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Wed
27
Apr

Playing the blame game

by Jerry Marsh 
 
Kansas revenue estimates are down again. It is time to play the blame game, Kansas style.
 
Kansas has earned a national reputation for fiscal ineptitude. Kansans squabble over who is to blame. Gov. Brownback blames President Obama, the U.S. economy, and the Kansas economy whichever is most convenient at a given point in time. The legislators blame the governor, even though the policy could not have passed without legislative support. Democrats blame the Republicans, even though Democratic legislators sat on their hands when they had a chance to cooperate with moderate Republicans on a major fiscal repair last year.

 

Wed
27
Apr

TIME TO GET REAL

Schools, highways should not be sacrificed for tax cuts
 
From Our Readers
 
Where’s the outrage?
 

The Kansas Legislature in election year 2016 seems to be finally realizing the real facts and results of the Kansas Income Tax Experiment. This “experiment” will go down as one of the low points of Kansas history of the Brownback era. To sacrifice education, highway, family services and future revenues demands action by the citizens. Where is the outrage?

 

Wed
20
Apr

THE RIGHT THING

Forbes called it “fiscal snake oil.” The New York Times editorial board: “ruinous.” Just a few weeks ago, late night talk show host Seth Meyers weighed in, “Even when you buy couch cleaner, they tell you to try it on a small patch of fabric first and that’s what happened here. Kansas was the small patch of fabric and not only did the cleaner not work, the couch exploded.”
Wed
20
Apr

Did voters save the day?

By Jerry Marsh 

Preliminary reports coming out of Topeka indicate that hell might freeze over in the near future. Kansas Sen. Jim Denning, vice chairman of the Kansas Senate Ways and Means Committee, said that the Brownback administration signaled him that the governor might not veto a bill reversing the income tax exemption that bears much of the responsibility for the fiscal mess Kansas has suffered from the past four years.

Wed
13
Apr

Harvest time for affluent

By Jerry Marsh
 
Wed
13
Apr

POOL PLAY

By Linda Mowery-Denning
 
We’ve mentioned this several times in the 15 years we’ve lived in Ellsworth, but it deserves repeating. Beyond the friends we don’t see as often as we’d like, the thing we miss most about Salina is the YMCA. Almost every day over our lunch hour, we slipped into a bathing suit and kept in shape by doing aerobic exercises in the swimming pool. Sometimes for variety, we’d walk or run the indoor track.
Wed
06
Apr

ANOTHER WAY

By Jim Gray

By the end of 1870 the Kansas Pacific Railway finally connected the Missouri river with the Rocky Mountains. Change was rapidly coming to the prairie. Abilene, Kan., had carved out a place for itself as the seat of the Texas cattle trade, annually bringing tens of thousands of rangy longhorns to the Great Western Stock Yards along the ribbon of rails passing across the state.

Wed
06
Apr

Too much secrecy

By Lee Hamilton
 

We have a secrecy problem. This may seem odd to say during an era in which the most intimate details of individuals’ lives are on display. Yet government is moving behind closed doors, and this is definitely the wrong direction. In fact, I’m dismayed by how often public officials fight not to do the public’s business in public. And I’m not just talking about the federal government.

 

Wed
30
Mar

Education moves to front

By Rep. Steven Johnson 

The legislature finished the general session this past week. Tensions continued to run high as we pushed to meet the shortened calendar. For better or worse, fewer bills were able to make it through the process as leadership held to a calendar a full week shorter than originally planned. Education issues came to the forefront. 

Wed
30
Mar

Follow the ‘dark money’

By Jerry Marsh 

If you missed Norman Ornstein’s column on Page A4 of last week’s edition of the Ellsworth County Independent- Reporter, it would be well worth your time to find it and read it. In fact, it would be a good idea to clip it and post it to your refrigerator for re-reading and for reference around election time this fall, because one can bet that much of what he wrote about will happen.

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