Lawmakers force food assistance and health care to battle it out | Opinion

Not privileges

Greek mythology tells of Hercules and the Hydra, a creature so relentless that severing one of his heads gave rise to two more. In today’s politics, that monster has returned as endless partisan battles over the social safety net.

Across the Midwest, some Republican lawmakers are pushing to link food assistance to health care. Framed as “accountability,” it is cruelty disguised as policy. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program feeds more than 40 million Americans — working parents, children, older adults and veterans. For many Kansas and Missouri families, it’s the line between difference between stability and collapse. Attaching health care restrictions doesn’t promote independence — it deepens hardship.

Picture a retiree in Topeka forced to choose between groceries and prescriptions. That isn’t prudence. It’s moral failure. Hunger and illness have become bargaining chips in a game where the well-fed debate the needs of the hungry.

Greek myth warned of hubris — the arrogance that comes before a fall. When leaders treat compassion as something to earn, they repeat that mistake.

A nation’s strength isn’t measured by the wealth of its powerful, but by the welfare of its powerless. Food and health care aren’t privileges. They’re promises — and empathy is the only weapon strong enough to defend them.

- Josh Fredrick, Derby, Kansas

New ideas

Advice for both political parties:

• Tell longtime incumbents to retire at the end of their current term. We need new people, not the same old power addicts.
• Stop driving out the moderates. Those are the ones you should keep. The extremists should be shoved out the door.
• Get better policies. I mean policies that are better than your current policies. Policies that will work, not just conform to your ideology. You will find those in the political center, not at the extremes.
• Get better candidates who are not blinded by ideology. Ideally, candidates who have no connection to Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, the Bushes or the Clintons.
• Don’t obstruct the creation of a third major party to represent the political center. Neither party speaks for the political center, but these Americans have as much right to have their voices heard as the extremes you currently represent.
• Get a dictionary, look up the word compromise and genuinely embrace its meaning.

- David Lund, Kansas City

Integrity first

Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt recently claimed that President Joe Biden “weaponized the Department of Justice” against political opponents. If that charge deserves investigation as the senator suggested, the same standard should apply to Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to use the DOJ to pursue critics such as James Comey and Letitia James. Justice shouldn’t shift with the party in power.

The greater danger here is hypocrisy. Calling out one abuse while excusing another doesn’t defend the rule of law — it undermines it. Once public trust in our justice system erodes, rebuilding it could take generations. When we ignore one form of weaponization but rage at another, we’re not defending justice; we’re choosing our favorite weapon.

If truth and fairness still matter, we should look past slogans, seek multiple sources for news and remind our elected officials that integrity in justice must come before party loyalty.

- David Hosea, Smithville

Let’s talk

Let’s figure out how to continue the social safety net. We can probably come up with ideas to share with our elected representatives.

Maybe we could add a national sales tax of one cent on all purchases, including real estate and stock purchases. That could help fund existing programs, except Social Security and Medicare. Since we have lowered corporate income taxes significantly since 2017, maybe we could ask those employers to double their FICA contributions.

These may not be the greatest ideas, so let’s hear from others and get a discussion going. We’ll set the example for Congress, for a change.

- Jim Turner, Independence

More policing

The Republican Party has, for many years, tried to get rid of the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. I think this has not happened largely because they never had a plan of their own. Now we’re just watching them dismantle the ACA piece by piece. But they do have a plan to build a White House ballroom.

People are out on the streets trying to get members of Congress to listen to their constituents, and Donald Trump is using our protests as a reason to send troops to put down the supposed “out of control” crime in our cities.

I can’t believe we’re watching this happen. I can’t believe Trump can get away with this outlaw behavior without consequences. There is no law stopping him. The Republicans marched into Richard Nixon‘s office and told him he had to leave. We need this to happen now, but the Republican Party is defunct.

My prayer today is that the Democrats can take control and do a better job of policing our president.

- Mary Hutchinson, Kansas City