Daily Archives: March 22, 2009

Bank bailout needed but will be distasteful

March 22, 20096:04 a.m.

geithner21If you didn’t like the AIG  bonuses, you’re really not going to like the bank bailout plan to be rolled out soon by the Obama team, wrote columnist and best-selling author Thomas Friedman. That plan, which involves buying toxic assets from banks, will likely cost taxpayers another $750 billion. Still, Friedman argued, “the plan makes sense, and, if done right, it might even make profits for U.S. taxpayers. But in this climate of anger, it will take every bit of political capital in Barack Obama’s piggy bank — as well as Michelle’s, Sasha’s and Malia’s — to sell it to Congress and the public.”

By Phillip Brownlee | Filed under Economy, President Obama | Comments (60)

Open thread 3/22

March 22, 20096:03 a.m.

thread-comm44

By The Editors | Filed under Open thread | Comments (151)

Why state smoking ban seems inevitable

March 22, 20096:02 a.m.

smoking213Just when it looked like a statewide public smoking ban was dead for another year — thanks to House Health and Human Services Committee Chairwoman Brenda Landwehr, R-Wichita — senators took another tack last week that has yet to play out. Even if the proponents don’t prevail this session, the ban surely will keep coming back until it passes the House as well as the Senate, which approved it on a 26-13 vote. That’s the only responsible action the Legislature can take, given the increasing cost burden of smoking-related illnesses on the state and the U.S. surgeon general’s 2006 declaration that there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke. As state health director Jason Eberhart-Phillips said, “We’ll have to make the case better and keep at it and find what appeal can get through. We’ll have to make the obvious benefits to Kansas — to its economy, to its health — resonate with the lawmakers.”

By Rhonda Holman | Filed under Health and safety, Kansas government | Comments (44)

No comeback for bill to cut school bond aid

March 22, 20096:01 a.m.

schoolraisinghand4Fortunately for local school districts and taxpayers, the misguided proposal to eliminate state equalization aid for local school bond issue projects hit a snag last week when too few members of a House committee showed up to work the bill. Still, where there’s a will there’s a way at the Statehouse. So “it could pop up at any time,” threatened the committee chairman, state Rep. Joe McLeland, R-Wichita. His colleagues, including others who better represent the interests of the Wichita school district, should make sure that it doesn’t. A bill that would unfairly break a state promise to local districts and hike local taxes — and that couldn’t even generate enough interest to allow committee action — should go no further.

By Rhonda Holman | Filed under Education, Kansas government | Comments (10)

So they said

March 22, 20096:00 a.m.

abrams“We’re kind of a hang-’em-high state.” — House Speaker Mike O’Neal, R-Hutchinson, in a USA Today article on how Kansas nevertheless found alternatives to building prisons

“They were given 3½ days of testimony, and they worked the bill in a minute and a half.” — Sen. David Wysong, R-Mission Hills, on a House committee’s tabling of a statewide smoking ban

“These aren’t the kinds of kids we have to worry about killing themselves.” — Sen. Steve Abrams (in photo), R-Arkansas City, unsuccessfully arguing to exempt teens on religious outings from the graduated driver’s license restrictions

“The proposed legislation is really good energy policy — for Colorado.” — Scott Allegrucci of Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy, at a Topeka protest of the bill to allow a Holcomb coal plant expansion

“I got hate e-mail for months.” — Missouri state Rep. Mark Parkinson, on what happened when Kansas Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson switched his party affiliation from Republican to Democratic in 2006

By Rhonda Holman | Filed under Kansas government | Comments (3)