To its credit, the Legislature is halfway to doing what the Wichita City Council has declined to do — requiring that all sales-tax rates be disclosed on receipts or easily readable signs near cash registers. The bill, sponsored by state Sen. David Haley, D-Kansas City, to target sales-tax fraud, passed the Senate unanimously last week. If the House passes it and the governor signs it, as they should, shoppers will be fully aware when they are in a Wichita business within a “community improvement district” that charges an extra 1 to 2 percent sales tax to cover some costs. The City Council has stopped short of full disclosure of the higher sales tax, opting only for signage (in photo) referring customers to a website.
President Obama’s recent claim that the United States has the “finest universities” in the world is a bit subjective, but likely an exaggeration. Though the United States has some top-flight universities, so do many other countries. And when measured in terms of world-class universities per million people, the United States ranks eighth at 0.28, way behind Australia, Switzerland, Sweden and the United Kingdom. And as the Washington Post noted, “most top-flight overseas universities are less expensive than their American counterparts, with some even offering free tuition.”
The following satirical headlines come from borowitzreport.com and theonion.com:
State Department Offers Support ‘to Whoever Winds Up Winning’
Ahmadinejad Promises Democratic Reforms in Egypt
Saudi Arabian King to Populace: ‘Don’t Even Think About It’
Fox News Reports: Rahm Emanuel Becomes First Kenyan Mayor of Chicago
Next Up for Gov. Walker: Taking Away the Wisconsin Assembly’s Right to Assemble
Obama Denies GOP Accusations He Does Not Love His Dog
Embarrassed Republicans Admit They’ve Been Thinking of Eisenhower Whole Time They’ve Been Praising Reagan
Even Michael Vick a Little Uneasy About How Easily People Have Forgiven Him
CBS Cancels ‘Two and a Half Men’; Will Instead Mount Camera on Charlie Sheen’s Head
Good for Gov. Sam Brownback for indicating that he isn’t supportive of a bill the House passed last week that would repeal Kansas’ law allowing qualifying children of illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition rates. Brownback sponsored a similar college tuition bill when he was in Congress but ended up voting against it. His stance on repealing the 2004 Kansas law has been unclear, though he has spoken movingly in the past against demonizing illegal immigrants. Brownback said last week that he wanted to focus on “identifying a problem and solving it.” The tuition law is not a problem.
President Obama “punted to the 41-yard line, and the Chinese have the ball.” — Sen. Pat Roberts (in photo), R-Kan., in Liberal, on the nation’s finances
“Only Chicago politics could tip the scales in favor of Boeing’s inferior plane.” — Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., blaming the hometown of Boeing and President Obama for Airbus’ (and Alabama’s) loss of the tanker contract
“Stopped by the courthouse and advanced voted today before KS Sec of State Kobach starts requiring stool samples and DNA swabs to vote.” — Kevin Myles, president of the Wichita and Kansas chapters of the NAACP, in a Thursday tweet
“The Phill Kline Judicial Employment Bill.” — Opponents’ nickname for a House-passed measure to give the governor full authority to appoint judges to the Kansas Court of Appeals, subject to Senate confirmation
The House passed the single largest spending cut in modern history, and our action serves as the historic turning point from a Congress that ignored the will of the people to a Congress that responds to the will of the people. This is the first of many steps by the House to trim spending, live within its means and get people back to work. At a time when the federal government is borrowing 40 cents of every dollar that it spends and our debt is more than $14 trillion, we have taken an important first step toward fiscal restraint. As a part of our cut-and-grow plan, Republicans are cutting spending so that we can begin to get our fiscal house in order and foster an environment that encourages businesses to grow and create jobs. To put it simply, less government spending equals more private-sector jobs. — House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va.
