Cuts hurt workers

So, now we have restaurants cutting hours that servers work in order to avoid paying health insurance premiums (10-10, A14, “Restaurant chain to use more part-timers”). These servers are now raking in $2.31 an hour that the restaurant pays them plus the tips that they earn that we pay them.

If they do not make $30 in tips a month regularly, the restaurant then needs to make up the difference to bring them up to the $7.25 an hour minimum wage. I am thinking that a restaurant that is paying a server a mere $2.31 an hour can afford to pay insurance.

I am also thinking the chief executives and vice presidents are all making a whole lot more than that and get their insurance paid for by the company that owns the restaurants. Here we go again, the fat stays at the top, and the people in the lower rungs that are keeping the businesses going by getting the ax.

After all, there are a lot of people out there who need jobs and would be happy to work for $2.31 an hour.

Donna Sunderson

Olathe

Biden for president?

At the end of President Barack Obama’s current re-election campaign, (I sure hope so), Vice President Joe Biden could run for president in 2016 if he felt up to it. His conduct and knowledge during the recent vice presidential debate with Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan revealed a real potential candidate.

Marvin Goodman

Lenexa

Unaccountable

As a republic, we vote in each state for those representatives who we feel will take our needs and questions to heart and stand before the nation as we would. However, because of lobbies, unfettered corporate monies, party agendas, and a desire for power and personal gain they now represent only themselves and their handlers.

The term “laissez-faire” no longer refers to economic nor individual freedom, but “let us (the representatives) be.”

John Nelles

Shawnee

Lies taint voters

I’m 17 years old and will be voting in my first election this year. So far, from the Republican Party all I have heard are lies and more lies.

Even the Republican vice presidential nominee candidate Paul Ryan lied about his marathon time. He has lied about President Barack Obama removing the work requirement to receive welfare.

Ryan blamed President Obama for closing the General Motors factory in Janesville, Wis., when it was closed under President George W. Bush. Ryan also said President Obama did nothing on the Bowles-Simpson debt commission report, when in fact Ryan led other House Republicans in voting against the plan.

Politicians have always been known to blanket the truth but with lies. I am a new upcoming voter. People like me are supposed to believe these candidates who seemingly do nothing but lie.

Thomas Gibson

Prairie Village

Voters pay attention

Why is there a need for a reporter right after a debate to analyze and actually do a “fact check”? Does anyone else find this so insulting that one would like to run into the streets of the city tearing their hair out in clumps screaming and shouting over and again that we are human beings trying every day to tell the truth, be honest and good to our fellow man, taking care of our own responsibilities and being accountable for our actions?

To not constantly change position to blend into the “hourly or daily issue” at hand. No wonder there are undecideds.

No wonder there is such a divide, as the fear and the work involved in trying to actually be able to find the truth is so daunting to most, that it is probably easier, just to take a side and hope for the best. But, I am thinking that is the plan and being implemented quite purposefully. We have to wake up and pay attention and act.

Kathy Peterson

Overland Park

Lies, politics, money

This really is a silly season for politics. It would seem that most politicians have decided that avoiding the truth at all cost is important, even though the fact checkers like “Pants on fire” will point out the truth.

It is like they have found out that lies are more believable than the truth. Which side tells the most whoppers?

It’s the other guy, of course. The big non-disclosure funds keep putting ads out, reinforcing the lies by repetition knowing that if you hear it enough you will assume that it is the truth.

It makes me wonder, what is it that these big funds want when they are buying our politicians with millions and millions of dollars?

Richard C. Lumpkin

Prairie Village

Voting rights usurped

We live in a country where the right to vote is granted by the Constitution. For years we saw such voter apathy and both parties worked together to find ways to make it easier for people to register and to vote.

They enacted many new laws and extended early voting to allow working people a greater ability to take advantage of in person voting. All of this proved to be a huge success. In 2008 we had record numbers of people voting and especially taking advantage of early voting.

Afterward when Republicans took control of many states, especially swing states, they passed new voter identification laws that now make it difficult for people to register and they have scaled back early voting all in the name of protecting against voter fraud. As court challenges pile up, all of these states have had to admit they have found no voter fraud but are preventing it in the future.

Combined, these states would prevent millions of legal citizens their right to vote. Statistics prove it is the elderly, working poor, minorities and students whose rights have been hampered. What a sad day for America.

Karen Lane

Overland Park