A number of people have noted how some of the Brownback administration’s Medicaid reform plan sounds similar to the federal health care law. Statehouse observer Martin Hawver was struck by how Gov. Sam Brownback returned a federal grant to help Kansas set up an insurance exchange, yet his Medicaid reform wants “to experiment with that exchange procedure on – how do you say this politically correctly? – poor people.” Medicaid users would have to choose from perhaps three companies for access to their health care. “It’s mandatory for them, of course, because they’re poor,” he wrote, “and if they don’t choose a manager for their health care, they’re essentially not going to get any health care services.”
As a U.S. senator, Sam Brownback led efforts at the federal level to officially apologize to Native Americans for the U.S. government’s “ill-conceived policies” and acts of violence against them. So it was most appropriate that Brownback, now governor, didn’t let the state’s 150th anniversary year go by without signing a proclamation apologizing on behalf of Kansas for the forced relocation and mistreatment experienced by tribes. Leaders of the Kickapoo Tribe, Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, Iowa Tribe, Sac and Fox Nation, and Kaw Nation participated in the ceremony last week in Topeka. “As governor, I resolve we will move forward with the recognized tribes in a positive and constructive relationship that will help us fairly and effectively resolve differences to achieve our mutual goals and work together to protect this land we call Kansas,” Brownback said.
At a time when Congress can’t agree on much, Sen. Pat Roberts (in photo), R-Kan., Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Wichita, and other members of the Kansas delegation succeeded in getting a measure to President Obama’s desk last week to protect the privacy of general aviation pilots by continuing the Block Aircraft Registration Request program. The Federal Aviation Administration had wanted to limit the program to those who could prove a “valid security concern,” meaning the movements of most general aviation flights could have been tracked by anyone via the Internet. Roberts said in a statement: “Had this legislation been blocked, it would have set a dangerous precedent that would jeopardize private citizens’ personal information and movements across the country.” Ed Bolen, president and CEO of the National Business Aviation Association, praised the move: “Members of the House and Senate have demonstrated their understanding that the administration’s effort to curtail the BARR program paves the way for unwarranted invasions of the privacy of aircraft owners and operators, threatens competitiveness for companies and poses a potential security risk for people aboard business airplanes.”
“I like Fleetwood Mac.… I just had to get my plug in for Stevie Nicks.” – Sedgwick County Commissioner Tim Norton (in photo), about the goal of a greater variety of acts for Intrust Bank Arena in 2012
“Make hay while the sun’s out. I think the sun’s out.” – Gov. Sam Brownback, speaking at a Rural Opportunities Conference in Salina
“OU is the 800-pound gorilla and your support is critical.” – former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, in a September e-mail urging University of Oklahoma president David Boren to keep OU in the Big 12
“They only offend once.” – James Ludwig, Westar Energy executive vice president, on squirrels’ status as the No. 2 cause of power outages (after trees)
Energy Secretary Steven Chu should resign as a result of the disastrous decision to guarantee $537 million in loans to failed solar-panel manufacturer Solyndra. The federal government’s rush to guarantee the loans despite numerous warning signs threatens to cost taxpayers more than $500 million. Not only was Solyndra betting on an unproven “thin film” technology, but it was trying to compete with a cost structure that was uneconomical even under optimistic assumptions. Solyndra handed out $37,000 to $60,000 bonuses to its managers as it spiraled into bankruptcy last summer. It also built a brand-new facility in one of the highest-cost locations in America rather than recycling an existing building in a cheaper location, ordered expensive robots that whistled Disney tunes rather than focusing its spending on production, and paid investors dividends even as the company ran short of cash. Worse, there is little doubt that the decision to guarantee the loans was politicized. The e-mail trail uncovered by congressional investigators demonstrates considerable political pressure from the White House to approve the guarantees. By allowing the green-energy programs to turn into yet-another opportunity for the politically well-connected to pick taxpayers’ pockets, Chu broke the promise that he would depoliticize energy policy. He should do the honorable thing and resign. – Andrew Morriss, University of Alabama
