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Sedgwick County surrenders key tax advantage
Read more: Sedgwick County surrenders key tax advantageSpirit Aerosystems CEO Jeff Turner defended the massive spending hike that was used as the primary justification for the county’s 8.8 percent property tax hike in his editorial August 9, 2006. Turner’s support for this increased government spending ignored some important ramifications behind this economically destructive vote.
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Terrible Blighted Property
Read more: Terrible Blighted PropertyThe link below from Castle Coalition shows some properties that have been declared as blighted by local governments, so that the local government can condemn the property and take it from its owner under the process of eminent domain. Judge for yourself as to whether these properties are, indeed, blight. http://www.castlecoalition.org/CastleWatch/bogusblight/index.html
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High tax Kansas exposed again
Read more: High tax Kansas exposed againBusinesses and homeowners know that Kansas has high taxes. The appointed and occasionally elected officials setting this state’s fiscal policy are often contemptuous of the fiscal burden being imposed upon Kansans but this is a reality that should not continue to be ignored.
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Reform the “other” welfare
Read more: Reform the “other” welfareA recent USA Today editorial (“Hooked on Handouts” July 31, 2006) makes the case for reforming corporate welfare, given the success of “regular” welfare reform:
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Kansas Board of Education election demonstrates one thing
Read more: Kansas Board of Education election demonstrates one thingLooking at some of the comments left on various discussion forums in the state of Kansas, the victors are joyously gleeful in their win and vindictive towards the defeated. I would hazard to guess that the victors were more interested in victory for its own sake, and more motivated by hatred for their rivals, than…
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Government Charity in Sedgwick County
Read more: Government Charity in Sedgwick CountyAt the July 25, 2006 Sedgwick County Commission meeting, during the public hearing on the proposed 2007 Sedgwick County budget, a speaker said this in support of funding for mental health services: “I agree with the previous presenter and I’d be willing to forego a few cheeseburgers this year so that if I need to…
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Wichita (and Kansas) Democrats illustrate progress in education
Read more: Wichita (and Kansas) Democrats illustrate progress in educationThis use of the greengrocers’ apostrophe in the headline of an article on the Kansas Democratic Party’s website on July 25, 2006 tells us something, but I don’t quite know what.
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Unintended but foreseeable harms of the minimum wage
Read more: Unintended but foreseeable harms of the minimum wageUnderstanding the minimum wage, and why an increase will be harmful to those it is meant to help, requires thinking beyond stage one.
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Problem of low wages not easily solved
Read more: Problem of low wages not easily solvedIt seems like an easy fix for social injustice: pass a law requiring employers to pay workers more than they would otherwise. Magically, everyone has more wealth. It would be nice if it were so easy and simple. Looking at only the immediate effects and listening to the rhetoric of some politicians and editorial writers,…
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Eminent Doman and the Downtown Wichita Arena
Read more: Eminent Doman and the Downtown Wichita ArenaOn August 25, 2004 and prior to the arena vote in November of that year, I presented testimony before this Commission questioning the wisdom of building a downtown arena without knowing the exact location of the parcel(s) of land the project would be located on. I asked the questions, does the Commission know the exact…
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School lawsuit likely to resume after election
Read more: School lawsuit likely to resume after electionSchool finance lawsuits have been a driving force behind state spending policy for almost two decades in Kansas. The July 28 Kansas Supreme Court ruling only ends the latest and most expensive school finance lawsuit. This decision only creates a brief pause until the inconvenience of the 2006 election is behind us in just over…
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Adjusting the testing gap
Read more: Adjusting the testing gapCharles Murray has a commentary titled “Acid Tests” which describes how the way that the No Child Left Behind program uses test scores is misleading. By adjusting what states use to measure “proficiency,” states can appear to be closing the gap between different groups of students. In Texas, the gap between the percentage of white…