Unfettered Letters

Contract office improvements

Missourians needing vehicle tags, titles and licenses go to one of the state’s contract offices. It is not something most look forward to, which is why we prioritized improving customer service and efficiency.

One contract agent who answered my call for reform is Tracy Graves at the Gladstone office. Unfortunately, Mrs. Graves’ name has appeared in this paper because of a fight in Washington that had nothing to do with her. Your readers should know Mrs. Graves is a capable woman who has run a good office and improved services for customers.

Additionally, I appreciate The Star’s acknowledging some of the positive changes my administration made to the contract office system. We were the first to open contract offices to competitive bids. So far we have opened nine offices to this transparent process, and six contracts have been awarded.

The Star is correct that continued reform is needed. We have created the template and hope the next governor follows our lead.

We closed state-run offices, because state law changes shifted the operating costs to taxpayers. Using the private sector saves more than $7 million dollars annually. By changing the old way, these offices are more efficient and accountable to taxpayers.

Gov. Matt Blunt
Jefferson City

Balancing Missouri’s budget

The Star’s editorial on Missouri’s budget and tax relief was misleading (8/7, Opinion, “Time to serve up the details on Missouri health care”).

The main beneficiaries of our tax cuts are seniors and families. We ended double-taxation of Social Security and allowed families to deduct the cost of their health insurance premiums. The business tax relief we provided eliminated sales tax on manufacturing to protect manufacturing jobs.

I do not view tax cuts as a loss to government. This is the people’s money, not the state’s.

The editorial cited projections from the liberal Missouri Budget Project, asserting a shortfall by 2010. But the projections include non-mandatory spending and overestimate the “cost” of the federal economic stimulus. The calculations assume lower-than-average revenue growth and smaller-than-expected amounts from lapsed funds that carry to future years.

The budget we inherited in January 2005 was an insolvent wreck, with a deficit of $1.1 billion. The budget I leave the next governor will be balanced. We just posted a third consecutive surplus with an ending cash balance of $833 million.

If Missouri follows the lead of liberals by dramatically increasing welfare spending, the state will eventually be driven to bankruptcy or a tax increase. If we continue on the path of fiscal responsibility, Missouri’s budget will remain strong.

Gov. Matt Blunt
Jefferson City

Campaign contribution limits

Gov. Matt Blunt acted in the best interest of democracy when he signed a law repealing Missouri’s campaign contribution limits (7/12, Local). Voters and candidates will be able to exercise their First Amendment rights more effectively as a result.

Challenger candidates will be able to raise funds more effectively, allowing them to compete with the name recognition, media access and existing donor base that incumbents already have. Better-funded challengers will be able to campaign more effectively and create a more informed public.

By limiting contributions, Missouri was limiting political speech. Missourians should be thrilled that Gov. Blunt has repealed these restrictions and allowed political speech to flourish.

Sarah Duzyk
Communications associate, Center for Competitive Politics
Alexandria, Va.

What’s in a courthouse name?

Would Gov. Blunt have vetoed the $500,000 contribution to the Truman Courthouse (7/2, Local, “Blunt cuts $500,000 aid for Truman Courthouse”) if it were the Eisenhower Courthouse, the Reagan Courthouse or the Bush Courthouse?

Mary Anne Baier
Kansas City

Health care in Missouri

Shame on the Missouri Legislature. The Governor’s Insure Missouri proposal would have provided health coverage to 54,000 parents with incomes at or below the poverty line. Instead of implementing the program by emergency rule, some legislators wanted broader legislative consensus. Instead of consensus, they presented several competing bills that diluted Insure Missouri, added unworkable health-care savings accounts, and set high deductibles. None of the bills was passed, and nothing was done to improve health care access or affordability for Missourians.

Our legislators refuse to help even the neediest in our state, so we must raise our voices and demand legislation to provide affordable health care. I urge you to read and sign the Missouri Health Care for All principles. Go to www.ga6.org/campaign/hcfa_principles.

We will make our voices heard so our representatives and senators can no longer ignore our health care needs.

Mary Clemons
Treasurer, Women’s Voices Raised for Social Justice
Kirkwood, Mo.

Just say no to spending

There is a basic financial management term I fear many who complain of Gov. Blunt’s and Mayor Funkhouser’s budget cuts have forgotten: The word “no.”

I realize delayed gratification is unpopular in our society, but for an economy to flourish there must be more money coming in than there is going out. That’s common sense.

If I don’t have the money for that new car, I might have to settle for a “beater” and live on beans and rice until I do. I might not enjoy the sacrifices, but in the end I’ll gain from them.

Our city and state must do likewise. Cut excesses. Prioritize painfully. Generate revenue. Eventually, we’ll get our luxuries back, and we’ll benefit for years to come for having sacrificed in the short term. Meanwhile, wouldn’t we be better off with level heads and thankful hearts for the blessings we do enjoy?

Repeat this to yourself when you’re tempted to complain about potholes and cuts to the zoo budget: We can’t spend money we don’t have.

And send thank-you notes to politicians who are finally willing to look ahead and, like wise parents, say no when our best interests demand it.

Lori Chally
Kansas City

Life during Blunt

While watching the series “Life After People” on the History Channel, it became clear that Gov. Matt Blunt (who isn’t running for a second term because he accomplished all he set out to do) wanted Missouri to be the real-life example of the period 20 to 30 years after humans were gone.

