Wichita Eagle

We can't take back what we don't own

I am getting tired of all the "tea party" people saying they want their country back. I have news for them: President Obama did not take their country.

As to who took "their country": It is and always will be rich white men. Obama may be president, but this country is owned by rich white people. If you do not have any money in this country, you don't own or run anything.

I have slowly realized that the fiasco going forward in Washington, D.C., under the rubric of health care reform is severely handicapped by the failure of the people of this nation to decide whether of not everyone has a right to health care.

Congressional Republicans do not seem to care how many people are left out of the system, and Democrats have a tolerance for leaving about 20 million on the outside looking in. And no one has the courage to do anything about costs doubling every nine years.

So I was delighted to read an interview with Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger in the Topeka Capital-Journal. Praeger is a Republican and chairwoman of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners' health care committee.

With our central location and strong health care and manufacturing industries, Wichita should become a center for vaccine manufacturing. Then the United States wouldn't have to rely on foreign countries for vaccine.

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To all you Obama supporters: Scrape off the bumper sticker, put down the cigarettes, get off public assistance, and become productive members of society so that I don't have to continue to support you.

I'd bet at least half the people complaining about the possibility of the tanker deal going to an American-European company are driving cars made by Japanese-American or Korean-American companies.

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Financial freedom is a pipe dream. I want off this planet.

Call Opinion Line at 316-268-6300. E-mail comments, 50 words or fewer, to opline@wichitaeagle.com.

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For those not old enough to remember, the Russians threw everything they had at the Afghans and couldn’t beat them. Do we think we are smarter than the Russians? I personally don’t, but that’s beside the point.

Boeing backers are hypocrites

I've spent a good bit of time trying to understand why Boeing and its political supporters have spread false rumors and are such hypocrites. They falsely claim that the people of Alabama do not have a work force that is qualified to build the high-tech air-refueling tanker. They also complain that we will be purchasing parts from around the world, even though Boeing has partnered with companies in South Africa and purchases many parts from around the world.

Now Reps. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, and Jay Inslee, D-Wash., bring up the World Trade Organization issue facing the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., yet they have not mentioned the greedy executives in Boeing who once tried to secure a lease on aircraft by pumping up profits for Boeing ("Backers want WTO ruling in tanker deal," Nov. 3 Business Today).

If there's one thing liberal pundits are experts on these days, it's the sorry state of conservatism. The airwaves and opinion pages brim with more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger lamentations on the GOP's failure to get with President Obama's program, the party's inevitable demographic demise and its thralldom to the demonic deities of the right — Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin.

Such sages as author-editor Sam Tanenhaus and New York Times columnist Frank Rich insist that the right is out of ideas. After all, the religious dogmatism and "market fundamentalism" of the Bush administration were entirely discredited, leaving the GOP with its intellectual cupboard bare.

"During the two terms of George W. Bush," Tanenhaus declares in his latest book, "conservative ideas were not merely tested but also pursued with dogmatic fixity."

In general, state Rep. Jason Watkins, R-Wichita, is correct: The people of Kansas don't "buy into the argument that this is the way we have always done it so we have to keep doing it."

But when it comes to school consolidation — which was what Watkins was referring to — getting the people and their lawmakers to agree to change has seemed next to impossible.

Significant school consolidation last occurred in Kansas in the 1960s. Several studies of school consolidation have been completed since then, including a 2001 consultant's report.

President Obama said jobs are now going to be his overriding focus. Too bad he did not have the same focus when the stimulus package was passed. If it had focused on jobs instead of every Democratic wish from the past 20 years, we might actually be getting recovery in the job sector.

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Nobody had even heard of that aired Sarah Palin 18 months ago, but now she almost runs the Republican Party. She should be plunked down in a pail of honey and then turned loose in the Alaskan woods.

Sarah Palin, the Alaska governor-turned-blogger, cannot see Russia from her house, as Tina Fey's version of her claimed in a "Saturday Night Live" skit. But she is poking this country's politics from her laptop.

I could detect her influence after Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., unveiled the long-awaited House health care bill. Within hours, Palin's famously debunked charge of bureaucratic "death panels" was back, polluting the debate.

