Readers share thoughts on KCI, wealth disparity and Hillary Clinton
Keep KCI as is
Don’t change Kansas City International Airport to a single-terminal airport. The layout of our airport is the best design in the country.
Why would we want to change it? It has the easiest access of any airport I’ve ever been in.
You don’t have to walk for miles to get to connecting flights. We don’t want fancy restaurants and silly shops. We want convenience, which is what we have.
So, please don’t mess with a good thing.
Melissa Brown
Oak Grove
U.S. wealth disparity
How does labor (the majority of us) maintain economic demand and afford education, health care and infrastructure with a diminishing share of national revenue?
Our share of national revenue has been falling for more then three decades. If that trend continues, it will further harm our ability to maintain economic demand and afford such things as education and health care.
Stephen Moore, Arthur Laffer and Grover Norquist champion aggravating the trend by shifting the tax burden away from the wealthy and onto the backs of the working poor and middle class while cutting services.
Warren Buffett, Robert Reich and Paul Krugman recommend countering the trend with services and a progressive tax system.
If we replace the sales tax and property tax with a progressive capital gains tax and ratio-based business tax, a wealthy few will experience a tax increase. Opponents argue on behalf of those wealthy few and ignore our growing wealth divide.
Theodore J. Sturgeon
Olathe
Hillary Clinton’s run
If Hillary Clinton decides to run for president, I will vote for her if she promises to keep Bill Clinton a thousand miles away from the White House.
Hollis Brazelton
Lathrop, Mo.
Get tough on guns
If gun-rights advocates are so concerned about registering their weapons for fear that the government will come after them, then why aren’t they demanding parity with the government’s arsenal?
Taking their arguments to logical conclusions, gun-rights people should have the right to purchase Trident submarines, nuclear weapons, Stinger missiles and Vulcan machine guns. After all, how can one really defend one’s self against a government armed with such weapons?
And yet, common sense prevails when it comes to the civilian prohibition of such weaponry. That same common sense should prevail when it comes to access to all weapons of mass destruction.
It’s time we had an intelligent discussion on the Second Amendment. That discussion should be led by responsible gun owners and not those who sport weapons that can empty a 30-round magazine in less than four seconds. Such a weapon in 1937 would have required a machine-gun stamp to own.
Now, a person can get one easier than he can lay his hands on heroin. Where’s the common sense in that?
Tom Davis
Merriam
Medicare plans
I recently became of age to go on Medicare, and I did some research into available options. There is some complexity here, and the mistake some people make is not distinguishing between a supplement plan and an advantage plan.
The supplement plan allows the participant to stay on Medicare, and it will generally pay for any doctor who accepts Medicare.
However, an advantage plan is run by a private insurance company. These plans are usually less expensive, and the plans dictate which doctors they will pay for that are in their networks. You choose your type of plan — supplement or advantage — and live with the consequences.
One needs to pay close attention to the Medicare supplement ads and the advantage ads that bombard us. It is easy to confuse them.
There is a trade-off for the lower-cost advantage plans that we need to understand.
Steve Schwegler
Liberty
Corporate greed
Corporations are, to a degree, responsible for our economic problems. Corporations have almost $2 trillion housed in offshore accounts to avoid U.S. taxes according to Bloomberg News.
These corporations complain about the 35 percent corporate tax rate, but they don’t pay that amount and some pay almost nothing. The whole deal is plain old corporate greed.
Our Social Security problems, jobs and other situations could be alleviated if the greedy corporations brought back offices and jobs. They don’t need billions in profits yearly.
The whole process is unpatriotic. Love of the bottom line is destroying this country, which enabled these corporations to exist and grow.
Marlene Cooper
Raytown
Bridge column
I moved to Missouri from a large city, where its newspaper still publishes daily bridge columns. How sad that The Kansas City Star does not offer this option for the faithful readers.
Carolyn Wheat
Knob Noster, Mo.
Open-carry guns
My wife and I went to a local family restaurant in Independence to catch a quick meal. As we were waiting at the entrance, a man, his wife and two young girls walked in and were immediately seated.
It was a normal scene with one exception. This gentleman had a pistol strapped to his side. My wife informed the hostess that we will not do business with companies that allow anyone with weapons, putting all of us in danger.
Shaken by this incident, I called 911 and said that although this is legal, it is also an individual’s right to call 911 if the person feels threatened, and the police will come and make sure whoever is carrying has the proper documentation.
We did contact the restaurant and were informed that it is against company policy for anyone other than law enforcement to have weapons on company property. But until that restaurant or any other business displays a “no weapons allowed” sign, any family could be subjected to this kind of experience.
Food for thought.
Ken Bailey
Independence
Bleeding Americans
The greedy oil corporations, Wall Street advisers and Congress members are causing havoc and grief on the middle class and poor of our country. The attention now being given to the unrest in Iraq is just a new excuse to bleed us beyond our economic limits.
The wages of the working class, middle class and poor have been at a standstill since the Reagan administration. Then during President George W. Bush’s era, he aided the wealthy with huge tax breaks, which was the start of our country’s economic decline.
Bush deceived our country by involving our troops in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Oil and energy corporations have caused our economic downfall along with the Middle East crises.
Members of Congress need to stop enriching themselves so we, the people, can regain the status as envisioned in the U.S. Constitution.
Terrance R. Hawbaker
Atchison, Kan.
Pedestrian thrills
Verrückt at Schlitterbahn in Kansas City, Kan., is the world’s tallest water slide, giving participants insane thrills. But a similar rush can come from walking within a few feet of a four-lane, 45 mph thoroughfare, where the traffic actually goes 55 mph.
Then note that the people on that road are conducting business via phone. I have had vehicles wander over the white line toward the curb. That’s really a thrill.
But then when I reach a crosswalk, it becomes clear that the use of the phones might actually be a lifesaving operation. If these people were not on their phones, they would probably be eating fast food. They might be doing both. Then the use of the phone to save your own life is negated.
Recently, there was a downed streetlight from a traffic accident to negotiate. I am now considering crossing the six lanes where there is no crosswalk as a better option.
I am just wishing for the best, for me, my dog and the drivers.
Ken Morris
Lee’s Summit
This story was originally published August 30, 2014 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Readers share thoughts on KCI, wealth disparity and Hillary Clinton."