In most years the secretary of energy gets little public attention, but this year is different. Republicans are calling for Secretary Steven Chu to step down because they disagree with his efforts to change energy priorities and they blame him for a failed federal loan to a solar-energy company. They couldn’t be more wrong about these questions. Our energy choices are vital for the nation’s economy and security even if typically they are ignored by the public and policymakers. The Obama administration has tried to reduce the nation’s dependency on fossil fuels and create a more balanced and stable mix of energy sources that can boost the economy and create jobs now and in the future, while also improving the environment and public health and reducing reliance on imported oil. Chu’s critics in Congress and elsewhere have seized on the case of one Department of Energy loan to a promising solar-energy company. That company, Solyndra, declared bankruptcy after receiving a large loan. The decision by career DOE staff to approve the loan was flawed in some respects, and yet no venture capitalist would expect 100 percent of investments to pay off. Most of the other DOE-approved loans are doing exactly what Chu and the White House sought. They are helping to develop new clean-energy technologies and markets and creating thousands of jobs for a very modest expenditure of federal funds. – Michael E. Kraft, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
In a new SurveyUSA poll looking at possibilities for the 2012 presidential election, Kansas showed a predictable preference for a Republican. In the poll, sponsored by KWCH, Channel 12, respondents preferred Mitt Romney (in photo) over President Obama by 56 to 31 percent, Newt Gingrich over Obama by 52 to 35 percent, and a Romney-Gingrich ticket over an Obama ticket with Hillary Clinton by 56 to 34 percent.
The Legislature’s Joint Committee on Health Policy Oversight bucked Gov. Sam Brownback this week and recommended that state agencies pursue federal grants to help develop a Kansas-run health insurance exchange, the Kansas Health Institute News Service reported. “Why wouldn’t we go after this money?” asked Rep. Jim Ward, D-Wichita. Why, indeed. Kansas has long talked about creating an insurance exchange that could increase choice and competition. In fact, this is a GOP idea. But earlier this year, Brownback, under pressure from some activists who don’t want the state to have anything to do with the federal health care law, returned a $31.5 million federal grant to help Kansas set up its own exchange. That was a costly mistake. Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger said the state still has two opportunities to apply for more federal money. However, the applications need to include a letter of support from Brownback or be authorized by both chambers of the Legislature.
Good for a bipartisan group of more than 150 members of Congress for urging the “supercommittee” to go big on deficit reduction. The committee is tasked with crafting at least a $1.2 trillion deficit-reduction package, but the bipartisan group wants a $4 trillion package. Ironically, going big can actually make it easier to reach an agreement, because both sides will have to make significant concessions, making the deal seem more fair. However, even though some Republicans and Democrats are starting to show a little flexibility and reasonableness on raising taxes and trimming entitlements, most still care more about ideological purity than real results.
Gov. Sam Brownback, who saw a lot of Iowa during his presidential bid four years ago, campaigned in the state Tuesday with Texas Gov. Rick Perry (in photo). At an event in Bettendorf, Iowa, Perry said that “Brownback not only has the perspective of a leader in America’s heartland, but was a United States senator, where he had an up-close view of just how broken Washington is, and has witnessed Washington’s encroachment on the 10th Amendment from both perspectives. He shares my desire for fundamental reform in Washington.” Brownback praised Perry’s government reform plan, which includes shortening congressional sessions and ending lifetime appointments for federal judges, as the boldest he’d seen in 50 years. Asked how Perry could best appeal to Iowans, Brownback said: “I didn’t do so well, so he might not want to listen to what I did.”
A petition drive to oust Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (in photo), which officially began Tuesday, faces long odds, as 540,208 signatures are required to force a new election. And Walker has some well-financed backers – including Americans for Prosperity, which is already sponsoring ads supporting Walker. Still, voters in Ohio last week repealed a law restricting bargaining rights of public unions. Walker’s support of a similar law in Wisconsin triggered massive protests. Also, Arizona is still buzzing about the defeat of state Senate President Russell Pearce in a recall election last week. Pearce was the leading force behind the state’s anti-immigration law (which was partly written by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach). So anything is possible.
Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Wichita, is the biggest spender on congressional employee salaries among the House delegation from Kansas, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported. Six months into his first term in Congress, Pompeo had spent $419,000 on staff salaries. Totals for the three other delegation members were $414,000 for Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Topeka; $364,000 for Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Fowler; and $310,000 for Rep. Kevin Yoder, R-Overland Park. Rachel Taylor, spokeswoman for Pompeo, said that his personnel expenses “reflect the hefty workload and the caliber of work product Mike Pompeo has expected over his career,” adding that he “believes that investing in talented people leads to organizational achievement.” She also noted that Pompeo has voted twice to reduce the amount allocated to each member for office expenditures.
City Hall sent out public notice of an open meeting involving a majority of Wichita City Council members 11 minutes after the meeting’s Monday start time. That’s no way to comply with the Kansas Open Meetings Act – something that city officials acknowledged. The city’s offense was compounded by how little notice City Hall gave the community about the public incentives involved in Bombardier Learjet’s $52.7 million proposed expansion – which were announced Monday morning and approved by the City Council Tuesday morning. Yes, complicated economic development proposals must be handled with care. But taxpayers deserve more transparency.
Nearly 200 people were arrested when New York City police cleared out the Occupy Wall Street encampment Monday night. The protesters received a temporary restraining order and are trying to return to the park. Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended the decision to remove the protesters. “New York City is the city where you can come and express yourself,” he said. “What was happening in Zuccotti Park was not that.” He said that “health and safety conditions became intolerable” and that protesters had made the park unavailable to anyone else.
Though Sedgwick County commissioners are chosen through partisan elections, the commission has long operated in a nonpartisan manner. So it is disappointing that Commissioner Richard Ranzau (in photo) wants political affiliation to decide how the commission selects its next chairman in January. Ranzau told the Wichita Pachyderm Club that the chairman (who runs the commission meetings but doesn’t have any extra authority) should be a Republican because a majority of current commissioners are Republicans. Partisan politics also has been seeping into the comments time at the end of commission meetings. Instead of providing an update on some county-related issue or event, some commissioners, including Ranzau, have used the time to make partisan speeches.
Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry endorsed “enhanced interrogation techniques” in a GOP presidential debate Saturday. Cain said he opposes torture but would reinstate water-boarding and would leave it up to the military to decide what constituted torture. Only candidates Jon Huntsman and Ron Paul denounced water-boarding. Huntsman said: “I’ve been an ambassador for my country three times. I’ve lived overseas and done business. We diminish our standing in the world and the values that we project that include liberty and democracy, human rights and open markets when we torture. We should not torture. Water-boarding is torture.” Paul also criticized other GOP candidates for supporting the assassination of U.S. citizens who are suspected of terrorism, which President Obama has done. “They’re giving this power to the president to be the prosecutor, the executor, the judge and the jury,” he said.
Pearce had support from Brewer and dozens of other elected Republican officeholders, but he was dogged by disclosures that he accepted numerous free trips from the Fiesta Bowl to out-of-state college football trips. He said he took the trips at the bowl’s request to help support its economic role in the state.
While Lewis’ campaign drew support and contributions from hundreds of Mesa residents, Pearce outspent his 54-year-old challenger by more than a 3-1 ratio.
Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2011/11/09/total-recall-author-arizona-immigration-law-voted-out-office/?intcmp=related#ixzz1dhx4QcZI
Kansas labor officials declared victory when Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker canceled a Wichita fundraiser that had been scheduled this week with Gov. Sam Brownback. Kansas union members and others had planned to protest the event. Walker’s anti-union measures have made headlines across the country. “But Kansans are facing some of the very same attacks here courtesy of Gov. Brownback,” Wichita/Hutchinson Labor Federation president Judy Pierce said. Working Kansans are trying to make a living and pay their bills, she said, “but there are people in powerful positions in this state who would just as soon make that harder to do.”