For example, when Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, was asked on Fox News' "Fox and Friends" the next morning whether the House bill has any changes "with regard to the death panel," Cornyn responded, not by debunking the "death panel" canard but by linking them to another politically loaded charge, "rationing."

Tax cuts added to budget problems

Legislators have implied and we have believed that our state's revenue shortfalls are due to the economic crisis. However, documents compiled by the Kansas Legislative Research Department indicate that the economic downturn is not the whole reason for the shortfalls. The research shows that the annual loss of revenue from tax cuts, tax credits and tax exemptions between 1995 and 2010 equals $1.1 billion.

Since the beginning of 2009, the Legislature and governor have cut state spending about $830 million. Even with the governor's cuts on July 2, the state must still cut at least $180 million and probably more to reach an ending balance of zero. For fiscal year 2011, the state may need to cut more than $500 million.

I'm grateful that The Eagle is a McClatchy newspaper, especially given the investigative journalism regarding Goldman Sachs. Maybe now readers can understand why President Obama is doing what has to be done.

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One year down, three to go, until we can get change that we can believe in.

In my favorite "Star Trek" episode, Capt. James T. Kirk and the crew of the starship Enterprise encountered humanoids from a planet embroiled in war over an issue as clear as black and white. Literally.

The planet Cheron is locked in a race war. This astonishes earthlings. To us, all Cheronians look alike. Their skin is evenly divided, half-black and half-white, down the middle of their faces and bodies.

A perplexed Kirk asks: What is the difference that Cheronians are fighting about? "Isn't it obvious?" says a Cheronian who is white on his left side. "All of his people are white on the right side."

Maybe in the end, the results from the Justice Concepts Inc. consulting firm will prove the majority on the Sedgwick County Commission right. County taxpayers certainly can hope so, because the county's control of the population of the Sedgwick County Jail is the only thing standing between them and another multimillion-dollar jail expansion.

But the majority commissioners' confidence in the Missouri-based firm increasingly looks questionable.

Justice Concepts hasn't fulfilled the terms of a $124,616 contract that expired five months ago, yet commissioners voted 3-2 Wednesday to pay the firm another $28,500 for work performed outside the scope of the original contract.

Harry Truman could have taught Barack Obama a thing or two about how to deal with a hostile press — basically, by ignoring it.

The Obama administration's core argument, in support of its war against Fox News, is that the cable channel is biased, unfair and fraudulently branded. In the words of a top Obama aide, Fox is "opinion journalism masquerading as news," and therefore the White House has no choice but to lash out in response.

This is where a little historical perspective might be valuable.

Health care reform: It saves lives and it saves money. Good idea.

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Well, Congress almost held health care under a trillion dollars. It is nice to see that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is bringing the same bankrupting policies they have used in California to Washington, D.C. Last year's elections were a perfect storm leading to the financial disaster we face today.

Support limits on carbon emissions

Regarding Jonah Goldberg's column "Save planet without having to give up dogs" (Oct. 30 Opinion): Goldberg rightly acknowledged the increase in global temperatures and carbon dioxide levels and the need to take this dangerous trend seriously. However, a look at the facts can lead to very different conclusions about how to respond.

The increase in global temperatures caused by CO2 presents a real threat to our agriculture, energy security and economic survival. The gravity of the challenges we face is reflected in a sobering map recently made public in the United Kingdom showing the effects of a 7-degree Fahrenheit temperature increase: less crop production, more flooding and more forest fires.

Why should Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., be believed when he promises states can "opt out" of a public option on health care? This isn't like opting out of sex education class. Individuals won't be able to avoid the consequences of national health care once the government puts the insurance companies out of business.

Several Democrats have been honest about where this is headed.

Consider Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind.: "If it was a public option that was just kind of a stalking horse for a government-run health care system, I don't think that would have a very good chance." Kudos to Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., for saying, "For some in my caucus, when they talk about a public option, they're talking about another entitlement program, and we can't afford that right now as a nation."

President Obama cannot vote "present" this time on Afghanistan. Voting "present" helped get him elected, but he is now in a job that requires decisions.

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I understand that the president is unwilling to help a corrupt government. Afghanistan needs to prove that it can get its act together before we commit to pumping great sums of money and our servicemen's welfare into the country.