Conservative satirist Ben Stein lamented the lack of quality GOP presidential prospects. “Isn’t there someone out there who is (President) Obama’s equal in oratory, charisma and ability to draw votes who could run as a Republican?” he asked during his commentary on CBS’ “Sunday Morning.” But then Stein was hit with a tongue-in-check inspiration: The GOP should recruit Obama. Stein argued that Obama is “clearly moving in the direction of the Republican Party,” noting how he “completely signed on to the Republican position on tax cuts and kicking the deficit can down the road” and has long since “signed onto the Bush position on the war in Afghanistan.” Stein did admit that Obama “has a lot to learn in the right-to-life world and about the environment,” but noted that “he’s a fast learner.” Stein’s advice: “Let us Republicans seize this moment to humbly ask the best campaigner since Reagan if he would care to join up with our side. The winning side!”
The congressman of the moment in the newly GOP-led House is Rep. Paul Ryan (in photo), R-Wis., the former Brownback aide who now chairs the House Budget Committee and will give the GOP response to the State of the Union address tonight. When asked about presidential ambitions, Ryan has said: “My head isn’t big enough, and my kids are too small.” Then there is the steep hill of history: No member of the House has even won a major party nomination for president since James Garfield in 1880. “The task remains tall for anyone running with only a House background,” noted Washington Post blogger Aaron Blake. But potential candidates Reps. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and Mike Pence, R-Ind., and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich “have a lot going for them that their predecessors didn’t. Underestimating any of them, including Bachmann, in a presidential race as wide open as this one would be a mistake given Republican primary voters’ demonstrated willingness to upset the establishment apple cart in 2010.”
Good for President Obama for easing some travel restrictions with Cuba. But as Sen. Jerry Moran (in photo), R-Kan., argued in a letter he sent to Obama last week, Obama now needs to lift some trade restrictions that limit the sale of Kansas wheat. “While I support the recent announcement of changes to U.S.-Cuba travel policy, I am disappointed President Obama did not make executive changes to existing U.S. regulations that restrict the cash sale of agriculture products to Cuba,” Moran said in a statement. Moran contends that such policy changes “would result in an estimated $270 million in new exports.”
It will be hard to swallow the 8 percent increase to water and sewer rates reflected on next month’s water bill — especially when the increase comes on top of another one last August and was triggered by the city miscalculating the financing of its $550 million aquifer recharge project. Still, the project is needed to safeguard and replenish the region’s water supply. And as an Eagle news article reported Saturday, Wichita still has lower water rates than most large cities.
If the Rev. Billy Graham could go back and do anything differently, he would have “steered clear of politics,” he told Christianity Today. “I’m grateful for the opportunities God gave me to minister to people in high places; people in power have spiritual and personal needs like everyone else, and often they have no one to talk to,” he said. “But looking back, I know I sometimes crossed the line, and I wouldn’t do that now.” Graham also wished he had spent more time at home with his family, studied more and preached less.
It’s not surprising that Charles and David Koch, the executives of Wichita-based Koch Industries, might have wanted conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas to speak at Federalist Society dinners scheduled around the Kochs’ private meetings of elite conservative leaders in California. But it’s disconcerting that Scalia and Thomas would have seen no problem in being associated with the annual meetings, which are intended, according to this year’s invitation, “to review strategies for combating the multitude of public policies that threaten to destroy America as we know it.” Those honored with the responsibility to sit on the Supreme Court should be more careful about the company they keep, especially when invitations come in from people, businesses and groups keenly interested in swaying the court to their way of thinking.
In their zeal to repeal the health care reform law, GOP lawmakers are undermining an institution crucial to operation of government: the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO is a nonpartisan scorekeeper that provides estimates on the cost and financial impact of legislation. Though both parties often have complaints about the scoring, they have accepted the office as a neutral source that guides lawmaking. But because the CBO analysis of the health care reform law reached a conclusion that the GOP didn’t want to hear — that the law actually reduces the federal deficit — GOP leaders have tried to dismiss and undermine the CBO. That could cause harm that lasts long beyond the current health care debate. As Ezra Klein of the Washington Post warned, attacking the credibility of the CBO undermines “the incentives of future congressional majorities to work with the CBO to release fiscally responsible legislation.”
