Mark Gietzen
Wichita
To the editor:
When a python snake eats a large animal, it does not do it in one big gulp. Rather, it bites down on its prey, and slowly swallows it, one-inch-at-a-time.
In much the same way, the one-cent sales tax imposed by the misguided 2010 Kansas Legislature represents another bite that state government is taking, as it swallows the free-market economy in Kansas.
The most upsetting part of this new tax increase, which will cost the average family about $30 per month, is that it could have been avoided by applying common sense to the spending side of the balance sheet.
For example, USD-259 has about 50 employees who are paid in excess of $100,000 per year! Their wage, in my opinion, is entirely out-of-proportion with the value of their work. These are not school principals; these are assistants and staff, whose jobs could be done equally-well, by people making half, or one third, of that wage!
It makes no sense that USD-259 pays all these assistants in excess of $100,000 per year, while at the same time, WSU pays our best experienced, professors and teachers, who hold doctorate degrees in their field, $55,000 per year or less?
There is so much wasteful spending in the Kansas budget that every member of the Kansas Legislature should hang their head in shame for even considering raising our taxes, at a time when the economy can least absorb the impact. Yet, when individual legislators are asked about it, they always resort to threatening us with cuts in the most needed of state services.
We do NOT need to cut those small budgets that are going to impact the neediest among us, like Meals-on-Wheels, or programs that help the handicapped and homeless. Rather we need to stop the crazy out-of-control spending of billions of dollars, in the large budgets, like education. Unfortunately, we do not have enough courageous legislators who are willing to stand up to the powerful education lobby, the KNEA.
Kansas sends 165 legislators to Topeka every year, and every one of them knows exactly where the problem lays. Yet, no one is willing to speak out too loudly, because by doing so, they will attract the wrath of the KNEA in the next election… and who wants to be swallowed by that python?
This year, the voters need to look at who is getting KNEA funding, and then work as hard as they can against each candidate who accepts those KNEA funds.
As always, it is up to the voters. Elect the right legislators, and we could bring the state budget under control without a tax increase.