The Kansas State Board of Education learned last week that at least 185 music education positions have been cut in the state in the past three years, as districts deal with less per-pupil state funding and with demanding testing mandates in math, reading and writing. “Some schools are no longer doing musicals or have marching bands,” Mike Quilling, a Deerfield teacher and the Kansas Music Educators Association’s vice president, told the board, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal. “Hopefully, the storm will pass and things will get better.” Board member Ken Willard of Hutchinson suggested local volunteers and donations could sustain music programs. “I believe our community members will step up if they know,” Willard said. “The money is important, don’t get me wrong. But volunteerism is going to get us through these tough times.” Board president David Dennis of Wichita suggested that cuts to art and drama programs were at similar risk.
For now, west-side commuters can only imagine what it will be like to move between I-235 and Kellogg without fearing for life and limb. And they’ll still have to wait another eight years for just the first phase of the new interchange to be completed as part of the state’s $8 billion transportation plan. But after many years of uncertainty over how to pay for a fix, last week’s public preview of the $116 million project made it seem official – the antiquated, treacherous cloverleaf’s days are numbered. Finally.
Kansas Citizens for the Arts, an advocacy group that has been around for more than two decades, is hoping to launch a widespread grassroots movement to restore state funding for the arts. Gov. Sam Brownback vetoed nearly $700,000 in state funding for the Kansas Arts Commission and laid off its staff. The move also cost the state about $1.3 million in matching federal and regional arts grants. Kansas Citizens for the Arts plans to hold small-group meetings across Kansas in which neighbors discuss the loss of arts funding and its economic impact on their communities, the Hutchinson News reported. “Every community will have its own message,” said Henry Schwaller, one of the group’s board members, who was also chairman of the Kansas Arts Commission until Brownback replaced him. Unfortunately, the Arts Commission recently missed the deadline for submitting an NEA funding application. So even if the Kansas Citizens for the Arts and its allies can convince lawmakers and Brownback to restore funding, it may be too late to qualify for federal funds in 2012.
Correlation does not necessarily mean causation, but regular attendees of religious services tend to be more optimistic and less inclined to be depressed. Those who attend religious services more than once a week are 56 percent more likely to be above the median score in a measure of optimism than those who do not attend services at all, according to a new study published in the Journal of Religion and Health. Weekly attendees also are 22 percent less likely to be depressed than non-attendees. However, psychological health may also depend on what a person believes about God. A new Baylor University survey found that believers in a judgmental God have significantly more anxiety than believers in an engaged, loving God.
Whether or not it needed taxpayer subsidies to happen – and, in the end, it didn’t – the Save-A-Lot grocery is a great addition to the neighborhood at George Washington Boulevard and Pawnee. So are its 30 full- and part-time jobs. The owners’ and manager’s experience, including with the Save-a-Lot store at 13th and Grove, bode well for the new store’s long-term success. It’s great that an ill-fated incentives deal with another developer last year didn’t get in the way of providing the Planeview area with expanded access to fresh produce and affordable food.