The House Republicans are insisting on cutting spending by $61 billion for the rest of this fiscal year. The arbitrary number derives from an arbitrary campaign pledge to cut $100 billion in discretionary spending from the level President Obama requested. House leaders say that the $61 billion below 2010 spending levels fulfills that pledge. But cuts of the magnitude in the House Republican proposal would be unwise, especially when the economic recovery is still faltering. Policymakers need to figure out what government requires to operate and budget from there — not lop off arbitrary sums. In an era of eye-popping deficits and severe budget constraints, some worthy programs may become unaffordable luxuries. Other programs that serve the poor or most vulnerable may face painful cuts. But at the least government has to be funded so that it can perform its core responsibilities. The House GOP budget fails even this basic test. — Washington Post
Boeing and Kansas got a huge win Thursday with the Air Force tanker decision. Many analysts had expected another win by Airbus, so the announcement was a bit of a surprise. Of course, lawmakers from Alabama and elsewhere are sure to challenge the decision, just as our lawmakers did the last time, so it might take a while before the deal is finalized.
Though curbing earmark spending is important, “in the cause of national solvency, they are a trifle,” Indiana Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels noted at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference. “Talking much more about them, or ‘waste, fraud and abuse,’ trivializes what needs to be done, and misleads our fellow citizens to believe that easy answers are available to us.” Daniels understands that entitlement spending is the real budget concern, and he called for phasing out the current Social Security and Medicare systems and creating new compacts with young people. Daniels wants to change Medicare to a voucher program and would curb entitlements benefits to the wealthy. “These programs should reserve their funds for those most in need of them,” he said.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is still trying to downplay the prank phone call he received from a liberal blogger impersonating David Koch. Walker claimed on Fox News that he said the same thing during the 20-minute prank phone call that he says every day. Really? Has Walker talked publicly about plans to trick 14 Democratic senators into giving the state Senate a quorum? Or about how he considered (but decided against) planting agitators among the protesters? Or about the attractiveness of a female news anchor? Or about how Wisconsin is the first domino in GOP plans to weaken unions?
A new USA Today/Gallup poll shows that the public doesn’t support efforts by GOP governors such as Scott Walker of Wisconsin to eliminate some of the collective bargaining rights of public employee unions, including the teachers’ union. Of Americans surveyed, only 33 percent said they would favor such a bill in their own state, while 61 percent oppose it.
Because the Wichita mayor and City Council members approve the ordinance governing placement of political signs, candidates for those jobs arguably have a greater responsibility to follow the rules. And as Tuesday’s primary approaches, it’s getting ugly out there. For the record: Signs are prohibited on public property, including in the right of way between sidewalk and curb. And signs are allowed on private property only with permission.
Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Fowler, was quoted in a Politico article headlined “Republican leaders try to keep rookies in line,” about a meeting held after the zealous GOP freshmen’s refusal to toe the leadership line on budget cuts, the PATRIOT Act and United Nations funding. “The debate has changed,” said Huelskamp. “Rather than sitting around the table saying, ‘Hey, where can we spend more money?’ maybe the folks on the other side of the aisle recognize that the conversation is now, ‘Hey, where can we cut?’” On Huelskamp’s to-do list: legislation to defund President Obama’s czars and Planned Parenthood.
Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger said that the best part of the health care reform law is that it will create a more competitive market. Because it standardizes policies and benefits, people will be able to “compare apples to apples,” she said. Kansas is receiving a $31.5 million federal grant to help create an exchange where individuals and businesses can compare and purchase health insurance. “It’s just going to be a lot easier for people to shop for insurance,” Praeger said.
Given the current makeup of the Kansas House, the only surprise in its approval of a bill to repeal the state’s in-state tuition law for qualifying children of illegal immigrants was that the vote margin wasn’t greater. Secretary of State Kris Kobach championed the bill in an Eagle commentary: “Beyond the illegality of the 2004 law itself, giving in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens specifically rewards the aliens’ lawbreaking. The law actually denies in-state tuition rates to aliens who possess a lawful student visa. Talk about perverse incentives. Giving in-state tuition to illegal aliens is also profoundly unfair to other students. It is a slap in the face to the law-abiding American students from out of state who must pay nearly three times as much in tuition.”
