Readers share views on the Postal Service, Kathleen Sebelius and anti-gun moms
Postal Service woes
Small post offices across the United States are cutting their hours. Those postal workers who are able to keep their jobs may be taking big pay cuts. Those whose hours have changed already can’t get their work done in the time allowed.
Some postal workers are being bullied to turn in time cards with less than the time worked.
Instead of facing the yelling, they just put in what the boss says it will take. The second “S” in USPS is not for service.
Robert Sager
Moran, Kan.
Unwanted input
Former health and human services secretary Kathleen Sebelius is the last person on Earth who should be criticizing government officials (1-21, A4, “Sebelius speaks out, faults Brownback plan”). Go back to Washington, D.C., Kathleen.
Carol Dengel
Overland Park
Anti-gun moms
Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America protests, harasses and harangues those who open carry guns and retailers who allow them to carry in their stores. The moms are cowards because they won’t protest in high-crime areas, where violent people do violent things with guns.
Instead they harass those who will not harm anyone. Members of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America are cowards.
John Stolte
Kansas City
Convention of states
The Convention of States project is a way for the states to discuss, draft and vote on amendment proposals to the U.S. Constitution, which could limit the federal government’s power. Want term limits for U.S. representatives and senators? An amendment proposal ratified by 38 states could do that.
Congress will never limit itself. It’s up to the people, through our state legislators, to make the changes. Go to www.conventionofstates.com to get involved.
Vicki Miller
Belton
Labor competition
On the Jan. 20 front-page article, “Not everyone happy to see new business,” my response is that in the past 45 years I started two businesses in Kansas City and have always wanted the economic pie to be larger so maybe my small sliver could prosper.
Apparently, Russ Welsh, who heads the Polsinelli law firm, has supported economic growth for many years, which affected other businesses, but now that his ox is gored it is another story. It seems he is special and expects entitlements.
Mr. Welsh, do you really think 375 new administrative jobs in a city as large as Kansas City will decimate the skilled labor pool?
In our capitalistic system, why do you think you and your fine firm should be afforded preferential treatment? With your billing rate and salary in the stratosphere, are you now so shortsighted that you can’t understand how new business is good for everyone?
Please excuse my ignorance, but when you have your “private meeting” with the other “law firm leaders” it seems this is the same type behavior that got us the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Maybe I miss your entire point, but I can imagine you have some employees who would be very happy for other opportunities.
Absolutely unbelievable.
Leland (Lee) Walker
Olathe
Road funds at risk
Transportation in Kansas has long been the envy of other states. With comprehensive highway programs, our transportation system has aided in fulfilling economic development, enhancing safety and preserving highway infrastructure.
As state budgets have grown tight, funds dedicated to the highway program have been shifted to fund shortfalls in other areas of government.
More than $600 million has been taken from the Kansas Department of Transportation since T-WORKS was passed in 2010.
Those shifts translate into transportation projects that won’t be completed, despite their value to communities.
T-WORKS is funded primarily through a 4/10-cent sales tax. The program stipulates that at least $8 million be spent in each county, which has been met in 74 of our 105 counties. This dedicated funding source is imperative in funding multiyear projects.
The T-WORKS program is set to have a $10 billion impact on the Kansas economy and is a proven job creator, with 175,000 jobs directly attributed to the initiative.
Current budget shortfalls are putting the program at risk. It will be tempting for some to take from the bank of Kansas Department of Transportation.
But we urge caution. Kansas cannot attract new business and grow our economy without investments in infrastructure.
Johnnie Koger
Co-Chair
Economic Lifelines
Topeka
U.S. gun violence
The second anniversary of the Dec. 14 Sandy Hook Elementary School murders in Newtown, Conn., has passed.
I’m nervously awaiting the next mass murder in the United States. It may be a classroom, movie theater, university or Army base.
We know better.
The United States is No. 1 in gun deaths among developed countries. We have a murder rate similar to Iraq, Congo and Pakistan.
We know better.
I don’t believe it is too late to solve our epidemic. NBC News reports that in the United States, 289 people are shot every day. Of those, 86 die each day, and more than 31,000 died of gun shots in 2013.
Think of the lives, dollars and families we could save in our emergency rooms, court rooms, prisons and hospitals.
Is this is how you want your tax dollars spent? Where is our freedom to attend a movie or send a child to school without nervously awaiting the next gun murder?
Use your vote to save lives and families.
We know better.
DeeDee Cooper
Prairie Village
Government waste
Our government threw away millions of dollars on a wasted CIA study. Then the CIA denied the accusations in the report.
Charities are begging for money to help the poor and starving people of the United States, and our politicians throw money away like it is nothing.
How smart is that? I would bet that the veterans, Salvation Army, Red Cross and other groups would have loved even a small part of the millions of dollars spent on the report.
Doris Mindedahl
Bonner Springs
Cruel dog owner
This is to the person who abandoned his beautiful dog on the side of a busy street recently. Did you leave him there late at night so nobody would see your cruel and heartless act?
Although I doubt you care, he stayed right where you left him. Sitting beneath a tree with his now-empty bowl of water and food in plastic bags.
Unrestrained in any way, he ran to me with a friendly greeting and then returned to sit next to his empty bowl — the one thing that was still familiar to him.
His face badly scarred, he clearly had seen hard times, but they had done nothing to quell his tender loving spirit.
But you didn’t return, so now he’s in the shelter system, his fate uncertain.
What is certain is that it’s your loss, and you didn’t deserve him anyway.
Jan Monty
Kansas City
Brownback’s folly
I am a lifelong Republican, but I am fed up with Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback’s fiscal irresponsibility. He unfairly taxes all wage earners while giving limited-liability corporations a free ride with zero income taxes.
To no one’s surprise, the state budget is in a shambles. Brownback now proposes to increase taxes on cigarettes and alcohol.
Why single out these items for increase? Additional taxes on cigarettes and alcohol are not the solution.
His tax scheme has failed to grow jobs and revenues. The solution is simple. Tax limited-liability corporations just like all other taxpayers.
Owners of limited-liability corporations have not increased jobs. They have pocketed the additional earnings at the expense of all other Kansans.
Stop using alcohol and cigarettes as a subterfuge for flawed tax policies.
Robert H. Henn
Overland Park
Thank you notes
In thank you etiquette, my 22-year-old granddaughter excels (1-5, C1, “Are thank-you notes a dying art?”). When receiving my gift, she calls and thanks me. A few days later I get a written thank you note.
Carrie Rodgers
Overland Park
This story was originally published January 24, 2015 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Readers share views on the Postal Service, Kathleen Sebelius and anti-gun moms."