t happen to have their birth certificates with them.
In 2000, as a member of a local service club, I was actually a poll worker, one of the most tiring experiences in my life. I have since witnessed the poll captains and workers in every precinct every two years sit for more than 12 hours to make the process work.
I have seen them taking abuse from those whose names for some reason did not appear, kindly assisting disabled and challenged individuals, and cleaning up real or virtual messes from inattentive voters.
It is amazing to me why they do it, unless they wish, as I have, to celebrate this greatest exercise of freedom.
Robert VanCleave
Overland Park
Plant-based diet
It seems as if there is always some special observance around the corner. There is even a World Day for Farmed Animals. It’s observed fittingly on Oct. 2 (Gandhi’s birthday). It’s intended to memorialize the tens of billions of animals abused and killed for food around the world.
My first instinct was to dismiss it. But I wanted to understand the impact of my diet and my food dollars on others.
Recent undercover investigations showed male baby chicks suffocated in plastic garbage bags or ground to death, laying hens crowded into small wire cages, injured pigs killed by slamming their heads against the concrete floor and cows skinned and dismembered while still conscious.
As theologians debate whether there is life after death, I wondered whether these animals have a life before death and why I should subsidize these barbaric practices.
I wonder no more, as I have now embraced a plant-based diet — green and yellow veggies, legumes, fruits, nuts and some grains. Although I was motivated by compassion for animals, I have since learned that my diet is also great for my health and for the health of our planet.
Victor Wing
Kansas City
Altered America
Many of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's supporters are so angry at the Washington, D.C., elite that they want to see change whether it be good or bad. Here are some of the changes that could be implemented if he were elected: nuclear war; more tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations; inferior treatment of minorities, women, the disabled, poor, and the most vulnerable in our society; minimum wage abolished, allowing foreign workers with visas to provide cheap labor; more unequal pay for men and women; no regulations to curb climate change; destruction of Department of Education resulting in expensive private schools for children; invasion and takeover of vulnerable countries; freedom of the press, speech, and religion jeopardized; suppression of voting rights; martial law; collusion with Russia and alienation of our longtime allies.
Yes, we will definitively see change if Trump becomes president.
Barbara Nolan
Lenexa
This story was originally published September 30, 2016 at 3:00 PM with the headline "Readers share views on tax giveaways, pensions, presidential debate."