Opinion

GUEST COLUMN, Dave Trabert, Kansas Policy Institute

The Wichita City Council seems poised to rush a proposal to the ballot for a 1-cent sales tax to raise $850 million over seven years for several new projects. That at least implies that imposing a new tax is the only way to fund “public safety projects, property tax relief, and revitalizing Century II and the surrounding area, among other things” without having first (or ever) doing a thorough performance-based budget review.

If the measure goes to the ballot, we’ll dig into the specific proposals over time, but property tax relief is a non-starter.  It looks good on paper, but it won’t happen. The State Legislature gave money to cities and counties for theoretical property tax relief with its Local Ad Valorem Tax Reduction program. The Legislature last funded it in 2003, when the average county tax increase was 7.6 percent. LAVTR merely gave local officials more to spend. Without LAVTR, county property taxes averaged a 3.8 percent increase over the last five years.

GUEST COLUMN, Val Ankeny, Center for Rural Affairs

A U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) program is helping rural communities with resources for feasibility studies, preliminary design, and technical assistance on proposed water and waste disposal projects.

USDA Rural Development’s Special Evaluation Assistance for Rural Communities and Households (SEARCH) program was designed for communities in rural areas of 2,500 or less with limited financial resources. By covering predevelopment costs, the program ensures that communities aren’t left behind simply because they can’t afford the first steps.

GUEST COLUMN, Star Parker

Rahm Emanuel wants to take leadership of the Democratic Party and capture its nomination for president in 2028.

He shares his thoughts in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed. It's the first time a Democrat has made me smile since President Bill Clinton announced in his 1996 State of the Union address that "The era of big government is over."

Emanuel has a stellar political resume that includes senior adviser in the White House to Clinton, chief of staff to President Barack Obama, member of Congress, mayor of Chicago and ambassador to Japan.

He has a reputation for political astuteness, being a tough fighter and being the father of the oft-quoted, "You never want a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before."

MY PERSPECTIVE, Gary Damron

This article continues a series on finding Jesus in the gospels. The scripture reading today is from Luke chapter 2, and begins, "There were shepherds staying [living] out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night" (verse 8). This night was no different from any night in more than a thousand years, on the same high pastureland outside Bethlehem where David as a boy had kept his father's sheep. Centuries before that, God had chosen shepherds such as Abraham and Moses to lead His people.

By the time of Jesus, the position of shepherd was dirty, demanding and demeaning. Jewish shepherds didn’t have time to keep all the cleanliness regulations demanded by Pharisees. Therefore, being unclean, they couldn’t go into the temple to worship, and they became marginalized by society.