Koch Industries was one of the biggest contributors to the election campaign of Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, and Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity has worked behind the scenes to encourage Walker’s showdown with public employee unions, the New York Times reported. “The Koch brothers are the poster children of the effort by multinational corporate America to try to redefine the rights and values of American citizens,” said U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis. A Koch Industries lobbyist in Wisconsin said that “this is a dispute between public-sector unions and democratically elected officials over how best to serve the public interest.”
“The answer to our economic problems is getting intellectually smart people,” Kansas Board of Regents chairman Gary Sherrer said in response to a Kansas House GOP plan that would cut the salaries of top researchers at the state’s universities by 7.5 percent. “It is going to be difficult in doing that if we punish them for doing something well.” Regents vice chairman Ed McKechnie said the proposal “defies logic.”
The Kansas Legislature new website started delivering on its promises Monday, finally providing accessible links and comprehensive information. More time will demonstrate whether it sufficiently allows the people to follow their state lawmakers, or enables legislators to keep up with bills and hearings. (As of Monday, it still seemed too much to expect the site to be searchable, by bill wording or otherwise.) For more than a month of the 2011 session, the $11.5 million project has been a frustrating mess, leaving users inside and outside of the Statehouse to wonder why such a technological upgrade wasn’t launched at a time other than January and thoroughly tested before the session began.
Why are House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and other GOP leaders so reluctant to distance themselves from those who think President Obama isn’t a citizen? Because “birthers” are now a majority of likely GOP primary voters. According to a new survey by Public Policy Polling, 51 percent of likely Republican primary voters either think that Obama was born outside the United States or are unsure. Also of note, Sarah Palin has an 83 percent favorability rating among birthers. Among GOP non-birthers, her rating is 47 percent. Meanwhile, Palin said last weekend that it was unwise for Republicans to keep doubts alive about whether Obama is a U.S. citizen. “It’s distracting. It gets annoying,” she said. “Let’s stick with what really matters.”
Defunding implementation of the health care law has been a stated goal of House Republicans. But Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Wichita, led a charge Wednesday to similarly dock the dollars accorded to the Environmental Protection Agency and its efforts to collect data on industrial greenhouse-gas emissions. The Pompeo amendment passed on a 239-185 vote. “This data is the very foundation of the EPA’s effort to pursue its radical anti-jobs agenda,” Pompeo said. “Indeed, continuing the greenhouse-gas registry at currently funded levels will permit the EPA regulatory nose inside the job-destroying tent. We cannot head down this path.” However, a new survey of Americans sponsored by the American Lung Association found an overwhelming bipartisan majority wants the EPA to set stricter limits on air pollution and opposes congressional efforts to stop the EPA from updating carbon dioxide standards.
Has any president since George Washington earned a federal holiday marking his birthday? (Abraham Lincoln’s Feb. 12 birthday is usually lumped in with Presidents Day, the unofficial name of the federal Washington’s Birthday holiday). In a Rasmussen Reports survey, 27 percent of respondents said they believe Ronald Reagan (Feb. 6) should be next in line for such an honor, with 20 percent endorsing a John F. Kennedy (May 29) holiday, 14 percent picking Thomas Jefferson (April 13) and 9 percent picking Franklin Roosevelt (Jan. 30). Twenty-eight percent said the nation has too many federal holidays as it is.
“Given the overblown rhetoric about the ‘nationalization’ of health care, surely Republicans should oppose government dictates on what sort of policy an insurer can provide, an employer can offer and an individual can buy privately,” Bloomberg News columnist Ann Woolner wrote. Not when the issue is abortion. GOP lawmakers in Congress and the Legislature are trying to prevent companies from providing private insurance to employees that includes coverage for abortions. A bill by state Rep. Pete DeGraaf, R-Mulvane, would require women working for private companies to purchase a separate rider if they want abortion coverage — as if women plan to have unplanned pregnancies or fetal anomalies. A bill in Congress would even prevent women from paying premiums for such a rider using pretax, flexible-spending accounts. “True, she earned every penny of that money,” Woolner wrote, “but if she’s not paying taxes on it, she can’t spend it on something anti-abortionists don’t like.”