What if Mount Rushmore were to expand its array of famous faces? Richard Norton Smith, the presidential historian who formerly ran the Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas, would represent the 20th century with carved portraits of Ronald Reagan (in photo), Dwight Eisenhower, FDR and Woodrow Wilson. Over the next month, Smith will give a lecture about each of his nominees at KU’s institute.
What’s striking about Gov. Sam Brownback’s proposed spending is how nearly identical it is to the spending outlook that former Gov. Mark Parkinson’s budget office released last November. The total general-fund expenditures for this fiscal year are only about $1 million less in Brownback’s plan than in Parkinson’s estimate. And next fiscal year, Brownback is proposing a $346 million increase in general-fund spending — about $23 million more than what Parkinson’s staff said could be available. The general-fund spending increase is needed to help offset the loss of federal stimulus money — though groups such as Americans for Prosperity paid for mailers and advertisements during the past election asking incredulously: “Who would vote to increase spending by $200 million?”
Some of Brownback’s specific spending recommendations are no doubt different from what Parkinson might have proposed, such as for K-12 education. But the reason that the total general-fund spending is the same is that Brownback wisely changed his mind about holding general-fund spending flat and also about not transferring money from the highway fund and casino receipts. And after he was elected and realized how bad the budget was, Brownback also decided that the state needed the money from the sales-tax increase and that he didn’t want it repealed.
The new session of Congress will see Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., become the highest-ranking Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee. Though that will be a plus for Kansas farmers, it will mark another blow to the South’s influence on the committee. Previous Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., lost her re-election bid, and ranking Republican Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., will become ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee. “It’s a good thing they’ve started growing cotton in Kansas,” one unnamed Agriculture Committee staffer told Agweek. Hearings on the 2012 farm bill could begin this year.
As of spring 2012, Wichitans won’t have to drive long distances for the uncommon experience of visiting and shopping at Cabela’s. The outdoor retailer’s plan to open an 80,000-square-foot store at 21st and Greenwich sends a well-timed message about the strength of Wichita as a sporting-goods market and regional retail hub. A second Cabela’s in Kansas also can’t help but raise the profile of fishing, hunting, camping, boating, hiking and wildlife appreciation in the state. That will be good for tourism, quality of life and Kansans’ health.
Here is hoping that an array of good candidates file to run in the spring elections for three seats on the Wichita school board. The deadline for filing is noon Tuesday. Being on the school board is a big responsibility, so candidates should be serious and not just pursuing some ideological or personal grudge. It’s an unpaid position that requires a lot of time. But it also can have a profound impact on thousands of children and this community.
“This is not about having fun. This is about saving our country.” — Rep. Tim Huelskamp (in photo), R-Fowler, on serving in Congress, quoted in World Magazine
“My 9-year-old was listening and he said I was good, though he didn’t know what I was talking about.” — Huelskamp again, on his floor speech advocating the repeal of health reform
“The person who cuts my hair has to be licensed, but the person who runs the machine that keeps me alive doesn’t have to be.” — Sen. Dick Kelsey, R-Goddard, on his bill to require licensing of perfusionists, who operate heart-lung machines during cardiac surgery
When gun violence becomes personal — for example, for Ronald and Nancy Reagan and many of their supporters after the 1981 assassination attempt — people adjust their thinking. Because the latest target was a member of Congress, debates about protecting politicians and the American people cannot be avoided. This shooting also highlighted, again, our weak gun laws. Those laws made it legal for the gunman to buy military-style ammunition magazines holding 30 rounds; to buy the gun capable of firing those bullets; and to carry that loaded gun without a permit. Not until the gunman fired at Rep. Gabrielle Giffords did he break any law. This shooting shows also that sensible laws can reduce gun violence. The toll from Tucson would been have minimized had Congress not let the ban on high-capacity clips expire in 2004. — Paul Helmke, president, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
The recent shootings in Arizona were a national tragedy and the acts of a lone gunman. Allegations have been made that they were the result of lax gun laws and heightened political rhetoric. Neither is the case. Unfortunately, there will be knee-jerk reactions from lawmakers in Washington, D.C., to make gun laws even more oppressive. Let me be very clear: Gun laws were not the reason that a socially isolated individual, an anarchist, allegedly chose to open fire on an elected official, her constituents and a federal judge. And changing the gun laws will not prevent such a tragedy in the future. For example, gun violence in the District of Columbia was consistently among the highest in the nation throughout the 30 years that the city banned handguns. A criminal or a madman such as the Tucson shooter will use other means to purchase handguns. I certainly hope that Congress will not feel motivated to create more miserable failures across the country with tougher gun laws. — Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev.
