Opinion

L&T Publisher Earl Watt

Agriculture is the lifeblood of Southwest Kansas and the Oklahoma panhandle. One way or another, we all pay our bills because of a tie to the land.

It’s really not that hard to determine. Our largest employer is National Beef. You can’t get more agricultural than raising cattle and crops for cattle, and then processing the beef to be shipped around the nation as well as abroad.

We grow other grains as well, and we have formed a service economy around agriculture and energy production.

THE POSTSCRIPT, Carrie Classon

“She was nervous as a cat!” is how the saying goes.

I have decided this expression makes no sense. Our cat, Felix, is the least nervous creature I have ever lived with.

My old Newfoundland dog, Moxie, with her saggy jowls and lumbering gait, was much more nervous than Felix. Moxie was nervous about strange noises and things she couldn’t see clearly (which was most everything) and loud voices. She was very well-behaved, but sometimes would pull a butter wrapper out of the garbage — oh, so carefully — and proceed to lick every trace of remaining butter off that wrapper. Then, knowing she had done a truly wicked thing, she would wait for the inevitable reckoning when I would return to the kitchen, see the wrapper splayed out flat on the rug and say to her, “Moxie, do you know anything about this?”

GUEST COLUMN, Sally C. Pipes, Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy

The Department of Government Efficiency's crackdown on waste, fraud, and abuse is off to a fast start. But as an engine of government savings, DOGE still has substantial untapped potential.

That's because it hasn't yet addressed the fraud crippling one of the federal government's largest programs: Medicare. In fiscal year 2023 alone, "improper payments" in Medicare eclipsed $50 billion.

If DOGE wants to put a real dent in government overspending while changing millions of Americans' lives for the better, it won't find a better target than Medicare fraud.

GUEST COLUMN, Kim Baldwin, Kansas Farm Bureau

There have been noticeable signs that spring has arrived on our farm. Following a snowfall during the kids’ spring break, the sun has come out and the temperatures have warmed up. It’s a different feel of seasons.

The flowers have begun appearing in my yard and on my fruit trees. The bees have been out scouting and gathering water. The wheat in the fields has begun to turn a vibrant green. Migratory birds are moving north. The daylight is present longer.