Cat food prices have almost doubled since COVID. Tell me this isn’t just price gouging | Opinion
Priced out
I sent to this letter to the president of the manufacturer of one of the most popular prescription pet foods:
My husband and I have two adopted cats and two ferals we rescued in 2020. After adopting them, I found out two had spastic colon problems and was told that to save their lives, we needed to put them on your prescription cat food.
I have been buying your cat food for more than three years. When I started, an 8.5-pound bag was $42, and now it has skyrocketed to $70. I have to purchase two per month.
I ask you: Do you think that is a fair price for your cat food? Do you not think you are price gouging consumers? You are.
I have heard so many excuses as to why prices have skyrocketed. Supply and demand right? Ha! The COVID-19 excuse is still being used three years later. So are the logistics of the trucking industry. Find another trucking company that will bid down to deliver your product. Products stuck on barges? Yeah, right.
This is not rocket science, folks. Do the right thing.
- Tracy Martin, Lone Jack
Sitting idle
In his 2006 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush admonished us that “America is addicted to oil.”
I remember thinking at the time: Wait a minute — this guy is a Texan who has ties to the petroleum industry. Isn’t this a bit like a drug dealer complaining about the junkies?
Nevertheless, Bush’s impassioned speech inspired me to establish an imaginary organization called Oilaholics Anonymous. Members of this fictitious club were required to forego drive-thru lanes at businesses, unless they were sick, disabled or forgot to wear clothes that day.
Here we are in 2023, and if anything the problem has become worse, with many businesses now catering to drive-thru customers only.
A moratorium against drive-thrus would have an immediate daily impact on pollution, climate change and fuel prices. As president of Oilaholics Anonymous, I recommend a 2-cent tax on all able-bodied drive-thru purchases. All proceeds would go toward cleanup and other green energy initiatives.
- Armand Way, Topeka
Libraries’ worth
The Kansas City I knew would never allow its libraries to go unfunded. (April 3, 1A, “Missouri GOP uses budget to block diversity efforts, defund libraries”) The Kansas City I knew held in great esteem its library system.
I remember spending an entire day perusing books on the shelves. I’d pick one out, read a few pages, put it back if I didn’t like it. But if I did, I’d settle into a chair and read it without even checking it out and taking it home. I took home lots of books and movies and music I never would have had access to otherwise.
But I never snatched one from other readers’ hands because I didn’t like what they reached for. When you open up a can of censorship, everyone has a differing opinion on what should go or stay.
It’s a sad day when public libraries are not important enough to a state or community to keep them funded. Anywhere.
- James Ivan Pitts, Providence, Rhode Island
Have some heart
Kansas City does not have a new airport. Kansas City has a new airport terminal (and garage). Most of the other airport infrastructure remains essentially the same, at least for now. So with all this fervor to rename something, what are we renaming — the terminal or the whole airport?
I say if we must rename something, let it be the terminal. Leave Kansas City International Airport’s name alone. It’s had that name for decades, and it is a perfectly good descriptor that needs no explanation. As for the terminal, I hope most people don’t favor one of several (hopefully tongue-in-cheek) choices in The Star’s ongoing poll. The Jason Sudeikis Terminal? Ginger Rogers, Tech N9ne, Sky Stations — really?
And if folks are determined to rename the whole airport, my vote goes to a recent Star letter writer who suggested “Heart of America Airport.” (March 24, 8A) This name would avoid upsetting those who favor one legacy person’s name over another, and it has a nice ring to it. I could live with that.
- Richard Lovett, Kansas City