State lawmakers shouldn’t go along with Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s overreaching proposal to fight the negligible problem of voter fraud, our editorial today argues. But if they do, they must ensure their efforts don’t end up disenfranchising eligible Kansas voters. And they should ask some real questions about Kobach’s Secure and Fair Elections Act, including whether the state can afford it and whether the secretary of state needs a prosecutor’s powers.
It’s time for the media and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to end their dysfunctional, co-dependent relationship in which they seem to both despise and be obsessed with each other, columnist Ross Douthat wrote. Douthat’s advice to the media about Palin: “Stop acting as if she’s the most important conservative politician in America. Stop pretending that she has a plausible path to the presidency in 2012. . . . And every time you’re tempted to parse her tweets for some secret code or crucial dog whistle, stop and think, this woman has fewer Twitter followers than Ben Stiller, and then go write about something else instead.” His advice for Palin: “It’s time to turn off your iPad for a while, and take a break from Facebook and Fox News. The world won’t end if you don’t respond to every criticism, and you might even win a few more admirers if you cultivated a lighter touch and a more above-the-fray persona.”
It could be a long, unproductive next four years if new Sedgwick County Commissioner Richard Ranzau keeps opposing federal grants. He voted Wednesday against applying for three grants that would provide housing for low-income senior citizens and transportation for the disabled. He questioned whether it was constitutional for the federal government to be involved in the projects, and he argued that the county shouldn’t accept federal money when the nation has such a large debt. But as other commissioners noted, if Sedgwick County doesn’t use the grant money to help its citizens, other communities will.
Why are there wide differences in polls on whether people want Congress to repeal the health care reform law? It depends on the answer options. If it is a straight yes-or-no question on whether to repeal, about 45 to 50 percent of those polled say “yes.” But if the options include partially repealing the law or changing the law so it does more, the number who want it repealed drops significantly. For example, a new Associated Press poll found that 43 percent of Americans want the law changed to do more, 19 percent want to leave the reform as it is, 10 percent want to change the law so it does less, and 26 percent want it completely repealed. A new SurveyUSA poll, sponsored by KWCH, Channel 12, had similar findings, with 32 percent of Kansans wanting the law completely repealed and 36 percent wanting the law expanded to do more.
As many as 1.2 million non-elderly Kansas residents have some type of pre-existing health condition, according to a report released this week by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Nationwide, up to 129 million Americans have pre-existing conditions. Sebelius contends that the health care reform law is need to protect these Americans against discrimination. “The new law is already helping to free Americans from the fear that an insurer will drop, limit or cap their coverage when they need it most,” Sebelius said in a statement.
Conservative satirist Ben Stein lamented the lack of quality GOP presidential prospects. “Isn’t there someone out there who is (President) Obama’s equal in oratory, charisma and ability to draw votes who could run as a Republican?” he asked during his commentary on CBS’ “Sunday Morning.” But then Stein was hit with a tongue-in-check inspiration: The GOP should recruit Obama. Stein argued that Obama is “clearly moving in the direction of the Republican Party,” noting how he “completely signed on to the Republican position on tax cuts and kicking the deficit can down the road” and has long since “signed onto the Bush position on the war in Afghanistan.” Stein did admit that Obama “has a lot to learn in the right-to-life world and about the environment,” but noted that “he’s a fast learner.” Stein’s advice: “Let us Republicans seize this moment to humbly ask the best campaigner since Reagan if he would care to join up with our side. The winning side!”