Witness the poorly maintained, pothole-laden, crumbling roads and concrete falling off the rebar and steel bridges around the greater Kansas City area — on the Missouri side.

By the way, I live in Kansas but work and pay taxes in Missouri.

Bob Burns
Leavenworth

Downside of ethanol

As spring is here, we will soon see public service announcements on when to mow the grass and when to fill our vehicle gas tanks to reduce the pollutant ozone in our atmosphere.

In The Star I read that ethanol-blended gasoline is being mandated by the state of Missouri (4/1, Local, “KC awaits Blunt’s waiver of ethanol mandate”). According to the article, ethanol creates more smog and dirtier, less healthy air.

So with ethanol, will it really matter when we mow our lawns or fill our gas tanks if the government decrees we use dirtier gasoline? It’s “through the looking glass, down the rabbit hole, and take a seat at the Mad Hatter’s tea party.”

I am sure our expert environmental government legislators will come up with more great ideas. Perhaps they will outlaw incandescent light bulbs and replace them with a more expensive product that can only be disposed of at a hazardous waste site. Nah, that would never happen.

David P. Yurkovich
Overland Park

The driving and taxpaying public has been duped. Somehow our elected legislators have determined that alcohol in gasoline is a good thing, a green thing.

Alas, this is not so, Chicken Little. The mandated alcohol-in-gasoline regulation has only driven the cost of corn and wheat products significantly higher while giving us a reduced-energy product that costs more to make than it returns.

If it were not for the government subsidization of ethanol, this would never have happened. This is a failed policy that’s good for some farmers and Archer Daniels Midland, perhaps, but it’s a rip-off for drivers and taxpayers.

Ethanol has only two-thirds the energy of gasoline. It is distributed by truck, further increasing the cost of driving. One again, the poor citizen taxpayer is the victim of what’s known as the law of unintended consequences.

Worse yet, the pumps don’t have to tell you if they have ethanol or not.

This fiasco is reminiscent of the days of prohibition of alcohol, in reverse. How can we correct this dreadful mistake?

Bob Patterson
Lee’s Summit

Thank you, Gov. Blunt

I am truly sorry Matt Blunt will not be running for another term. The citizens of Missouri are losing a caring leader who has done an excellent job.

In 2006, my 35-year-old daughter had an acoustic neuroma (brain tumor) on the eighth cranial nerve. Few Kansas City neurosurgeons had ever performed this particular brain tumor surgery. We decided my daughter would have maximum odds with the neurosurgeons at the House Clinic in Los Angeles, who had performed more than 6,000 of these operations.

Of course, my daughter was turned down twice by her health insurance carrier. Gov. Blunt was asked for help and help he surely did. He instructed the Missouri Department of Insurance to assist her. Her surgery at the House Clinic was approved after grueling and emotional work by her, Missouri Department of Insurance and myself.

After some initial struggles post surgery, she is now fine, a great mother to her 4-year old and a wonderful wife.

Gov. Blunt has had some prayers said his way. He will have our votes if he ever decides to run for any office, and we hope he does.

Ken Viers
Lee’s Summit

Health care in Missouri

Gov. Matt Blunt, Rep. Ryan Silvey from the 38th District in Clay County and the state Republican leadership have taken Missouri in the wrong direction on health care.

In 2005, the governor cut coverage and services for more than 400,000 Missourians. There are now 127,000 kids in Missouri without health insurance. As Gov. Blunt’s poll numbers continue to slide, he and other Republicans have been unable and unwilling to fix this mistake.

A new report released by Families USA details the failures of Gov. Blunt’s new plan, “Insure Missouri.” This new program does not even come close to undoing the damage done. Nor does it restore coverage and services for all of the people hurt by these cuts.

More than 1,071 children have lost coverage in Clay County since Rep. Silvey voted for Gov. Blunt’s Medicaid cuts.

Expanding health care should be the priority in Jefferson City. We want real health-care reform that guarantees quality affordable health coverage for every Missourian.

The basic coverage and services that were cut in 2005 should be restored.

It is time to take Missouri and health care in a new direction. All of our children deserve coverage.

Joshua L. Reed
Democratic candidate, 38th District Missouri House of Representatives
Gladstone

After listening to Gov. Matt Blunt’s State of the State speech (1/16, A-1, “Blunt touts his achievements in state address”) many words came to mind. Words like egocentric, misleading and delusional.

The so-called surplus he bragged about came on the backs of tens of thousands of elderly and disabled, men, women and children who lost their health care.

The misleading title of his “Insure Missouri” health -care initiative should be changed to “Insure Just a Few Missourians Who are Able to Work.”

Please read the report at www.familiesusa.org titled “Insure Missouri: Too Little, Too Late.”

Anything Matt Blunt does to improve health-care coverage barely repairs the damage he inflicted upon it by his discriminatory decisions against the most vulnerable citizens of Missouri.

Let us not let the Republican-controlled House and Senate off the hook either, because they were instrumental in approving Blunt’s total disregard for Missouri’s interests.

Speaker Rod Jetton and the other puppets of the governor should be ashamed of every standing ovation they gave him. Obviously they were all given the “Kool-Aid” before the speech.

We must stop Gov. Blunt from using us as stepping stones on his way to a federal position where he can inflict more damage to the entire country.

Richard G. Green
Ozark, Mo.