Unfettered Letters

Save money and Kansas schools

Here is a plan to close the Kansas budget gap and save our public schools.

Cut spending by consolidating many of the too numerous rural school districts, which result in high administrative costs.

Shift revenue raised by the lottery and gaming to education and the general fund.

Raise revenue by restoring the oil severance tax to its historic levels prior to the cuts of recent years.

This plan helps public schools and the average taxpayer.

Bill Roush
Overland Park

Bond’s ‘pork’ helped KC

The Star’s editorial “And now, a few awards for some Kansas City dramas” (2/22, Opinion) was the latest in a long line of disappointing commentary. It’s baffling that The Star’s editorial writers fail to see the difference in the local works projects that our elected officials, such as Sen. Kit Bond, secure for our communities and a trillion-dollar spending bill.

I think families who have jobs because of the senator’s so-called “pork” for the IRS Service Center, Whittaker Courthouse, National Archives, city bus system and Paseo Bridge may disagree. Those projects were made possible because of the pork Sen. Bond secured that The Star likes to criticize.

Thanks, Sen. Bond, for your common-sense Missouri values, recognition of excessive governmental spending, and all you have done and continue to do for our hardworking and taxpaying citizens.

Robert “Bud” Hertzog
Lee’s Summit

Defending the spending

Why do Republicans complain about President Obama wanting to spend money to improve our highways, bridges and schools? This creates jobs and improves our transportation system and schools. What’s wrong with that?

It’s a lot more than Bush ever did for his own country.

John Thomas
Prairie Village

Some Republican governors, including Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Haley Barbour of Mississippi and Mark Sanford of South Carolina, have stated that they will not accept parts of their states’ allotments of the stimulus program.

I suggest President Obama immediately redistribute these funds to other states such as Kansas and Missouri, where there is real leadership in the governors’ offices that cares enough to want to help their citizens.

Sandy Salz
Overland Park

The tax increase on the wealthy that President Obama is proposing is long overdue. Why shouldn’t they pay their fair share?

This is not a step toward socialism, as so many sore losers on the right repeat ad nauseam. It’s a push back to democracy and away from the plutocracy we have lived in since we made the grand mistake of electing Ronald Reagan.

Carl Raccuglia
Kansas City

Kudos to George Lafferty (2/27, Letters, “GOP’s sudden frugality”) who so eloquently wrote about the Republicans’ past silence about debt spending. For weeks now, I have been aghast when I hear on TV or read in the paper about all the Republican outrage over deficit spending. For years we have never heard a peep from any of them.

Suck it up, guys. Your newly found outrage is eight years too late.

Susan F. Weiner
Overland Park

No money for health care?

Why do we always find money for the Defense Department and not for health care protection for all of our citizens, as other industrialized countries in the world manage to do? We’ve spent billions and billions for preemptive war, “Star Wars,” the most advanced technological weapons in the world, nuclear weapons by the thousands, and on and on. As smart and generous as we think we are, some education is needed about priorities for a 21st-century nation.

I’m sick and tired of hearing that there’s no money for protecting all of our citizens from illnesses, disabilities and death while we talk boastfully about exploring Mars and our sophisticated killing machines. I’ve heard these arguments since my childhood, and they are hollow and indefensible.

Let’s be the great “shining city” that we give lip service to.

Jack Turk
Liberty

We all benefit from bailouts

Chris Lester’s column (2/24, Business, “Fight the bailout burnout”) suggests the fears experienced by Americans are caused by President Obama not being cheerful enough when discussing the economy. People are fearful because their home values have plummeted, their 401(k)s are depleted, they have friends or family who’ve lost their jobs, and they worry they can’t afford college for their kids. I appreciate the president’s honest assessment and efforts to deal with the crisis.

As for the suggestion that a scarlet “B” be worn by “anyone receiving bailout assistance,” let’s be honest. It’s not just unemployed auto or construction workers or homeowners facing foreclosure who benefit. Everyone who uses public schools, drives across bridges and highways, needs a loan or even works for a company whose customers will have more money to spend stands to gain.

Like it or not, we’re all in this together. Berating the president or the most obvious recipients of the stimulus will not move us forward.

Pat Ryan
Prairie Village

I really enjoy reading the flood of boastful letters to The Star describing how sensible and perceptive some people are to have purchased only the size of home they could afford, paid all their bills on time and never defaulted on a loan. They also help old ladies across the street and always pet puppies and on and on.

They decry the government “handout” of helping people keep their mortgage payments current to avoid default, and they cynically demand that government also pay their mortgage payment. “It’s socialism!” they scream.

Yet these are the same people who will rant and rave and kick and scream and whine if half of the houses on their block go into foreclosure and become a blight on the neighborhood. If you think your home value is down now, guess what? You haven’t seen anything yet.