Maybe there is a way to cut $30 million from the Wichita school district budget without cutting teacher pay, but that’s hard to imagine, given that most of the district’s expenses are salaries. Though teacher pay has been frozen the past two years, it increased by more than 22 percent the three years before that. And those pay increases were based on the state’s promise of increased funding. But state base funding could drop next fiscal year to lower than the 2001-02 level.
“Great game Wildcats. I have my purple on today. EMAW!” — Sen. Pat Roberts (in photo), R-Kan., Tuesday on Twitter
“Our office is still a trailer. My address is trailer No. 4. It is and will be for several months.” — Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., on life as a Senate newbie
“It could come out of Fair Fares in Wichita.” — Rep. Bill Feuerborn, D-Garnett, on how to continue state funding for the arts
“Opinions are like belly buttons. Everyone’s got one. The only important belly button to me right now is the governor’s.” — State budget director Steve Anderson, to the Kansas Board of Regents, when asked his personal opinion on higher-ed funding
A president’s budget is only as good as the debate that it engenders. After all, Congress doesn’t even have to vote on it, and it rarely does. Measured by this standard, President Obama’s budget is a resounding success. It brings Democrats to the table with tough but necessary cuts that move away from stimulus spending. It challenges Republicans with long-term investments to unclog highways, expand exports and produce clean energy. And it tees up a debate about entitlements and taxes by making it clear that incremental changes aren’t enough to bring the debt down to previous levels. The timing of these cuts is right, given the state of the economy. The stimulating impact of the new tax and spending from the bipartisan agreement in December will easily offset the cuts in outlays in 2011. And it will send a signal to the markets that fiscal responsibility is on the front burner. The president has started the nation down the path toward a brighter future for all. That’s a vision of success that no one wants ignore. — David Kendall, the Hill newspaper
The message of the budget the Obama administration released Monday is the same as the message the president delivered in his State of the Union address: All is well, full speed ahead, and let’s invest a little more in solar panels and high-speed rail. No entitlement reform, no tax reform, no significant spending reform, indeed no meaningful change of direction of any sort — the budget does nothing to lessen the burdens with which we now stand to saddle the rising generation, and which will stifle growth and prosperity along the way. This is an appalling failure of leadership. When we look back on this period a decade or two from now, I think we’ll identify this moment as the last real opportunity we had for a gradual bipartisan course correction. That option now seems closed off, and it is up to Republicans to decide if the alternative is to march off the fiscal cliff in order to avoid political risks or to propose a gradual course correction to voters and make the case for why it is sensible, responsible and essential. — Yuval Levin, National Review Online
“When House Republicans talk about cutting spending and the Obama administration talks about freezing spending, neither group is talking about the vast expanse of the government’s commitments,” columnist Ezra Klein wrote. “They’re looking at a small corner of the budget, the 12.3 percent known as non-defense discretionary spending. The stuff that’s not Medicare, not Medicaid, not Social Security or the military. It’s the odds and ends, so to speak.”
To its credit, the Legislature is halfway to doing what the Wichita City Council has declined to do — requiring that all sales-tax rates be disclosed on receipts or easily readable signs near cash registers. The bill, sponsored by state Sen. David Haley, D-Kansas City, to target sales-tax fraud, passed the Senate unanimously last week. If the House passes it and the governor signs it, as they should, shoppers will be fully aware when they are in a Wichita business within a “community improvement district” that charges an extra 1 to 2 percent sales tax to cover some costs. The City Council has stopped short of full disclosure of the higher sales tax, opting only for signage (in photo) referring customers to a website.
