Voice For Liberty

Wichita Eagle editorial page calls for more government at all levels

Bob Weeks

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Today’s Wichita Eagle editorial and opinion page is chock full of plans for more government programs, regulations, taxes, and intervention.

Rhonda Holman’s editorial calls for more government involvement in setting energy policy so that Kansas can share in the “green-energy boom.” Readers of this blog know that government involvement in energy policy will only lead to disaster. It will lead to more taxes and more government programs, so maybe that’s why Holman is in favor of programs like this.

Jeff Fluhr of the Wichita Downtown Development Corporation — itself a taxpayer-funded organization — calls for planning to ensure the success of downtown Wichita. How are these plans to be developed and enforced? Through government, of course. Then, he tries to avoid the “T-word” by using euphemisms like “strategic public investment.” But how does the public “invest” in something except through taxation?

A featured letter calls for the city to build more swimming pools.

In the regular letter section, one writer calls for national health care, just like we have national defense.

Another uses the way that injured birds are cared for by the Kansas Raptor Center to advocate that the government care for young and injured people the same way.

A former state representative makes the case for more government regulation of political speech.

Then, to make sure the point is made as clear as possible, a writer who lived through the Great Depression praises Franklin D. Roosevelt and his policies.

Maybe this big-government stance of the Wichita Eagle editorial page is one of the reasons fewer people are reading it.

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9 responses to “Wichita Eagle editorial page calls for more government at all levels”

  1. James

    Unfortunately for newspapers like the Eagle and KC Star, they truly are experiencing revenue losses that are not their fault, it’s simply the nature of our new tech savvy society. However, the pain undoubtedly compounded by the staunch support of people like Rhonda.

    It’s a tough time to be in the newspaper business, but by continuing their liberal tilt, they are only making worse on themselves.

  2. Sherry

    There could be no better investment in America than to invest in America becoming energy independent! We need to utilize everything in out power to reduce our dependence on foreign oil including using our own natural resources. Create cheap clean energy, new badly needed green jobs and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.The high cost of fuel this past year seriously damaged our economy and society. The cost of fuel effects every facet of consumer goods from production to shipping costs. It costs the equivalent of 60 cents per gallon to charge and drive an electric car. If all gasoline cars, trucks, and SUV’s instead had plug-in electric drive trains the amount of electricity needed to replace gasoline is about equal to the estimated wind energy potential of the state of North Dakota.We have so much available to us such as wind and solar. Let’s spend some of those bail out billions and get busy harnessing this energy. Create cheap clean energy, badly needed new jobs and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. What a win-win situation that would be for our nation at large! There is a really good new book out by Jeff Wilson called The Manhattan Project of 2009 Energy Independence Now. http://www.themanhattanprojectof2009

  3. Rothbard

    The Oil-Addiction Fallacy
    http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/anderson214.html

    Energy “independence” is a foolish term that has no bearing in reality. Such a regime of “independence” would require government to expand its powers of taxation and regulation far beyond where those powers operate today, and Americans would be made substantially poorer for the effort.

  4. Rothbard

    To the letter writer that praised FDR and his socialist policies: If the FDR socialism worked so well, then explain why the Great Depression lasted an entire decade.

    Most people don’t realize that another depression occurred beginning in 1920. The 1920-1922 depression was more severe than the Great Depression in terms of economic statistics, yet the 1920 depression only lasted a year and a half.

    The guvmint under Harding did nothing in the 1920 depression. Compare that to the meddling by both Hoover and especially FDR in the 1930’s.

    Conclusion: The free markets correct themselves. Harding by doing nothing allowed the free-market to work out the misallocations and inbalances. Hoover, FDR, and their socialist meddling prolonged the correction and caused the depression under their watch to become “Great”.

  5. Bob Weeks

    We have to also remember that government is almost totally the cause of the current situation. The Austrian theory of the business cycle perfectly describes what has happened.

    Recognizing what caused the problem, how silly is it for us to expect government to fix the problem?

  6. Joe Williams

    Look how fast ethanol boomed than busted when government tried to propped that industry up.

    Government trying to prop up industries or companies will always lead to disaster.

  7. Cybex

    Liberals are “believers” in their ideology and will not be deterred by education, information, or data. There is a great article in the WSJ today about what newspapers need to do to survive in this environment, but our Wichita Eagle and writers like Holman, Brownlee and company will never understand since they are about helping to implement liberal agenda.

  8. Carla

    Two points:
    If the Eagle truly wanted more readers perhaps they should be a more balanced paper. I am so tired of people such as Mark McCormick and Rhonda Holman espousing their righteous indignation and pretending to know what’s best for us. The sad fact is that the two of them do not understand that this nation is a republic.It is not a democracy and is not yet an oligarchy.

    Point 2: Sherry: there is no such thing as clean cheap energy. I suppose you also believe in Global warming.

  9. Wichitator

    Sadly, the diversity of opinion expressed on the Wichita Eagle editorial page is becoming more and more like the “diversity” expressed at the typical university sociology department faculty–between far left and really far left.

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