Get a grip, folks. Which option do you prefer?

Jim Lullie
Holt, Mo.

Missouri must provide for its mentally ill

Recent articles have indicated that Missouri’s governor recommends cutting $20 million from the mental health budget and that much of the money the state receives from the federal government for mental health hospitals are added to the general fund (2/4, Opinion, “Steps toward a better mental health system”). If these are facts, then we, as a state, are making a serious error.

We need to provide as much as possible for our fellow citizens for mental health services. The folks with mental health issues are our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters. It is incumbent upon us to care for these people. It is the right and the moral thing to do. Too often they are forgotten and left to waste away in group homes or on the streets.

The old adage holds true: “There but for the grace of God go I.”

Bill Kampbell
Kansas City

Obama’s stance on abortion

Much has been written about the Lincoln connection to President Obama’s inauguration. Abraham Lincoln said: “Nothing stamped in the divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on.” Aren’t the most defenseless among us, the innocent unborn, stamped for the pursuit of life?

I fear that Obama will shackle us to a culture of death, enslave us by using our tax money to fund abortion on demand and erase the freedom of conscientious objectors to the procedure. During his campaign appearances, he promised “the first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice act.” FOCA overturns pro-life laws in all 50 states, strips away parental involvement rights and nullifies laws on partial-birth abortions.

Many of us are praying that he does not keep that campaign promise, or else a vast pro-life underground railroad will be set in motion. The Lincoln I’ve studied would be horrified at the civil war we continue to fight against the unmitigated slaughter of future generations because we are selfishly enslaved to “choice.”

Martha Couric
Olathe

I have no idea why Tim Geithner chose not to pay $30,000-plus in taxes, but as the newly appointed Treasury secretary, he apparently thinks that was no big deal.

Well, maybe what’s good for the goose should be good for the gander. I think I will conveniently deduct the same amount from my taxable income. Only, I will have a very definite reason for doing so. I do not want my tax dollars spent overseas (or here, either) for family planning (abortion) purposes.

Peggy Fry
Olathe

Federal funds for abortion

I am glad that President Barack Obama is pro-choice, since Roe v. Wade is law.

What I don’t understand is why he gives our tax money to “International groups that perform abortions or provide abortion information” (1/24, A-3, “Obama to resume funds for abortion”).

Giving money to the rest of the world for this purpose while we are drowning in red ink is just plain stupid.

Michael A. West
Leawood

Cost of inauguration

President Obama’s inauguration is estimated to have cost more than $150 million. This seems extravagant and contrary to today’s economic conditions. This money could have been used for medical care for poor children and the unemployed, for body armor for our troops, medical care for our wounded heroes and to help relieve the pain so many our elderly are suffering in this recession.

This extravagance sends the wrong message about fixing our financial woes. Obama could have set the tone of concern about the seriousness of our need to be fiscally responsible with the money.

Remember, George W. Bush’s last inauguration cost $40 to $50 million, and the do-gooders and left-wingers had apoplexy and called it extravagant. Is there a double standard? Seems like the answer is yes.

Why are these people who were so loud four years ago silent now?

George Benjamin
Olathe

I find it hard to believe the concern raised about the money being spent on President Obama’s inauguration activities. Where do people think the money being spent on such activities is going? It is not like we are sending the money out of the country or burying it in the backyard.

Security staffs get extra pay. National Guard soldiers get several days of duty pay. Carpenters get paid for building temporary facilities. Waiters and cooks are employed for the parties and events.

Local businesses provide a multitude of services and are well paid. Hotels are booked, and restaurants are busy.

Individuals who receive the money from the inauguration activities spend it. This spending greatly increases the economic impact of the original funding.

It was a great celebration to be enjoyed.

John Turner
Overland Park

Waive matching requirements

Here is a suggestion for members of Congress and of President-elect Obama’s transition team as they craft a plan to help state and local governments meet their obligations to the people during this dramatic downturn in the economy. And it will cost the federal government, and federal taxpayers, nothing.

For calendar year 2009, waive all requirements for state or local matching for federal funding.

In Missouri alone, we stand to lose tens of millions in federal dollars because the economic downturn makes it unlikely we can provide the mandatory local match.

The aid package Obama plans to sign should include this waiver of the requirement for local matching from our state and local governments, including nonprofit agencies and other private vendors that receive federal funds to provide public services via grants or contracts.

This proposal will enable state and local governments, and the private and nonprofit agencies they partner with, to continue to provide vital services to those of our fellow citizens most in need. It would only compound the current economic tragedy to have people go without services because their local or state government is too financially pressed to provide the local match for federal funds that otherwise are available.

Bob Quinn
Executive director, Missouri Association for Social Welfare
Jefferson City