Targeted tax credits have become a popular and prevalent method for the government to award preferential treatment to certain energy industries. Over the past decade, the number of tax preferences for the production and consumption of government-picked energy technologies has expanded considerably. This favored tax treatment acts as a subsidy by favoring one industry or technology at the expense of another. Such political decisions misallocate resources, waste taxpayer dollars, and prematurely force technologies into the marketplace, while taking away the incentive to lower costs. Some members of Congress are pushing to extend and expand energy tax subsidies, but eliminating them would be best for American producers, consumers and taxpayers. The Energy Freedom and Economic Prosperity Act of 2011, sponsored by Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Wichita, would do just that, while lowering the corporate tax rate to encourage investment and spur economic growth in America. The legislation would remove all distortionary energy tax policy – meaning any tax policy that picks certain industries as winners and losers in the market – by allowing the energy tax credits set to expire at the end of 2011 to expire and by expediting the sunsetting of all other energy tax credits that extend beyond December 31, 2011, to the end of 2012. Furthermore, the legislation would offset those repeals and expedited sunsets with a broad corporate income-tax cut. – Nicolas D. Loris, Heritage Foundation
A reasonable U.S. energy policy must account for two truths. First, fossil fuels will be depleted at some point, whether in 50 or 150 years. Second, by not placing a price on the environmental costs of carbon, the government is keeping oil costs down, which hinders the development of alternative energy sources. A bill co-sponsored by Reps. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, and Mike Pompeo, R-Wichita, ignores both truths while purporting to let free markets determine the winners and losers in the energy field. The congressmen fail to understand that if we cannot accelerate the development of wind, solar, biomass and other emerging technologies, we’ll all be losers. Gone would be tax credits for: plug-in electric and fuel cell vehicles; alternative fuel and alternative fuel mixtures; cellulosic biofuel producers; electricity produced from renewable sources, including wind, biomass and hydropower; equipment powered by solar, fuel cells, geothermal or other specified renewable sources; advanced nuclear power generation credit; clean coal investment; enhanced oil recovery credit, and credit for producing oil and gas from marginal wells. Are all of these efforts failing? The sponsors don’t make that case. They might as well rename it the Oil Industry Protection Act. We will need fossil fuels far into the future, but we cannot look upon this as a simple marketplace competition. It’s not about picking winners and losers; it’s about having a reliable, cleaner energy supply when a finite source runs out. – Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash.
Now that a U.S. district judge has dismissed most of the legal charges against Planned Parenthood’s clinic in Overland Park, the focus is shifting to who is to blame for the failed case. In addition to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment destroying its copies of abortion records, reportedly as part of routine document destruction, the Attorney General’s Office destroyed its copies of the records in 2009. Current Attorney General Derek Schmidt plans to investigate the shredding to determine if any laws were broken, but some already are pointing fingers at former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (in photo), who is now the U.S. secretary of health and human services. “Since these illegal activities allegedly transpired under Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ administration — possibly even at the behest of her handpicked attorney general, Steve Six — Secretary Sebelius has some serious questions to answer,” Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Wichita, said in a statement. A spokesman for Sebelius said that she “has no knowledge of the matter.” Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood attorney Pedro Irigonegaray blamed the records fiasco on former Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline. “Competent lawyers know the importance of obtaining authenticated copies (of records),” Irigonegaray said in court.
Though Penn State football coach Joe Paterno (in photo) was fired over the sex-abuse scandal involving his former assistant coach, Paterno didn’t violate the law. He reported the suspected child abuse to his supervisors at the university, which is apparently all that is required in Pennsylvania. That’s not the case in Kansas, noted John Richard Schrock, an Emporia State University professor who trains biology teachers. Kansas law requires professionals who regularly work with children to report suspected child abuse directly to the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services or to SRS via a law enforcement officer. “A teacher would probably by courtesy also inform the principal; indeed, local school policy may require it,” Schrock wrote. “But the principal is not a substitute for informing Social and Rehabilitation Services.”
Texas Gov. Rick Perry has been so unsteady in the GOP presidential debates that he now seems to be going after the sympathy vote. During Wednesday night’s debate, Perry fumbled for nearly a minute trying in vain to remember the third government agency he wants to eliminate. The next morning, he told Fox News that “if anybody’s looking for the slickest politician or the smoothest debater, I readily admit I’m not that person.” Fellow candidate Herman Cain had to backtrack from his reference to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., as “Princess Nancy.” Cain said, “That was a statement that I probably shouldn’t have made.”
A number of people have noted how some of the Brownback administration’s Medicaid reform plan sounds similar to the federal health care law. Statehouse observer Martin Hawver was struck by how Gov. Sam Brownback returned a federal grant to help Kansas set up an insurance exchange, yet his Medicaid reform wants “to experiment with that exchange procedure on – how do you say this politically correctly? – poor people.” Medicaid users would have to choose from perhaps three companies for access to their health care. “It’s mandatory for them, of course, because they’re poor,” he wrote, “and if they don’t choose a manager for their health care, they’re essentially not going to get any health care services.”
