Backward in Kansas

It is hard to believe that our two Kansas senators, Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran voted “no” on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Both senators said the United States should provide positive leadership for the world.

Yet when given the opportunity to actually provide that leadership they stumble and try to justify their “no” votes with really nonsensical statements.

As parents of a disabled daughter it is quite obvious that we should not count on our two Kansas senators to support the disability community. This is a real setback for Kansas because our state had been a leader in the past when it came to disability support.

John and Patty Turner

Overland Park

Don’t blame unions

I find it interesting that so many are blaming the demise of Hostess Brands on those “greedy union workers.” Several years ago these same workers took a pay cut with the promise of those savings going to improvements of equipment and facilities.

Instead of reinvesting the money as promised executives received bonuses, and fees went to a venture capitalist. Again Hostess wants its workers to take a 26 percent pay cut to save the company.

They blame the demise on run-down and outdated equipment along with pension and medical costs. In their filing, they asked that they be allowed to pay bonuses of several million dollars to executives.

The plan now is to break it up and sell profitable pieces of the brand to non-union companies. The venture capitalist that came in will walk away with millions, and 18,000 people could be out of their jobs and probably their pensions as well.

This isn’t the fault of the unions. They sacrificed before to save the company, and the money wasn’t re-invested as promised.

Why should they believe another 26 percent pay cut will have a different result? The mere fact that they asked to pay bonuses to executives says it all.

Karen Lane

Overland Park

Middle class slide

How blind and reckless can the Republicans be? The fiscal cliff is right before us.

Repealing George W. Bush’s 12-years-ago tax cuts for the rich seems to be the sticking point. The U.S. and western world economies crashed big-time in the eighth year of the Bush presidency. Remember?

Alan Greenspan, the Republican’s Chicago University economics guru, admitted he had made a mistake relying on the tax-cuts-for-the-rich theory under unfounded, never-workable “supply-side,” trickle down machinations of Leo Strauss . President Ronald Reagan and Bush allowed the national debt to increase six-fold under that theory, which has been running now for 30 years.

I’m sick of it.

Sam Brownback was not as forthcoming as Professor Greenspan was, and now as Kansas governor Brownback has continued to insist upon additional Kansas tax cuts for corporations and others too numerous to mention. The Star reported Dec. 5, “Bill comes due for tax cuts,” that when the Republican governor signed his recent tax-cut bill, it was with full knowledge that he “expected to leave gaping holes in the state budget, in the short term and maybe longer.”

The only actual result from application of the “supply-side,” tax-cuts-for-the-rich, economic theory has been to make the rich richer — way richer — and send the American middle class sliding backward.

Now, who do you think Gov. Sam Brownback represents?

Lloyd Hellman

Leawood

Christmas Bureau cheers

Thank you for your 913 article on Nov. 28, “Christmas Bureau fills wishes but has needs of its own.” With poverty on the rise in Johnson County, assistance from the Christmas Bureau’s annual Holiday Shop is in even greater demand.

The Christmas Bureau is a vital example of what our community can do to help low-income residents when we roll up our sleeves and work together. In recognition of the organization’s work to offer holiday help to those without adequate income, while at the same time allowing them to maintain their dignity, the Christmas Bureau has been honored with the 2012 Excellence in Community Service Award by United Community Services of Johnson County. It is a fitting tribute.

Without the grass-roots effort of more than 3,000 volunteers, thousands would simply go without during the holiday season. Thankfully, year-after-year volunteers line up to make The Holiday Shop a reality — some of them former clients (like Sharon Rhodes who was featured in the article) who return as volunteers as a way of giving back.

Thank you for raising awareness about the need facing families everywhere, including those in Johnson County.

Karen Wulfkuhle

Executive Director

United Community Services

of Johnson County

Lenexa

Healing from election

Perhaps last month’s election will act as a crack in the ideas that this country is corporations and money considered as individuals; that government is two agendas diametrically opposed; that religions demands abject obedience, condemning all others to hell; that education is modeled along the lines of business; that women need fear subjugation and rape as evidence of genetic purity; and that race is a product of the National Rifle Association (NRA), not DNA.

The divide in this country has all but destroyed the aspects of society that are innate in human nature and have allowed us to be what we are.

John Nelles

Shawnee