Readers share thoughts on Kansas taxes, Hillary Clinton, East High School
Wealthy exceptions
Wealthy six-figure-earner-for-decades attorney James Zakoura says limited liability companies like his should pay their fair tax share (8-28, A1, “Hundreds of thousands of Kansas business owners are exempt from state income taxes. But many, feeling like ‘freeloaders,’ want the tax break to end”).
He pockets an extra $6,000 at tax time. He doesn’t need it and would give that up in a second.
He had a chance to give it up by lowering his fees and passing savings to his clients or to employees in raises so they would have more money to spend building our economy.
That, plus using the money to increase the tax base by growing their businesses and hiring more people, is how this plan was supposed to work.
Wealthy business owners who want to “pay their fair share” but are not using the money as intended by the program should pay it. Or donate the money to a cause that used to be paid by charity, thus eliminating the need for the government to pay it.
Elect Democrats and you will pay that $6,000 and lots more while inflicting more government control over citizens, just like the federal government does.
In the 2017, five-year review, Kansas legislators can correct the LLC program and eliminate those wealthy business exceptions such as Zakoura and Bill Self.
Donna Gillett
Leavenworth
President Clinton
A large percentage of Americans, including many Democrats, don’t trust Hillary Clinton but will still vote for the Democrats’ presidential nominee. History tells us we’re going to get what we deserve if this happens.
You can draw a straight line from crooked Hillary Clinton to “Tricky Dick” Nixon. The “Checkers” speech that Richard Nixon gave in 1952 to save his spot on the Republican ticket should have warned America to the lies and legal misdeeds that brought Nixon to resign in disgrace in 1974.
Watergate tore the country apart. Hillary Clinton cried in 1998 about a “vast right wing conspiracy” out to get her and her husband, and less than 20 years later her cries of “woe is me” still evoke eye rolling.
She, too, will tear the country apart. If elected, Hillary Clinton will become the dictator Richard Nixon only dreamed he could be.
Ed O’Toole
Kansas City
Poor choices
Cases made for why progressive and young voters should support Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton sound compelling. GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump must be defeated. Trump has no concrete policy (this may be left to his running mate, Mike Pence, who like the GOP platform, is another disaster). Trump can spew only divisiveness with his “Make America Great (i.e., White) Again” slogan.
I and many others feel deeply disturbed by Clinton’s bloody secretary of state record. Her choice of white-bread Sen. Tim Kaine also troubles many progressive voters.
It appears to be a nod to Wall Street, the military industrial complex and the Democratic establishment. Kaine’s vice presidential nomination was a strategic move. He’s a squeaky clean Catholic.
For progressives, it would be far easier to hold a President Clinton’s feet to the fire on issues of climate change, rejecting the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and fracking, racial justice, single-payer health care and livable wages than it would ever be to rein in a President Trump on anything that doesn’t shine the limelight on him.
Consider which president, or in Trump’s case vice president Pence, would nominate justices to the Supreme Court. But it’s still a very depressing and elitist, neo-liberal choice.
Rosemarie Woods
Kansas City
TSA problems
I can think of a way to make airports in the United States much easier to use and appealing for travelers. Get rid of the Transportation Safety Administration. Its creation was a knee jerk reaction to the 9/11 attacks that panicked the federal government into passing the awful Patriot Act.
TSA has caught no terrorists. It humiliates travelers. It is a proven sieve for weapons of all kinds.
Reported theft of personal belongings in transit has increased. It is nothing more than a boondoggle that serves no purpose other than to harass travelers and employ the otherwise unemployable.
We certainly don’t need a new airport specifically designed to accommodate them.
Steven Brooks
Cameron, Mo.
East High School
The East High School family has been asked to say goodbye to its principal of eight years, Thomas Herrera.
Mr. Herrera reopened East High School in 2008 in a neighborhood replete with gang activity, violence and generalized hopelessness.
During his tenure, East High School has transformed itself into a source of pride, leadership and strength. Expectations have since been raised to reflect superiority in both academics and athletics, establishing an Interscholastic League standard.
Through extensive effort — surpassing the obligatory in nature — Mr. Herrera has aided students, teachers, coaches and parents to an immeasurable extent.
On behalf of all, I say thank you.
Donald L. Robertson
Blue Springs
This story was originally published August 31, 2016 at 5:42 PM with the headline "Readers share thoughts on Kansas taxes, Hillary Clinton, East High School."