Readers share thoughts about KU basketball, Kansas government, President Obama
Remember names
Thanks to Yael T. Abouhalkah’s March 31 column, “To save Kansas, nullify a failed governor,” every voter in Johnson County who cares about the desperate state of affairs in Kansas has a list of members of the House and Senate who, assuming they run for re-election, should be sent to their homes to stay.
We need to cut out that column and affix it to our refrigerators or our bulletin boards or enter it in our computers, and we need to remember that these men and women own a big share of the responsibility for lack of funds for our once-outstanding public schools, for taking money from our most vulnerable population, for causing great damage to our road system and for preventing the expansion of Medicaid to those who are in such need.
The elections are a few months away, but those of us who want a better future for our children and ourselves will not forget. In case your memory may fade a little, keep this column handy.
Judy Hellman
Leawood
Flood of tears
The National Weather Service has issued a flash flood warning on the Kaw River from Lawrence through Kansas City as the result of all the tears being shed in Jayhawkville over the recent loss by KU’s basketball team in the NCAA Tournament (3-27, B4, “Jayhawks’ season ends with disappointing loss”).
Richard W. Dahms
Country Club, Mo.
Charging GOP
Republican elephant = en-dangerous species.
Steve Sumner
Shawnee
Obama’s legacy
The economy was in free fall when President Barack Obama entered office. Since then:
▪ The U.S. has gone from losing 800,000 jobs a month to adding 200,000 to 250,000 per month.
More than 9 million jobs have been added.
▪ Unemployment has been reduced to 5 percent.
▪ His leadership has saved the auto industry.
▪ Corporate profits have soared under Obama.
▪ The Dow Jones Industrial Average has nearly doubled.
▪ More than 10 million people have gotten health insurance under Obamacare.
▪ The number of individuals added to food-stamp rolls has fallen.
Republican platform?
▪ Reduce taxes. The result in Kansas: severe revenue shortfalls and cuts in education, highway and rainy day funds, and a massive sales-tax increase that hurts low-income folks.
▪ More guns everywhere.
▪ Deregulate everything.
▪ Cut government safety-net programs.
▪ Improve election chances by implementing voter-suppression laws.
▪ Deny climate change, although 95 percent of scientists and our own eyes see it.
All taxes aren’t evil. If a bistate tax would have failed years ago, Union Station would have been torn down and would be a parking lot, downtown would be a barren wasteland and Kansas City would be a third-rate city. Instead, we have a great city.
David Evans
Kansas City
Rising water rates
The Kansas City Water Services Department wants to raise our water rates.
Being on Social Security, which has given us modest increases or no increase at all in six of the past seven years, I consider rising water rates a real hurt.
I can hardly water the flower bed, and my bill goes sky high with all of the recent water rate increases.
It is always the same whine by Kansas City water department officials.
Yet things are not better in repairs and handling of water leaks.
It all looks good in words, but delivery has always been wanting. Prices of utilities are out of control, yet there is no investigation of all the problems in spite of higher prices.
Our 6th District Kansas City councilman has not spoken publicly to inform us of what irons are in the fire that truly benefit us or whether the witch that stirs the caldron is in the shadows.
Object to higher water rates is the response Kansas City residents must give to Water Services Department officials, who are helping to create a growing elderly class of the poor.
William A. Ingram
Kansas City
Dwindling service
Some of our Republican senators profess to be shocked by the water situation in Flint, Mich. I wonder whether they realize their constant anti-government, starve-the-beast rhetoric and refusal to adequately fund regulatory agencies produced an environment that made a Flint inevitable.
If we keep voting for this rhetoric, there will be many more Flints.
Janelle Ramsburg
Prairie Village
Moran caves in
I have known Sen. Jerry Moran professionally and personally since 1990. I’ve contributed to his campaigns. I’ve helped him on issues. I even changed parties to vote for him against Todd Tiahrt when he first ran for the Senate, a decision I’m beginning to regret.
I always considered Moran a person you could reason with on issues that mattered regardless of the political fallout his vote might create.
That’s why so many people, myself included, liked Jerry Moran. But that has all changed since he was elected to the Senate.
Fearing for his political future, his every Senate vote has been in lockstep with far right wing of the Republican Party. There was hope when he announced that he was willing to do his duty as a United States senator and consider President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland (3-26, A6, “Moran blistered for supporting court hearings”).
But as soon as the tea party vigilantes in Kansas immediately suggested that it would rally Milton Wolf to run against Moran in the primary, he ran back to Kansas’ version of political safety and said he had changed his mind (4-2, A2, “Moran backs away from Garland view”). Some would call it political flip-flopping.
I call it being a political coward.
Fred Lucky
Lenexa
This story was originally published April 5, 2016 at 6:46 PM with the headline "Readers share thoughts about KU basketball, Kansas government, President Obama."